Why Has This Country Gone Bonkers? Part 1: Originalism

It's a question that keeps coming back to me, almost by default, as I watch what goes on around me: Why has this country gone bonkers, with so many people so emotional, so irrational, so acting without logic or reason?

It has to explain why we can't arrest this virus. It has to explain why we elected, even by default by the back door, such a horrible president (indeed, why he even got close) and why a considerable percentage of us still cling to his every word. Saying that the facts don't tell you the truth is the easy way out: It means you just get the gist and nothing means exactly what is uttered. We're living, now, in that kind of world. It floats along, waiting the next pronouncement that means nothing.

I think it's three things: anti-intellectualism, phony American exceptionalism, and our geographic position in the world, which used to be a strength but is now a real drawback (all of which will be discussed). We sit here alone, with disrespected connections north and south, neither learning about them nor from them. And the rest of the world is, well, over there, someplace else, where we can't reach them regardless of their relevance or competence.

Instead, we cherry-pick the most authoritarian of them--Hungary and Turkey and Brazil, for instance--and have little or nothing to do with the rest, who used to rely upon us for genuine leadership but now, bitterly, prove that they will get along without us. It didn't take nearly as much as we thought it would to sever their friendship and loyalty. Our badly elected leader never gave them the credit they deserved. Now we drift along, alone, sharing little, learning nothing.

We certainly don't copy anybody near us. Remember not long ago, some twisted guy dressed up like a cop and even made his car up to look like a police car so he could, with an automatic weapon, slaughter more than twenty of his fellow Canadian citizens? Well, Prime Minister Trudeau solved that problem quickly: He issued an edict making automatic weapons illegal. The next person who brandishes one in public, if they're not a member of the military or police, can expect to have to immediately seized. Can anybody imagine doing that here? How many mass shootings can take place without an automatic weapon?

But our obsession with the Second Amendment--the core of the problem--is relatively new. Jill Lepore, author of These Truths: A History of the United States, believes it really began in the late 1980s, when a philosophy called "originalism" emerged. While not being sure who started it--but the Reagan Justice Department cultivated it--it has taken hold and become a discussion topic on nearly all federal court cases since. It's the supposition that there's a way to determine, or at least to come to a ruling because of, the way the Founding Fathers believed a certain kind of case could be decided when the Constitution was first written.

That's absurd. First of all, the meaning of the Constitution has never been carved in stone. If it had been, at least three states--New York, Massachusetts and Virginia--would never have had ratification votes as close as they were; there would have been a greater consensus. The role of the states, the balance of powers among the three branches, were all topics on the table and difficult to ascertain at the time of ratification. To base a current court decision on a concept determined in 1787 or thereabouts is a way to extend a conservative conclusion to a matter that couldn't have been ascertained back then--to take a modern situation and reduce it to a common denominator. It's impossible to do that, but the originalist narrative has taken hold and settled itself inside our jurisprudence.

For instance, because the days of the latter part of the 18th Century involved the frontier, and people really did carry guns with them partly to protect themselves, it's been assumed that the original intent of the Second Amendment was to preserve the right of individual protection. Yet, there's almost nothing written on the subject back then.

Was it destroyed? No, it didn't happen. The conversation back then almost never went there. The original intent of the Second Amendment (read it) was, and still ought to be, the preservation of state militias, or the National Guard, as it is now called. But the Supreme Court has ruled that cities don't have the right to ban handguns within its borders, due to the originalist concept. So guns proliferate, and so do needless deaths and injuries.

But the Republicans got the people on the Supreme Court that they wanted, and that philosophy held. Now the NRA has what it wants--it didn't always want that, by the way--and can feed the gun manufacturers all the support they want. It has run out of money for now, but if 45 is re-elected, trust me, it will make a comeback.

Holding a gun, I can say anything I want, whether I'm in fact someone who wants to back it up or not. Holding a gun, I can make a ridiculous claim about the Constitution and someone will be nearby to listen and support. Holding a gun, I can be as racist as I want to be. Holding guns has changed our culture, and not for the better.

One of these days, there will be a showdown between races, since anyone can own a gun. We don't think of black people wielding weapons, but I don't see why they wouldn't, do you? Then the police will be caught in the middle, and won't be able to side with anybody.

What will happen then? I don't know, but I don't want to be anywhere near it. Thing is, it might be by default. We already know that such a showdown could happen anywhere at any time. If such murders as took place in Georgia the other day keep happening, it will take place sooner rather than later. Anger can only be contained for so long, and this isn't Canada. People like their guns here and they have legal backing.

Because of originalism, a fake concept perpetuated by expert messaging. It is pretentious and absurd. It was created to justify a conservative position that never was.

That's Part 1. Did you expect this to be simple?

Be well. Be careful. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.


Mister Mark