Good morning,
MUSING AWAY THE PAST 2 ½ YEARS
Yesterday marked the end of 400 days of Musings Beyond the Bunker. When combined with the earlier “Musings From the Bunker,” so named when we were still in lock-down, that’s 800 days and over 770,000 words.
People ask “what keeps you going?” and “what is your methodology?” No one yet has asked, “have you sought help for this problem?” but that may be coming…
The Musings are, quite literally, what I’m thinking about at the time. The conceit is, of course, that you will share my curiosity on the issues I address that day (whether political, philosophical, or book or movie recommendations…!). And if one doesn’t do it, perhaps the next will.
I write these based upon my current thoughts/ideas/pet peeves. That said, I sometimes write Musings over time, in advance, on some topics that have a “shelf life.” Tuesdays and Thursdays, written based upon comments from others (often with my response or observation) are written currently but still often in advance. But even though I try to stay a few days ahead, often Musings I prepare in advance are bumped based upon current events. Supreme Court decisions, mass shootings and the devolution of our civic life certainly throw advance planning away!
I generally write these two or three at a time, pulling them from a document I keep that includes links to articles, quotations I’ve picked up, thoughts I have, and contributions from others. It keeps changing, mostly expanding, with ideas, commentary and articles submitted by many of you. I try to keep only one or two themes per musing, though sometimes Tuesdays and Thursdays will take the form of a smorgasbord of comments. Each week I try to set aside some time and read several Musings in order to clean them up.
Importantly, I try to keep these reasonably short and reasonably digestible. I often have a lot more to say about a topic but these are not treatises or complete expositions on a particular topic. They are musings with (hopefully) practical thinking, historical perspective and constructive observations.
WHY?
I keep writing because you keep reading. I derive pleasure from knowing that so many of you wake up in the morning or retire at night with the Musings. I try to keep them topical, relatively middle of the road politically and reasonable in approach. As I stated at the outset, I believe most of us reside in the middle of the political spectrum, I believe most people are well-intentioned, and I believe most thorny issues could be resolved through talking through the issues and reaching a thoughtful resolution. If only our legislators were so inclined.
FAR APART OR CLOSE TOGETHER?
There are two strands of thinking about how Americans think about issues and how they interact with each other.
The first is deeply concerning. The Pew Research Center published a study in 2014 suggesting that large numbers of respondents viewed those with whom they disagreed as a danger to the common good. Indeed, twenty-seven percent of Democrats polled reported this sentiment, while thirty-six percent of Republicans did.
The other strand of thinking is that we are more aligned on most major issues than are our elected representatives or the current members of the Supreme Court. Poll after poll suggest that over 2/3 of the country favors background checks, registration, education, and limitations on the types of firearms individuals can possess. Poll after poll suggest that over 2/3 of the country supports a woman’s reproductive choices but with limits after some period of months or weeks (most settling between 15 and 25 weeks, paralleling notions of viability and “quickening.” And no one professes to like corporate spending on politics or gerrymandering. Yet when it comes time to get something meaningful adopted by Congress, there is gridlock and inaction. I believe it is the inaction that gets people’s goat the most, often resulting with the conclusion of some that the other party is responsible for that inaction.
And while Congress fails to act, the Supreme Court seems to be working overtime. They seem to want to upend precedents at a break-neck pace, spurring former Solicitor General Katyal to remark, “much like in Hamilton, they are writing like they’re running out of time.” Sadly, I think they may have all the time in the world.
DISCERNING THE INTENT OF THE FOUNDERS BASED UPON THE INTENT OF THE READER
I am, frankly, exhausted by the Supreme Court’s dancing around trying to figure out “what the founders thought” and applying it to modern-day circumstances. How they consider the Founders’ views and how they analyze the text are, to my mind, inconsistent in the extreme. Their decisions are conclusions in search of justification.
They have determined that the Second Amendment, written when “arms” were defined by muskets that could only fire single shots before reloading, grants seemingly limitless rights to own and openly carry weapons in the public square, notwithstanding the historical record that the Second Amendment withstood nearly two hundred years not standing for that premise (until the Heller decision). They have decided that the right to an abortion cannot be found in the Constitution and that history dictates this is not a right, despite the clear availability of, and knowledge about, pre-“quickening” abortions in colonial times. And while they don’t find the right to an abortion (and, to some of them, contraception or same-sex marriage) in the Constitution, they are ready to find doctrines literally created out of whole-cloth to further their political and ideological objectives (see, e.g., the “unitary executive” and the “independent state legislature doctrine,” to be tested next term and about which I’ll be writing).
By the way, if we only look at things in the words of the Constitution, what does this bode for the idea of judicial review, which arose from case law, initially in Marbury v. Madison?
Have a great day,
Glenn
From the archives:
No, we thank you, Glenn. After being tipped off you did this, we read you everyday. We disagree with many of the things you say, but it stimulates daily thoughtful thinking. Yes, that's the whole point of what you do. So thanks, and thanks again. Don Norberg