Char :)
;)
Shouldn't plain language be the criteria? Only a mind reader who can communicate with the dead can know original intent.
I would have only one small disagreement, but it's more one of interpretation. I also don't approve of judicial activism, whether it comes from the Right or from the Left. I think where the confusion comes, though, is that, when an originalist decides to overturn a precedential decision because it had not been decided according to original intent, it is called activism by the left. I do not consider that to be activist. Simply because something is a precedent or traditional doesn't make it correct or sacrosanct. The only thing that does so is if it. If, however, a SCOTUS decision came down, say banning abortion in every state, I would disagree with that and would consider it judicial activism. Don't get me wrong. I believe abortion is wrong and should be illegal, but since the Constitution doesn't deal with the subject, it is a state issue. I believe that it must be decided by the individual states on a legislative basis. Making abortion illegal is a conservative position and one that I agree with. However, to do it by a SCOTUS decision would be as much an exercise in raw judicial power as Roe was. Once Roe is overturned, the work of the prolife movement is just beginning. It will be up to us to persuade our fellow citizens to pass laws in the states banning the procedure (or possibly a Constitutional amendment which requires the same type of persuasion).
"Decrying all “judicial activism” ignores that it comes in good and bad varieties. When a judge deviates from precedent or strikes down an existing law in favor of his own policy preferences, such activism is an affront to the Constitution. But when a judge makes such a decision because the Constitution’s principles require it, this “activism” is more than proper. It is necessary."
Very good!!!
Which brings me, once again, to bring up Abraham Lincoln's First Inaugural statement:
"I do not forget the position assumed by some that constitutional questions are to be decided by the Supreme Court, nor do I deny that such decisions must be binding in any case upon the parties to a suit as to the object of that suit, while they are also entitled to very high respect and consideration in all parallel cases by all other departments of the Government. And while it is obviously possible that such decision may be erroneous in any given case, still the evil effect following it, being limited to that particular case, with the chance that it may be overruled and never become a precedent for other cases, can better be borne than could the evils of a different practice. At the same time, the candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the Government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made in ordinary litigation between parties in personal actions the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their Government into the hands of that eminent tribunal.
"Nor is there in this view any assault upon the court or the judges. It is a duty from which they may not shrink to decide cases properly brought before them, and it is no fault of theirs if others seek to turn their decisions to political purposes." - Abraham Lincoln
(Underlining added for emphasis)