Originalism is Illogicalism
Originalism is Illogicalism
Because no government should function based on the realities of 250 years ago.
Now a conservative group called the National Federation of Republican Assemblies (NFRA) is citing something from the Dred Scott decision to say that Harris can't run because her parents weren't Americans when she was born in America. They’re claiming to follow in the footsteps of Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas who were/are both believers in “Originalism,” the concept that the Founding Documents of our country should be interpreted through the context of the time period and culture that existed when those documents were written.
Because the Founding Fathers knew what bump stocks were.
If you follow the Strict Scrutiny podcast like I do (I watch it on YouTube), you’ll understand why I'm getting really tired of these "originalists" who want all laws in America to be understood in the context of a document written nearly 250 years ago when that very document was not meant to be a static, unchanging thing. Learn more about this at the link below.
We really are supposed to debate this stuff—not just cite something from centuries ago and be like:
Originalists are just lazy. They don’t want to do the work of finding out what works best for the American people today. Instead they want to point to an instruction manual for a completely different culture than ours and use it to determine how we live our lives nearly two-and-a-half centuries later. Because, yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
Originalism isn’t just lazy—it’s illogical.