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The Three Whisky Happy Hour: Originalism, Old and New

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This week we shake up the format a bit, and skip over our gratuitous whisky reviews and commentary on the top news stories of the week, and head straight in to the classroom for our long-postponed seminar on constitutional originalism, rightly understood. We do this by focusing in on four "mystery passages" about constitutional interpretation from prominent jurists, and ponder what are some obvious difficulties with these statements. Audiences are usually surprised at the big "reveal" of who said each of the four statements.

Bottom line: jurists need to think a lot harder about some basic questions of political philosophy. Curious listeners can find more background on the whole matter here and here, for starters.

Then at the end we save a few minutes to update last week's news item about whether France is going to save America, and some personal reminiscences about Rush Limbaugh.

And not to worry: we still make time for a little whisky talk. I had the Glenfiddich Fire & Cane (pictured above), and Lucretia sampled the Glenfiddich 18-year old (left).

Host:
Steve Hayward
Guest:
"Lucretia"

Discussion (8)

  • Boney Cole@BoneyCole

    Drinking an old reliable. Texas electricity problems have reinforced the virtue of reliability. Old Crow is reliably inexpensive, and if you drink the first couple of glasses pretty fast, is pretty tasty. I appreciate the Madison quote regarding the constitution and the importation clause.
    The quote of Scalia indicating the purely mechanical nature of majority rule is true in a very important sense. The truth is that you must have, to be use benighted phrase, a moral majority. A good constitution is merely a reflection of the majority of the nation who enacts it, and who have an underlying belief system that will cause them to live by the constitution’s precepts regardless of the governmental machinery that enforces it and interprets it. In my opinion, that belief system is best embodied in the magisterium of the Catholic Church. Unfortunately, that understanding was partially eroded at the time of the founding, and its erosion is accelerating much of late.

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