You have the makings of a book. I wrote an extensive e-mail to my family today after sending them your article. I ended up asking why the Supreme Court acts like it does and I ended with this: "The Court adheres slavishly to the precise words of the Constitution as it interprets it and common sense is abandoned resulting in the above absurdities. Over the past hundred years there has been much debate as to how rigidly the Bible (a sort of Constitution for many)should be interpreted (that word again) and while there are fundamentalists who believe the world was created in seven days, that humans were created then in our present form, that the world is
10,000 years old and so on, they have been almost universally discredited. Luckily, the minority does not get to set the rules. By contrast, The US Supreme Court, another literalist group and decidedly a minority (5 out of
9 jurists out of hundreds of millions of citizens), does get to set the rules." Now that is "dysfunctional" writ large!
I hope you go for it.
Thanks for promoting my work, jack, although I have to admit to being a little confused. First, I didn't actually blame the Supreme Court. (I don't much like the campaign finance ruling, but then again, I probably forfeited my ability to critique court decisions when I opted against taking the LSATs.) And second, your note says you're in Toronto. Which is, you know, part of Canada. How about this: we'll give up our high court when you give up your queen.
Kidding aside, I appreciate the kind thoughts.
on March 8, 2010
