[Wittrs] On Originalism & Language
- From: Sean Wilson <whoooo26505@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: conlawprof@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx, wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 11 Feb 2010 10:57:31 -0800 (PST)
(Chris)
... the people who actually "bind" their progeny through time do so
with cultural practices like the Amish. Religious practices also "bind," and
usually do so through rituals of sacraments and so forth, not through language.
Drama and theater are behaviors that allows us to re-live the psychology of
other times. But law is neither, and never has been, theater, religion,
sacrament or the vehicle of cultural stagnation. Rather, it has only ever been
one thing: regulation through language. And if law is language, the question of
whether the framers can bind us is false. The only question is in whether the
language does. And because the great majority of constitutional
words are family resemblance ideas, how one complies with them is only an
EXAMPLE of compliance. Hence, subsequent generations can surely comply with the
language by electing a different EXAMPLE.
The rules for the language culture determine this, not the idolatry of the
past. See: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1405451
Regards and thanks
Dr. Sean Wilson, Esq.
Assistant Professor
Wright State University
Personal Website: http://seanwilson.org
SSRN papers: http://ssrn.com/author=596860
Discussion Group: http://seanwilson.org/wittgenstein.discussion.html
----- Original Message ----
From: Christopher Green <crgreen@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: conlawprof@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Thu, February 11, 2010 11:46:45 AM
Subject: RE: Originalism
We've probably had this conversation before, but of course the Founders can
bind us, if they can convince us to take an oath to be "bound" by "this
Constitution," per Article VI. See http://ssrn.com/abstract=1227162. ; If my
op-ed today were somehow able to command the oaths of the denizens of 2240,
that'd do the trick, I think.
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