Constitutional Analysis Is Not A Suicide Pact

[Valin]

Townhall:

Kurt Schlichter

Aug 24, 2015

 

Conservatives are allowed to disagree with each other, especially when the other conservatives are wrong. It’s good to debate. We’re not liberals – we do not have to move in utter lock-step, mouthing the same clichés and sharing the same disdain for America, decency and soap.

 

Right now, the conservative community is fighting over “birthright citizenship,” essentially the meaning of the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause. For the last 150 or so years, that clause has usually been interpreted to mean essentially that if you are born here, you are a citizen. That’s indisputably the mainstream view among constitutional scholars – it just is. While constitutional law is not determined by polls of legal experts, it is ultimately determined by a poll of Supreme Court justices, so what’s usual and accepted needs to inform our strategy. For example, let’s not put blood and sweat into passing a statute going against the usual interpretation of the 14th Amendment that the SCOTUS is nearly certain to strike down.

 

(Snip)

 

Some super smart people disagree. I’ll live with their disagreement. In fact, I Iive with disagreement about law every day. I’m a lawyer – in every case I’ve ever fought, the lawyers on the other side thought I was wrong.

 

And that applies to non-lawyers too. We don’t need to lose our principles and our ability to grow stronger through healthy debate. People within conservatism are going to disagree about certain issues – vehemently – and people within conservatism better disagree about issues or we are going to become as weak and brittle as the Democrats. Look at them. They’re paralyzed by rigid orthodoxy. Bernie Sanders can’t bring himself to attack Hillary. Hillary can’t say dismembering babies is wrong. None of them can tell the hordes of screaming nitwits to give them back their microphones and get the hell off their stages.

 

We at least have competing ideas. Sure, Jeb’s idea is that illegal immigration is awesome, and that’s a terrible idea, but at least it’s an idea. We can debate it, and we can offer evidence and arguments about why it’s a terrible idea, and he’ll lose, and we’ll be stronger because we’re not a party of reflexes. We’re a party of thought. Think about that the next time you debate.

[righteousmomma]

We don’t need to lose our principles and our ability to grow stronger through healthy debate. People within conservatism are going to disagree about certain issues – vehemently – and people within conservatism better disagree about issues or we are going to become as weak and brittle as the Democrats. Look at them. They’re paralyzed by rigid orthodoxy. Bernie Sanders can’t bring himself to attack Hillary. Hillary can’t say dismembering babies is wrong. None of them can tell the hordes of screaming nitwits to give them back their microphones and get the hell off their stages.

We at least have competing ideas.

 

We’re a party of thought. Think about that the next time you debate.

 

Good to remember. Any society without a logical, reasoned openness to free exchanges of ideas and thought leads to the death of critical thinking which leads to mind death which leads to the so called intellectual elite controlling the populous .....Hey!! this sounds strangely familiar.

[Valin]

 

We don’t need to lose our principles and our ability to grow stronger through healthy debate. People within conservatism are going to disagree about certain issues – vehemently – and people within conservatism better disagree about issues or we are going to become as weak and brittle as the Democrats. Look at them. They’re paralyzed by rigid orthodoxy. Bernie Sanders can’t bring himself to attack Hillary. Hillary can’t say dismembering babies is wrong. None of them can tell the hordes of screaming nitwits to give them back their microphones and get the hell off their stages.

We at least have competing ideas.

 

We’re a party of thought. Think about that the next time you debate.

 

Good to remember. Any society without a logical, reasoned openness to free exchanges of ideas and thought leads to the death of critical thinking which leads to mind death which leads to the so called intellectual elite controlling the populous .....Hey!! this sounds strangely familiar.

 

 

 

Thing is, for many the idea of a reasoned debate is calling the other person a bad terrible evil wicked person who should be horse whipped.

 

OTOH Thus it has always been, During the ratification debates, people were hauled into congress by armed men, and told to vote, there were riots, fist fights in many places.

[righteousmomma]

So true. When you read the political climate in the past it got right cantankerous - name calling and vilifying to the max.

I was thinking more in the context of sharing of ideas than actual formal debate.