"Common Good Constitutionalism" is Replacing "Originalism" in Right Wing Thinking


The days of Bjork and Originalism are over. New conservatives, like the new Trump appointees, believe they have higher moral standards than the general public and feel they should use their appointments to put their religious views into law. It is a legal theory they call "Common Good Constitutionalism." They are using it to put religion into government. 

Even without training as a lawyer, I found the language used by the new justices peculiar. They use political terms when giving legal opinions. In recent opinion one of them accused the government of using indoctrination instead of providing government-based information. The entire overturn of Roe seemed to me more of an exercise forcing a moral view on the public than it did a legal opinion. Separation of religion from politics makes no sense to a judge who sees her assigned task as putting proper religious views into law.   

The irony in this development is it turns the former conservative legal view on its head. "Originalism" now is looked at as old-fashioned folly. The new "correct" view is it doesn't matter what was meant by the original authors of the Constitution. They may not have had the correct religious view so whatever they might have meant should be ignored.

As I have blogged about recently, the only way to teach air head religious people how ridiculous it is to put religion into government is to put in religious views they hate. Then, at least one hopes, the light will go on. At the moment, it seems no lights are on in the religious community. It looks like, to me at least, other religious views are headed to the courts. 

One theme in this new conservative genre is that the rights of insiders, white Christian male, matter and the rights of other groups do not. The lofty language of the Constitution that people are equal no longer applies.

"Originalism" was bad. "Common Good Constitutionalism" is worse.

Comments

  1. Ardy BDecember 13, 2022 at 4:44 AM

    Is the independent state legislature doctrine common good constitutionalism?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. JonDecember 13, 2022 at 7:08 AM

      Ardy B-- I don't know the answer to that.

      Delete

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