{"id":12935,"date":"2016-02-14T03:03:30","date_gmt":"2016-02-14T03:03:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=12935"},"modified":"2016-02-14T03:03:30","modified_gmt":"2016-02-14T03:03:30","slug":"what-precisely-does-original-intent-mean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=12935","title":{"rendered":"What, precisely, does ‘original intent’ mean?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n

\"founders\"<\/a><\/p>\n

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio tonight paid glowing tribute to the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.<\/p>\n

The praise came while Rubio was taking part in the Republican presidential debate.<\/p>\n

He said something that struck me as, well, fascinating. Rubio said Scalia’s legal brilliance was rooted in his belief that the U.S. Constitution is not a “living document,” but that the Constitution should be interpreted precisely as the founders intended.<\/p>\n

I don’t believe for one second that Justice Scalia wanted to roll back the advances that came about in the many years since the founders wrote the Constitution — in the late 18th century.<\/p>\n

However, if Rubio’s praise of Scalia\u00a0is to be taken literally, it seems fair to wonder: Does he believe the founders were right to deny women the right to vote, or that African-Americans should be enslaved?<\/p>\n

Of course he doesn’t.<\/p>\n

However, we can see the\u00a0discrepancy — in my view — in the debate over whether the Constitution is a living document. The argument of those who favor the so-called “original intent” of the founders breaks down.<\/p>\n

Why? Because of the many reforms approved in the 200-plus years since the Constitution was ratified, the document does indeed evolve as our nation has evolved.<\/p>\n

It’s alive, man.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio tonight paid glowing tribute to the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. The praise came while Rubio was taking part in the Republican presidential debate. He said something that struck me as, well, fascinating. Rubio said Scalia’s legal brilliance was rooted in his belief that the U.S. Constitution is not … Continue reading What, precisely, does ‘original intent’ mean?<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,13,14],"tags":[412,2892,5043,5053],"class_list":["post-12935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legal-news","category-national-news","category-political-news","tag-antonin-scalia","tag-marco-rubio","tag-us-constitution","tag-us-supreme-court"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12935"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12935\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12937,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12935\/revisions\/12937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}