Those who want to turn back the clock, might want to reconsider

[struggle4progress]

The so-called "originalists" on the Supreme Court would like us all to traipse merrily back to 1789. Their motives may vary: at least one appears to long for the days when many folks' steady diet was liquid bread

Some people think we should go further back. But how far back? Perhaps to a time when silly unfounded accusations by bored and sexually-frustrated adolescents were enough evidence to hang others as witches?

Or perhaps to those dreamy halcyon days when we still had our very own royal family? The historical stories do have a familiar resonance, of course: I recall the tale of one arrogant and unpleasant king, whose ungrateful subjects grew so tired of his disrespect for their parliament, that they considered whether chopping him into two pieces with an axe might be a rather popular solution. So in the scientific spirit of that era, they conducted this experiment. And the conclusion was, yes, that was a popular thing to do: so popular, in fact, that the usual little hysterias over witchcraft actually declined for a while

We could go yet further back, I suppose, to the time (say) when my ancestors were still painting themselves blue and burning each other alive in wicker baskets. I have been told it was even more uneasy to be a ruler in those days, because (you see) whatever shortages and pestilences befell the country were strictly accounted to the king. And by "strictly," I mean they invited the king down to the lowlands for a party and smashed him in the brain and sank his body in the bog, weighted down with rocks

It's taken us a long time to get not-nearly-far-enough-away from those times, in my opinion, and I hope we can take a few more steps away in my remaining years. We might still disagree sometimes about the causes and the solutions: some will still say witches are less of a problem today, because the good and godly were so zealous of burning them, and others that a stupid solution is worse than no solution; some will say that we must bow down to worship the invisible hand or that the invisible hand is the devil incarnate

We can walk towards the morning star and into the light or towards the evening star and into the darkness. And as we try to decide, someone comes along to.encourage us to walk into the light and then into the darkness and then into the light and then .... By arguing that the morning star and the evening star are really the same planet. Which is certainly true. And which we (in fact) had already known. And which (nevertheless) does not help us walk into the light or into the darkness

[Blue_true]

1. The Originalists seem to totally miss the key reason why those that wrote the

Constitution made it amendable. The Founders were wise enough to realize that times change, and laws had to be changed to meet the times, that laws couldn’t be frozen in times that no longer existed.

[yonder]

4. +1.

[Ferryboat]

5. If we truly were committed to "originalism"

There would be far fewer current members of the supreme court seated.

Just saying.

[Blue_true]

6. Good point. nt

[RockRaven]

2. No antibiotics. No anesthesia for surgery. Maximum transportation speed that of living beings.

Communication speed, and direction, limited to speed, and direction, of human travel.... Sounds absolutely spiffing!

[Arne]

3. Occasionally I reflect back on how horrific the Dark Ages must have been.

Then I hear that Steve Bannon suggested putting Fauce and Wreys heads on pikes.