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0 pointsams611010y ago0 comments

If you appoint strict constructionist judges who would interpret the literal text and original intent of the constitution, you would probably also have to give up Roe v. Wade and things like affirmative action, that are not literally in the constitution.

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4 comments · 2 top-level

rayiner10y ago· 2 in thread

You'd also have no hope of a future Supreme Court reading into the Constitution protection against surveillance as violating of some "right to privacy" that appears nowhere in the text of the Constitution.

baddox10y ago

No, not because of "right to privacy," but it would be pretty easy for those justices to rule that the federal government has no authority to conduct mass surveillance precisely because there is no explicit such authority given to the federal government in the Constitution.

rayiner10y ago

But a very broad national security power is part of the Constitution, by design. The necessary and proper clause would mean nothing if that doesn't fall within the grant of power to provide for the national defense.

baddox10y ago

I don't know how to begin to estimate whether the good things (according to my own policy preferences) would outweigh the bad.

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