/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.14695878]

Best books about textual and orginalist constitutional theory? And pic related as well

[Anonymous No.14695887]

>books about being a status quo midwit
Constitution doesn't matter if you're intelligent. It's simply a roadblock.

[Anonymous No.14695890]

scalia's opinions are public record. he's an engaging writer, i very much enjoyed reading him in school.
he's also wrong about pretty much everything.

[Anonymous No.14695896]

Originalist constitutional theory is the most retarded thing to come out of the legal system, and there's lots of competition. You literally have to think for one single second in order to see how pathetic and brainletty it is.

[Anonymous No.14695899]

>>14695896
It benefits your political opponents and ties your own hands behind your back. Same with muh small government bullshit.

[Anonymous No.14695905]

>>14695899
I'm not even thinking about the practical aspects of it, just from an hermeneutical point of view. The problem of law is that, like in the arts, reputation and fame determine what is respectful and what isn't.

[Anonymous No.14695914]

You have to read Scalia since no one else fell for this crap.

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !!oI3er5KKetj No.14696000]

Protip: law is fiction

[Anonymous No.14696032]

>>14695896
> basing legal decisions on long term, tried and tested principles, instead of the popular whims of the day.

sounds retarted

> inb4 changing situations

The constitution and legal system has methods to adapt for change. The founders didn't assume they had figured it out for time and eternity. Slow change to adapt to circumstances is textual originalism.

[Anonymous No.14696038]

>>14695896
>lol it can mean anything d000d we just write it down for shits and giggles hehehe

[Anonymous No.14696039]

>>14696000
Protip: stop posting

[Anonymous No.14696075]

>>14696032
>Slow change to adapt to circumstances is textual originalism.
no it isn't.
legal realism is the only defensible metatheory. judges are not impartial arbiters of The Law; they are political actors, as any other figure in government. if they were anything but, why would it be such an important issue that the president i.e. the head of a political party has the power to nominate appointees to the federal courts?
textualism and originalism are screens for interpreting the law in favor of corporate power. just look at scalia's decision record if you need confirmation.

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !!oI3er5KKetj No.14696087]

>>14696039
It’s a handy little trick to cut through all the bullshit. Law is just a form of fiction.

[Anonymous No.14696095]

>>14696087
bb i wish you and me we could just run away from all this

[Anonymous No.14696118]

>>14695887
It matters if you're ethically and moral, of which intelligence holds no correlation with.
Sure a smart man can circumvent or even craft the law, but should he? A midwit typically isn't smart enough to beat the law, so he must abide by it. A dumb man follows the law because he believes it to be good.

[Anonymous No.14696122]

>>14696075

> no it isn't.

What is an amendment? Why do judges hear new cases?

> power to nominate appointees to the federal courts

Clearly the founders recognized:
1. It's impossible to be entirely impartial and people have differing ideas. So having an appointment from various presidents helps balance out partisanship.

2. The document doesn't anticipate every possible situation. The judges use their reason and opinions to address new cases in context of the constitution.

Neither of those points contradict that judges should aim to find the original intentions of the founders or text to the best of their ability.


> scalia's decision record if you need confirmation

I'll go with Sowell's. Many such cases where he writes an opinion in favor of individual writes vs large corporations, such as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelo_v._City_of_New_London

[Anonymous No.14696158]

>>14695878
I want this too 2bh. As a non-American I am super interested in Scalia, he seems like a great guy IMO.

[Anonymous No.14696165]

>>14696122
>The document doesn't anticipate every possible situation.
this *fact* is a prima facie refutation of any formalist interpretation of the law, of which textualism is the most extreme. a judges 'opinion', for a textualist, is only relevant insofar as it a precise explication of the literal meaning of the letter of the law, by which a decision is made. nothing external to that is relevant.
this is obviously preposterous, which is why textualism is dead in the water. or, rather, it is not an ingenuous attempt to give a rational ground to legal interpretation, but a rhetorical weapon for bludgeoning your political enemies. for who dare defy the nomological authority of the constitution?

[Anonymous No.14696169]

>>14696158
he was a greasy little filcher and a closet case.

[Anonymous No.14696220]

>tfw no book suggestions yet

[Anonymous No.14696235]

>>14696220
There's some decent-looking stuff on Libgen. Just search for his name.

[Anonymous No.14696333]

>>14696220
Do you want a biography or something about constitutional theory?

>>14696165
Imo, constitutional theory as discussed is either a political or academic exercise. Originalism was a political reaction to the Warren Court. Academics who write about constitutional theory debate whether it serves a legal purpose, since most judges on the bench don't directly invoke constitutional theory when deciding a case. The judges who are associated with a particular theory, such as Scalia, were professors before their appointment.

[Anonymous No.14696355]

>>14695896
>I don't like it
>It's tarded
>so there!

This board is populated with trisomy 21 victim intellects.

[Anonymous No.14696368]

>>14696220

You should't be reading books on this, you should be reading law review articles. But no one reads those, so no recommendations. The honest answer though is that like philosophy, all legal theories are pure autism. There is no theory that can reconcile the law because in any case, the judge/jury decide who is the asshole, and then they find a way to bend the law so that the asshole loses. The constitution operates according to the same principle. The idea that law is a consistent set of rules applied consistently is a fantasy.

t. Lawyer

[Anonymous No.14696398]

>>14696220
One thing you can look up is 'integralmath' on YouTube. He's an ex-cop and logician who watches court proceedings for fun and he has a few videos about Scalia.

[Anonymous No.14696463]

>>14696368
IIRC the label was invented for Scalia, not by him. He never saw himself as being of any particular legal school until way late in life.

[Anonymous No.14696485]

>>14696463

It's a Federalist Society thing but it doesn't matter. Scalia had a different idea of what being an asshole was than Rhenquist or Ginsberg. There are no real guiding rules. The rules are made to fit the gut feeling. "Good facts make bad law."

[Anonymous No.14696495]

Originalism is a dangerous shroud. The intent of precedent is important, but it deifies above all other rational contexts the single minded pursuit of "foundational intent"; which, as the founders are far removed from the vital issues arising in the modern world especially in regards to cultural and technological advancement of the nation, comes down simply to subjective opinions informed by an Originalist's own view of foundational intent which is always tainted by their own inherent ideologies gleamed from the base sources. Scalia was indeed a shrewd legal scholar and one of the most well read people ever on the court, but his perception of jurisprudence was based almost entirely upon a logic that is internally flawed.

But then again, the court kind of just said one day "yeah we have the power of judicial review now even though it's not really established in the constitution", so legal history is just a long con.

Also read The Nine by Jeff Toobin, Scorpions by Noah Feldman, and Joan Biskupic as well as Bruce Murphy's soft biographies/philosophical rundowns of Scalia's theory of originalism on the court. Murphy takes a fairly moderate view, Biskupic takes a more progressive fluid reading view and highlights some flaws within the theory, I think both are useful reads because despite having my own opinion on the theory, I can see that it could merely come down to a fundamental philosophical difference in utility and deontology.

[Anonymous No.14696702]

>>14695878
Idea: You may want to read the Federalist Papers and books written by Scalia, for general context.

>>14695887
A "roadblock" to what? I have a good idea what you have in mind.

>>14695899
That is exactly where governments', and your, hands belong.

>>14695914
I have an idea that your precious "no one else's" instead only refer to 20th century-ish jurists who stepped outside their bounds, hence your pretense.