Which is what I and others are trying to do here. Would you care to join us?
The People have abdicated our responsibilities, and by extension, so have our spineless representatives. But nature abhors a vacuum, and those responsibilities have to be exercised by someone. So the courts have obligingly filled in for us. And now we want to blame them for the state of the nation.
You're forcing me to have to be blunt. Part of what I'm "blaming" is the attitude that you've exhibited, namely that there can be no such thing as an objectively knowable meaning to the Constitution. Many people have allowed themselves to accept that as well, and therein lies the abdication that you've referred to. There's a way out, as I've been trying to show you.
Sometimes that's in service of an incremental movement towards wholesale new changes, and sometimes that's in service of an incremental movement to change things back to the way they used to be.
I see no evidence of the latter, other than purely token sops like United States vs. Lopez that have no effect on anything.
By the way, you said there was a point to your question regarding where states obtain plenary powers to legislate in various types of matters. Did I give you the answer you were looking for?
We all serve, in our own way ;)
Part of what I'm "blaming" is the attitude that you've exhibited, namely that there can be no such thing as an objectively knowable meaning to the Constitution. Many people have allowed themselves to accept that as well, and therein lies the abdication that you've referred to.
Ah, except that I'm not saying that. What I am saying is that this objectively knowable meaning of the Constitution will always take a back seat to what people believe the meaning of the Constitution is. By all means, expound upon the objective meaning until you are blue in the face. But at the end of the day, simply having the objective meaning is not enough - you have to persuade people about that objective meaning. And I think that's a much more difficult task than you admit to.
But I am a pragmatist by nature - if it turns out that pursuing the "objective meaning" angle best achieves our common goals, I'm right there beside you. At the moment, I don't think it does, so I prefer the "let's do it this way, and you'll have a better life as a result" approach. As nice as it would be if people voted with their heads, as you advocate, the reality is that a great many of them vote with their stomachs, and so I appeal to the stomach as best I can, by showing the good things that will come about from some particular change, rather than selling right-thinking as an end unto itself. And as long as we both get from "A" to "B", who really cares if we take different paths to get there?
I see no evidence of the latter, other than purely token sops like United States vs. Lopez that have no effect on anything.
Patience. Lopez is a big deal if you look at it in historical context. Remember what happened in 1937, and how I said that the Court was only now beginning to recover? The law has a long, long memory, and things like that are not easily forgotten by judges, nor should they be.
By the way, you said there was a point to your question regarding where states obtain plenary powers to legislate in various types of matters. Did I give you the answer you were looking for?
In a manner of speaking. By way of a followup, why does a state constitution's grant of plenary power trump the federal constitution's guarantee of certain unenumerated rights? What exactly are those unenumerated rights?