quote:Legal precedent wasn't not simultaneously presented with the Constitution.
I disagree. Arguments over what the text meant and how that text should be reflected in law actually predate the text itself, and were certainly contemporary with its introduction. It took a little longer -- although not much longer -- for us to settle on the "let the courts deliver the official interpretation" approach, but the idea that the text needed to be interpreted in order to be meaningful was certainly known and recognized from its inception.
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: Wait a minute. I hadn't even started with personal attacks.
quote:Originally posted by Lisa: So his response was not an attempt to demonstrate that I was wrong by addressing what I said. It was a statement that dismissed what I said because (a) I will never be convinced, and (b) I have a "hyperlibertarian view of rights".
Neither of those statements is true, incidentally, but by claiming they are, Sam side stepped the necessity of addressing my points at all, and based his dismissal purely on his evaluation of me.
There's no dismissal in either of my posts. I never even started with an implication that your beliefs were wrong, I just stated what your beliefs and projected future attitude was going to be.
In your mind, this automatically becomes an Ad Hominem in all the ways that your posts aren't ad hominem at all? It baffles me that you'd mess up the fallacy in application that badly.
... :/
You lie. At least have the courage of your convictions, if you have any.
I'm not lying. Look at my posts. They literally have no point at which they are stating that you are wrong. They're pointing out an interpretation of where I guess your position essentially stands, not making a concluding judgment that where you stand is wrong.
Or, more to the point, that where you stand is wrong because it is you saying it.
There's literally nothing here of mine that can be an ad hominem without using a broad definition of ad hominem that necessarily includes your posts as personal attacks in return. If you can't see that, it is a severe degree of inability to self-recognize when you are doing something that you accuse others of doing. You shouldn't do that any more than you should blame others for being the cause of thread locks that you were manifestly responsible for!
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quote:As opposed to you, who is endlessly interesting, despite saying the same things over and over?
Janitor Blade reserves the right to be the most boring poster on this board as it's in his job description to talk about things like rules and forum conduct. There's fewer things more boring.
So in the spirit of being boring, please refrain from attacking each other. I'll be watching.
*crack of thunder*
Really? Because Parkour and Sam and Kwea have responded with nothing but content-free personal attacks throughout this thread. And it doesn't seem to me that this is considered problematic at all. If I were to respond in kind, I expect I'd receive one of your lovely e-mails telling me to go away for a month. Gosh, I feel so special.
...you're not being unfairly persecuted for something that kwea and samp are doing that you aren't doing. If they are ad homming, you are ad homming. Period. You just have to learn how to see that rather than giving yourself a free pass.
And you need to learn what an ad hominem really is. One more time, because you seem to be a slow learner, it is not criticizing a person or attacking them. It is dismissing or disputing a premise because a person you consider unworthy has stated that premise.
Go look it up, for crying out loud. It isn't brain surgery.
Also, janitorblade, remember when you were saying you were watching and waiting for additional personal attacks?
Here they are, not even trying to be hard to find.
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: the idea that the text needed to be interpreted in order to be meaningful was certainly known and recognized from its inception.
Which is a far cry from having an actual interpretation presented simultaneously with the written document.
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posted
Thinking about my last post, I thought 'this would really be better as just quote by janitorblade, then lisa's personal attack, close, juxtapose, no commentary.' then I thought 'wait no I should just have reported it using the report function.'
So yeah. I'll just try that next time. Really this time.
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The fact that "an eye for an eye" doesn't mean literal lex talionis is not "interpretation". The fundamental corpus of law and lore in Judaism is the Oral Torah. Not the written text. The text has enormous value in Judaism, but it is not the source of Jewish law, and never has been.
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: Thinking about my last post, I thought 'this would really be better as just quote by janitorblade, then lisa's personal attack, close, juxtapose, no commentary.' then I thought 'wait no I should just have reported it using the report function.'
So yeah. I'll just try that next time. Really this time.
It's kind of funny that the very first post after JB posted what he did was a personal attack against me. One you don't seem to have any problem with. Not that I'm surprised, either at Kwea or at you.
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posted
I'm kind of assuming, given the quickness with which Kwea's response came after JB's, that it is most likely that Kwea hadn't read the pronouncement before it was posted. Kwea is, also, not the one dismissing posts as 'content free personal attacks' at convenience when the lack of content inferred is, well, not exactly lacking (especially not when put side to side with 'you bore me' style non-responses).
Also, while in general I don't care too much about personal attacks, I note that users can easily wear out their welcome with them. There's no way you're not on a tighter leash than other users, for good reason. I have no qualms with noting the much later personal attacks of a much more serially abusive user, especially given that said user appears manifestly less inclined to respect requests not to be abusive. Kwea, lacking such a history of serial misconduct and wanton abusiveness and short-temperedness, grants me plausible reason to suspect that he's sorry if the post was 'over the line,' whereas you provide little or no confidence that this is the case.
You can, of course, be as surprised as you want that this distinction plays out in terms of how readily capable I am of evaluating you differently than Kwea, instead of looking at it in terms of you both being blank slates.
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quote:The fundamental corpus of law and lore in Judaism is the Oral Torah. Not the written text.
According to the Oral Torah. And, interestingly, it is according to interpreted law that legal interpretations of the Constitution are our fundamental corpus of law.
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Rivka, it's because of me. If anyone else had posted what I did, he wouldn't have gone there. But he thinks that he can... I don't know, bug me? with this sort of analogy. It's a pity he didn't realize how little he knows about the subject.
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: I'm kind of assuming, given the quickness with which Kwea's response came after JB's, that it is most likely that Kwea hadn't read the pronouncement before it was posted. Kwea is, also, not the one dismissing posts as 'content free personal attacks' at convenience when the lack of content inferred is, well, not exactly lacking (especially not when put side to side with 'you bore me' style non-responses).
Also, while in general I don't care too much about personal attacks, I note that users can easily wear out their welcome with them. There's no way you're not on a tighter leash than other users, for good reason. I have no qualms with noting the much later personal attacks of a much more serially abusive user, especially given that said user appears manifestly less inclined to respect requests not to be abusive. Kwea, lacking such a history of serial misconduct and wanton abusiveness and short-temperedness, grants me plausible reason to suspect that he's sorry if the post was 'over the line,' whereas you provide little or no confidence that this is the case.
You can, of course, be as surprised as you want that this distinction plays out in terms of how readily capable I am of evaluating you differently than Kwea, instead of looking at it in terms of you both being blank slates.
Actually, my first post wasn't an attack at all, it was fact. It is a fact that a lot of people find many things boring, so boring isn't a litmus test for the quality of a post. You find Samp boring, or his post at least. Lot of people find you boring, offensive, and feel that your posting style is overly rude, a fact that you have been censored for in the past and one that has been made even by people who agree with you.
It's also a fact that you made an attack, and then posted
quote: Not like Sam, who seems almost pathologically incapable of responding with anything other than an ad hominem argument. Surely you can do better than that.
. Sounded like playing the martyr to me, as Sam had only disagreed with you up to that point, not attacked you.
I made a point about EVERYONE being boring at one point or another, at least to someone else. Hardly an attack on you. I was pointing out that that wasn't a good refutation of anything he had said, just an attack on him.
It was clearly made, IMO, to discredit Sam and his views, otherwise why make it. Perhaps it was merely setting the stage for the later ad hom attack rather than being one itself. Considering how the rest of the conversation went from there, I doubt you can accurately refute that point.
Lisa, I don't ever have to attack you. You do more damage to yourself, and your causes, that I would ever be able to inflict myself. I wish you wouldn't actually, because sometimes you come up with good points. I LIKE hearing from people who disagree with me. They usually have a completely different viewpoint, and as long as they are considerate of me, I will listen.
The fact that I rarely do listen to yours has less to do with me, and more to do with your posting style and lack of respect of anyone who disagrees with you.
On the rare occasion where I agree with you, I end up feeling vaguely disturbed and uncomfortable. I wish you could post less confrontational, because then perhaps we would get more substance. I know you strongly believe in your viewpoint. Maybe there is a reason why you do.
I don't call you names, or dismiss you out of hand most of the time. Yet, almost every thread I see that involves you degrades into name calling and personal attack. And pointing that out isn't an attack, it is a fact. I bet you have had more threads locked than anyone else in the history of Hatrack, yet you always (or almost always) blame everyone else other than yourself for this.
I know....let me guess.
Boring.
BTW, there are a ton of things Samp and I disagree on, and we have been vocal about a few of them. I don't recall making any attacks on him at any point, nor do I feel the same way about his disagreement with me. It's hardly a unified front against you, you know, based on similar values.
Just figured I would cut the next rationalization off at the knees BEFORE you tried the martyr thing again.
posted
Lisa, don't flatter yourself; I'm not trying to irritate you. It's simply that Judaism is one of the single best examples of non-legislative law made up of both written doctrine and oral interpretation of that doctrine. The "body of law" that is the Torah is a body of law in almost exactly the same way that our Constitution and the legal precedents interpreting it constitute a body of law.
------
Rivka: do you seriously think that there were no interpretations of the Constitution extant at the time the Constitution was ratified?
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Tom, rather than supposing that you know enough about the subject to make such declarations, maybe you should ask some questions. 'Cause you don't get it.
There was no authoritative anything on the Constitution outside of the Constitution. If you insist on pretending that the Oral part of the Torah is just interpretations, or opinions, you're going to continue discussing something very different from Judaism.
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Good God. Do you really expect me to read all the way through that? You have an exaggerated idea of how much I care about what you say.
quote:Originally posted by Kwea:
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: I'm kind of assuming, given the quickness with which Kwea's response came after JB's, that it is most likely that Kwea hadn't read the pronouncement before it was posted. Kwea is, also, not the one dismissing posts as 'content free personal attacks' at convenience when the lack of content inferred is, well, not exactly lacking (especially not when put side to side with 'you bore me' style non-responses).
Also, while in general I don't care too much about personal attacks, I note that users can easily wear out their welcome with them. There's no way you're not on a tighter leash than other users, for good reason. I have no qualms with noting the much later personal attacks of a much more serially abusive user, especially given that said user appears manifestly less inclined to respect requests not to be abusive. Kwea, lacking such a history of serial misconduct and wanton abusiveness and short-temperedness, grants me plausible reason to suspect that he's sorry if the post was 'over the line,' whereas you provide little or no confidence that this is the case.
You can, of course, be as surprised as you want that this distinction plays out in terms of how readily capable I am of evaluating you differently than Kwea, instead of looking at it in terms of you both being blank slates.
Actually, my first post wasn't an attack at all, it was fact. It is a fact that a lot of people find many things boring, so boring isn't a litmus test for the quality of a post. You find Samp boring, or his post at least. Lot of people find you boring, offensive, and feel that your posting style is overly rude, a fact that you have been censored for in the past and one that has been made even by people who agree with you.
It's also a fact that you made an attack, and then posted
quote: Not like Sam, who seems almost pathologically incapable of responding with anything other than an ad hominem argument. Surely you can do better than that.
. Sounded like playing the martyr to me, as Sam had only disagreed with you up to that point, not attacked you.
I made a point about EVERYONE being boring at one point or another, at least to someone else. Hardly an attack on you. I was pointing out that that wasn't a good refutation of anything he had said, just an attack on him.
It was clearly made, IMO, to discredit Sam and his views, otherwise why make it. Perhaps it was merely setting the stage for the later ad hom attack rather than being one itself. Considering how the rest of the conversation went from there, I doubt you can accurately refute that point.
Lisa, I don't ever have to attack you. You do more damage to yourself, and your causes, that I would ever be able to inflict myself. I wish you wouldn't actually, because sometimes you come up with good points. I LIKE hearing from people who disagree with me. They usually have a completely different viewpoint, and as long as they are considerate of me, I will listen.
The fact that I rarely do listen to yours has less to do with me, and more to do with your posting style and lack of respect of anyone who disagrees with you.
On the rare occasion where I agree with you, I end up feeling vaguely disturbed and uncomfortable. I wish you could post less confrontational, because then perhaps we would get more substance. I know you strongly believe in your viewpoint. Maybe there is a reason why you do.
I don't call you names, or dismiss you out of hand most of the time. Yet, almost every thread I see that involves you degrades into name calling and personal attack. And pointing that out isn't an attack, it is a fact. I bet you have had more threads locked than anyone else in the history of Hatrack, yet you always (or almost always) blame everyone else other than yourself for this.
I know....let me guess.
Boring.
BTW, there are a ton of things Samp and I disagree on, and we have been vocal about a few of them. I don't recall making any attacks on him at any point, nor do I feel the same way about his disagreement with me. It's hardly a unified front against you, you know, based on similar values.
Just figured I would cut the next rationalization off at the knees BEFORE you tried the martyr thing again.
quote:Originally posted by Lisa: Good God. Do you really expect me to read all the way through that? You have an exaggerated idea of how much I care about what you say.
I think we're all pretty fairly aware of how honestly willing you are to read into and own up into when you have unfairly charged others or dismissed others in threads. So, in that sense, a cop-out response like this isn't exactly something either of us would have anticipated from you due to an 'exaggerated idea' that you cared for actual, honest dialogue. :/
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quote:If you insist on pretending that the Oral part of the Torah is just interpretations, or opinions, you're going to continue discussing something very different from Judaism.
Of course the oral Torah is just interpretations and opinions.
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posted
As that is precisely the crux of the disagreement, it's not surprising that Lisa (in this case, I am comfortable speaking for her) and I disagree with that assessment.
Lisa is already offline for a few days. I will be shortly. We will be celebrating the receiving of something far more than interpretations and opinions.
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posted
If we're to be "intellectually honest" here, can we change the title of the thread? "Democrats: The Constitution Is ‘Weird’" is an awfully sweeping statement unless you have heard from everyone who considers him or herself a Democrat and they all agree. Many may even violently oppose that statement.
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quote:Originally posted by Chris Bridges: If we're to be "intellectually honest" here, can we change the title of the thread? "Democrats: The Constitution Is ‘Weird’" is an awfully sweeping statement unless you have heard from everyone who considers him or herself a Democrat and they all agree. Many may even violently oppose that statement.
Seconded. The title itself is pretty much flamebait if you ask me.
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posted
Folks started talking about my admonition to lay off the personal attacks, that was a step in the right direction. But it's gone back to talk about personalities again. It needs to stop right now.
If you feel a compulsive need to insult each other, go to email. If you are looking for a place where you can insult each other so that everybody can read it, this is not the place for it.
I have no problem locking this thread if this continues. Please stop.
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Rivka: I wasn't just making the original analogy idly. (I'll understand if this needs to wait for a few days, BTW; I'll wait for a reply, if any.) It's my understanding that the justification for the authority of the oral Torah is in fact the oral Torah; while there is scriptural justification for Levitical authority, the authority of Rabbis to codify the Talmud (and further interpreting it today) is based almost entirely on the oral tradition they choose to employ.
To my mind, this is a fairly solid allegory for the role of the American Supreme Court, who have evolved into the "rabbis" of our legal system and certainly have created a legal tradition that does not posit past or future alternatives to their influence short of dramatic upheaval.
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First, Slate columnist Dahlia Lithwick did not exactly sum up the reaction, as stated. She just wrote a column. I'm not seeing a groundswell of Dems chastising O'Donnell over her statement. I read Lithwick's column and her declaration of "weirdness" doesn't seem to be to be about the consideration of the Constitution when passing laws, but the way O'Donnell is going about it. It's not anti-Constitution, it's anti-O'Donnell.
quote:A similar reaction greeted the promise in the GOP Pledge to America that all bills include a clause specifically pointing to how the proposed law is provided for in the Constitution. “Just plain wacky,” wrote Susan Milligan for US News & World Report.
Yep, she did. And she goes on to explain why she thinks that, and why she distrusts the GOP's sudden adherence to it.
quote:The influential liberal blog ThinkProgress warns that the Pledge reflects “radical ‘tenther’” thinking, using a dismissive term for those who cite the Tenth Amendment’s limits on federal power.
Yep, they said exactly that. And followed it with a history lesson on 200+-year-old argument over what the Constitution does and doesn't allow for, and points out exactly where in the Pledge the GOP is hoping to limit spending on the services they don't like.
I do not agree with everything the Dems do. I do not agree with everything President Obama does. But I am more than a little tired of the hatefest that deals only in hyperbole and conveniently ignores the same or worse offenses when committed by people the orator favors.
Obama is not sitting at his desk, cackling with glee and dry-washing his hands over how quickly America is falling to his scheme. I believe he is honestly doing what he thinks is right to govern the country, and rather than stepping up to help him by offering advice and working to create bills that are more effective for having both sides' input, too many politicians are simply gainsaying everything he says or does and claiming it's all a trap.
This does not help us. This is not governing. It's petty politics for personal gain.
(Note that this is criticizing the author of the original linked article)
[ September 29, 2010, 09:38 PM: Message edited by: Chris Bridges ]
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quote:Originally posted by Lisa: Good God. Do you really expect me to read all the way through that? You have an exaggerated idea of how much I care about what you say.
No. I expected you to make a dismissive comment that failed to address any points made, as usual.
Thanks for proving me right.
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posted
This article has some really pertinent history on constitutional interpretation by the founding fathers in the earliest years of the republic.
The article makes it very clear that the founding fathers had strong disagreements about the role of the Federal government and that the Constitutiion (probably deliberately) was not intended to resolve those major disagreements in a definitive way.
quote:The truth is that the disputatious founders -- who were revolutionaries, not choir boys -- seldom agreed about anything. Never has the country produced a more brilliantly argumentative, individualistic or opinionated group of politicians. Far from being a soft-spoken epoch of genteel sages, the founding period was noisy and clamorous, rife with vitriolic polemics and partisan backbiting. Instead of bequeathing to posterity a set of universally shared opinions, engraved in marble, the founders shaped a series of fiercely fought debates that reverberate down to the present day. Right along with the rest of America, the tea party has inherited these open-ended feuds, which are profoundly embedded in our political culture.
quote:President Washington's Treasury secretary, Alexander Hamilton, wasted no time in testing constitutional limits as he launched a burst of government activism. In December 1790, he issued a state paper calling for the first central bank in the country's history, the forerunner of the Federal Reserve System.
Because the Constitution didn't include a syllable about such an institution, Hamilton, with his agile legal mind, pounced on Article I, Section 8, which endowed Congress with all powers "necessary and proper" to perform tasks assigned to it in the national charter. Because the Constitution empowered the government to collect taxes and borrow money, Hamilton argued, a central bank might usefully discharge such functions. In this way, he devised a legal doctrine of powers "implied" as well as enumerated in the Constitution.
The primary reason the US Constitution has endured for 2 centuries with minimal revision is that is intentional vague about many key issues and thus allows the citizens of this country flexibility to address the problems of changing times.
The arguments we are having today about the proper role of the federal government, are mirrored in surprising detail in the debates between the founding fathers and the compromises struck in the deliberately vague working of the US constitution. Looking to the constitution to resolve those debates today shows genuine ignorance regarding the founding fathers and the nature of the US constitution.
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quote:Originally posted by Lisa: And you need to learn what an ad hominem really is. One more time, because you seem to be a slow learner, it is not criticizing a person or attacking them. It is dismissing or disputing a premise because a person you consider unworthy has stated that premise.
Go look it up, for crying out loud. It isn't brain surgery.
Gah! Yes, I know what ad hominem is. That's the point, is that when you look at the posts you accuse of being ad hominem, there is none of the dismissal of premise that you need for it to actually be an ad hominem. It is only when you expand the idea of an ad hominem the way you did that it makes your own posts count towards it as well.
Its really *NOT* brain surgery, which is why its so baffling that you can not revisit it for yourself and see the error of your ways. Is it similar to how you can conviince yourself that the last thread lock was armoth's fault, not yours? Is it similar to how you process my posts as 'content free personal attacks'?
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quote:Originally posted by Chris Bridges: If we're to be "intellectually honest" here, can we change the title of the thread? "Democrats: The Constitution Is ‘Weird’" is an awfully sweeping statement unless you have heard from everyone who considers him or herself a Democrat and they all agree. Many may even violently oppose that statement.
My high school math teacher used to say "There's no such thing as a good analogy." The reason being that all analogies fall apart at some point.
Sure, you can analogize the two in the sense that they are both the law. But the way the US government has treated the US Constitution in the past century is very similar to how most American Jews have treated the Torah over that same period of time. Which is to say that they've put it in a library and chosen to treat it as a quaint thing that's only of historical interest.
Also, if you look here, you'll see that Golub is a Reform rabbi, and as such, his view on similarities between the Torah and the US Constitution are iffy, at best.
A cousin of mine who I met last year on Facebook expressed surprise at the idea that the Oral Torah was given at Sinai. She said she was going to ask her (Reform) rabbi. I told her what he was going to say. Not because he's a liar or anything, but because even their rabbis have learned this kind of misinformation and think that the Oral Torah is "an interpretation of the Torah". A month or so ago, she mentioned to me that she finally got around to asking him. I asked if his answer was what I said it would be, and she said it was.
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Which prominent Democrat has suggested that the Constitution is weird, Lisa?
As a side note: the only thing that says the Oral Torah was given at Sinai is the Oral Torah. In the same way, the only thing that says the Supreme Court gets to interpret the Constitution is the Supreme Court. It seems to me like a pretty solid analogy.
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posted
It's a logical extension of using National Review to assert the motives of liberals, I guess.
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The "weird" statement was from a semi-prominent columnist who evidently leans left. I assume she's mildly prominent; she writes for Slate, but I've never heard of her before this. Other comments that failed to provide the same reverence mentioned in the article were another columnist, a few actual Democratic politicians, and Nancy Pelosi (the only actual "prominent" Democrat mentioned).
I think it's worth mentioning that Pelosi didn't say anything against the Constitution or suggest that was not the ultimate law of the land.
quote:“Are you serious?” responded a stunned and baffled Nancy Pelosi when asked about the constitutionality of the health-care bill. But, given the Left’s view of permissible government power, Pelosi’s surprise may have been forgivable.
Since the article takes it as fact that all Democrats want to ignore the Constitution -- and assumes its readers already agree -- this passage just adds to the preponderance of evidence. Me, I see it as Pelosi simply being caught off guard by a question she didn't expect.
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Again, I don't quite understand why. What is the distinction that you are trying to draw? In Jewish oral tradition, as interpreted by generations of Rabbis, generations of Rabbis are empowered to interpret Jewish law as codified in the written Torah. How does that differ from America's tradition of legal interpretation, which again is nowhere defined in the Constitution but which has become part of our body of law anyway?
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Again, I don't quite understand why. What is the distinction that you are trying to draw? In Jewish oral tradition, as interpreted by generations of Rabbis, generations of Rabbis are empowered to interpret Jewish law as codified in the written Torah. How does that differ from America's tradition of legal interpretation, which again is nowhere defined in the Constitution but which has become part of our body of law anyway?
We are not "interpreting" Jewish law, as you think. And it isn't just "oral tradition", as that term is commonly used. The primary corpus of law and lore in Judaism was never written down. Could not be written down. It required emergency situations to even allow the Mishnah to be written down, and that's merely an extremely terse and abbreviated guide to the Oral Torah. The Talmud is less terse than the Mishnah, but even it is not the Oral Torah. It is merely discussions about the Oral Torah.
What is happening with the US Constitution is that when it was created (by people, mind you), there were two primary views. One was what you could call Hamiltonianism, which was the view that the US should be a monarchy. Or that failing that, it should mimic a monarchy so much as to be pretty much the same thing under a different name. He wanted the Presidency to be for life. He wanted the state governors to be nothing but agents of the President, akin to European nobility.
On the other side, there was what you could call Jeffersonianism, which wanted the bare minimum of government necessary to keep people from eating each other alive, but otherwise wanted the government to be a relatively small servant of the sovereign people of the several states (which were countries in their own right, bound together voluntarily in a union which existed for the purposes of defense, foreign policy, and keeping the states from warring with one another, economically or otherwise).
Had the Constitutional Convention chosen one of these views as the authoritative one and chosen not to write it into the Constitution, you might have a partially workable analogy going. But they didn't.
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quote:Originally posted by Chris Bridges: I think it's worth mentioning that Pelosi didn't say anything against the Constitution or suggest that was not the ultimate law of the land.
quote:“Are you serious?” responded a stunned and baffled Nancy Pelosi when asked about the constitutionality of the health-care bill. But, given the Left’s view of permissible government power, Pelosi’s surprise may have been forgivable.
Since the article takes it as fact that all Democrats want to ignore the Constitution -- and assumes its readers already agree -- this passage just adds to the preponderance of evidence. Me, I see it as Pelosi simply being caught off guard by a question she didn't expect.
I wonder what it would take for you to be convinced that the Democrats, as a whole, do not consider Constitutional limitations to be a concern when legislating. The quotes in the article from Stark and Hare and Clyburn, which went without comment or criticism by any of their party leaders, are clearly unimportant to you.
A Supreme Court Justice saying that there's "no constitutional impediment to Congress’s passing a law that required every American to eat a minimum daily amount of fruits and vegetables" doesn't seem problematic to you.
Granted, the Republicans aren't a lot better. But you know what? Given the choice of a thief who is embarrassed enough at his thievery to say "Stealing is wrong", and a thief who is completely cool with the idea of stealing, I'll take the former.
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quote:The primary corpus of law and lore in Judaism was never written down.
And, of course, neither is the Constitution the primary corpus of law and lore in America.
quote:Had the Constitutional Convention chosen one of these views as the authoritative one and chosen not to write it into the Constitution, you might have a partially workable analogy going.
Why? It's not like the only purpose of the Supreme Court is to decide whether or not an issue should be decided by the states.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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"And thou shall come unto the priests the Levites, and unto the judge that shall be in those days; and thou shalt inquire; and they shall declare unto thee the sentence of judgment. And thou shalt do according to the tenor of the sentence, which they shall declare unto thee from that place which the LORD shall choose; and thou shalt observe to do according to all that they shall teach thee. According to the law which they shall teach thee, and according to the judgment which they shall tell thee, thou shalt do; thou shalt not turn aside from the sentence which they shall declare unto thee, to the right hand, nor to the left."
I say this all the time to friends who ask of my study of Jewish law and American law has any parallels. It has a LOT of parallels, and that's cool and all - but one major difference is American law tries to decide on what the best policy is, and Jewish law is largely about determining what policy God wanted.
American law is more fluid, case law interprets and reinterprets - the very source of Judicial review isn't the constitution, it's case law!
There can be no such thing as judicial activism in Judaism - there aren't even amendments. The only innovations are in terms of creating boundaries so that Torah laws are not violated - for instance, the prohibition against running a store on the Sabbath is largely rabbinic, as a cautionary measure taken so that one does not violate the biblical commandment of writing on the Sabbath.
Otherwise, there is interpretation of "original intent" I suppose.
Posts: 1604 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote:I say this all the time to friends who ask of my study of Jewish law and American law has any parallels. It has a LOT of parallels, and that's cool and all - but one major difference is American law tries to decide on what the best policy is, and Jewish law is largely about determining what policy God wanted.
Where's the meaningful distinction? Do you think the best policy is not the one God wants?
quote:There can be no such thing as judicial activism in Judaism - there aren't even amendments.
I think Jewish history disproves this. There are amendments. They just happen in blood, and then passionate denial that anything was ever amended.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:I say this all the time to friends who ask of my study of Jewish law and American law has any parallels. It has a LOT of parallels, and that's cool and all - but one major difference is American law tries to decide on what the best policy is, and Jewish law is largely about determining what policy God wanted.
Where's the meaningful distinction? Do you think the best policy is not the one God wants?
quote:There can be no such thing as judicial activism in Judaism - there aren't even amendments.
I think Jewish history disproves this. There are amendments. They just happen in blood, and then passionate denial that anything was ever amended.
For me, it helps seeming religion as sort of a "God knows better than you" thing.
Basically, humanity is flawed, and despite the fact that we know the truth, we have awesome difficulty in living it.
I remember when I was 17, I heard an amazing lecture from a spiritual guru of mine, and I walked out feeling like I saw the world so clearly - Judaism was so obvious and true, I had no desire to ever "sin" again (and sin here can be read as, i decided never to be a jerk again, or whatever you prefer, I sin in many ways), and so I congratulated myself for becoming a saint at such a young age.
But obviously, I had come to sin again, and it shook me to the core. I had thought that religion was about discovering the truth. But since then, religion has been about discovering truth, yes, but mostly, adhering, and living according to that truth.
People are fickle. We can't stick to the plans we set for ourselves. We never stick to our diets, we know certain relationships are bad for us, but we don't get out of them, etc.
When I got into a really coldly rational phase of Judaism I had a problem with Sabbath. What. God rested on the 7th day, so we have to rest every 7 days. What the heck?! Why did He rest? And why after 7 days?
And after I began to learn a little more, I learned that Sabbath is the abstention from creative activity (not "work" as many often thing, although a lot of creative activity is subsumed under "work", although owning a store, is not...") - and that abstention is a testimony to the fact that it is God, and not we, who created the world.
Every 7 days is a reminder of that. And what's interesting, what I realized about human nature, is that we need that reminder. It's not just about learning the concepts, it's about living them.
And so one example of the distinction in Jewish law is that there is a lot of "what God wants" in terms of these reminder-like laws that humanity, left on its own, would likely not come up with. And it that sense "God knows better than you" and His laws are more beneficial to humanity than man-made laws, and often would not be derived by humanity because of the inherent flaws of humanity.
I mean - look at it this way - the fact is that a majority of people pass a law, and then it gets struck down as unconstitutional. That means that a majority of people forgot, ignored(in many cases) or dishonestly interpreted the constitution.
When you come to the table, interpreting American law, knowing it is man made - the degree of interpretation we, as a society, afford ourselves, is much broader than Rabbis, coming to Jewish law knowing it is God-made.
Posts: 1604 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote:There can be no such thing as judicial activism in Judaism - there aren't even amendments.
I think Jewish history disproves this. There are amendments. They just happen in blood, and then passionate denial that anything was ever amended.
No, Tom. There are no amendments. I think what I don't understand with you, here and over at Ornery, where you're making the same sort of claims, is why you think that baldly stating things you know that Rivka and Armoth and I don't accept as true is a good use of your time. I mean, you're making arguments based on these claims of yours. But since the claims themselves are false (not that you ever try to substantiate them; you seem to content to just claim them), they can't be used as premises.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:There can be no such thing as judicial activism in Judaism - there aren't even amendments.
I think Jewish history disproves this. There are amendments. They just happen in blood, and then passionate denial that anything was ever amended.
No, Tom. There are no amendments. I think what I don't understand with you, here and over at Ornery, where you're making the same sort of claims, is why you think that baldly stating things you know that Rivka and Armoth and I don't accept as true is a good use of your time. I mean, you're making arguments based on these claims of yours. But since the claims themselves are false (not that you ever try to substantiate them; you seem to content to just claim them), they can't be used as premises.
Oh right, I forgot to address this. Tom, it would help if you could provide an example.
Posts: 1604 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
You mean an example that you won't totally write off? I mean, I recall a conversation very recently in which you simply refused to accept the possibility that an event that happened possibly as far back as seven thousand years ago might have grown a bit in the telling. *grin*
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My point, of course, is that it fundamentally does not matter that the law here is presumably given by God; that it's presumably God's Law is no more relevant to this conversation than the idea that it's somehow Man's Law enshrined in the American Constitution. I understand that it's important to some Jews to believe that the law on which they rely is somehow the interpreted and complete word of God, but the irony here is that many strict Constitutionalists treat the Constitution exactly the same way; replace "God" with "the Founding Fathers" and there's no functional difference.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
Is that your argument? I thought it was that the constitution was a living document, like the Torah is.
I was just pointing out the difference.
If your point was that some strict constitutionalists treat the constitution like the Torah is treated, i concede.
Posts: 1604 | Registered: Mar 2003
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I mean, I recall a conversation very recently in which you simply refused to accept the possibility that an event that happened possibly as far back as seven thousand years ago might have grown a bit in the telling. *grin*
