Judge Richard Posner: ‘No value’ in studying the U.S. Constitution

[Tx Redneck]

WAT!

Seventh Circuit Judge Richard Posner sees “absolutely no value” in studying the U.S. Constitution because “eighteenth-century guys” couldn’t have possibly foreseen the culture and technology of today.
In a recent op-ed for Slate, Judge Posner, a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School, argued that the original Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the post–Civil War amendments “do not speak to today.”
“I see absolutely no value to a judge of spending decades, years, months, weeks, day, hours, minutes, or seconds studying the Constitution, the history of its enactment, its amendments, and its implementation (across the centuries — well, just a little more than two centuries, and of course less for many of the amendments),” he wrote. “Eighteenth-century guys, however smart, could not foresee the culture, technology, etc., of the 21st century.”
He added, “let’s not let the dead bury the living.”
Judge Posner, an outspoken opponent of late Justice Antonin Scalia, also blasted “absurd” posthumous encomia for the late conservative.
“I worry that law professors are too respectful of the Supreme Court, in part perhaps because they don’t want to spoil the chances of their students to obtain Supreme Court clerkships,” he wrote. “I think the Supreme Court is at a nadir.

[Gargamel]

and this surprises you?

Once you rip out the cornerstone of a culture, you can begin to make it into whatever you can convince the masses it needs to be.

[SBFORDTECH]

We should ignore him the same as we should ignore the circuit courts. Show me in the constitution that calls for these circuit courts.

[Scott Mc]

Wow, kinda makes it sound like he is calling his profession defunct.

[CJ]

People like this should be hung in the streets as traitors.

[46Tbird]

Is he right?

[svauto-erotic855]

People like this should be hung in the streets as traitors.

You are talking about killing a lot of people; most employees of the federal government outside of the military believe the same thing. There is a type of sickness in certain kinds of people that leads them to seek out position that allow them to wield power over others. Some are just men but many/most are not.

Now imagine a very large percentage of the population in many states thinking the same way and you will understand why I want NYC and others in the northeast corridor to be nuked.

[CWO]

Each justice or judge of the United States shall take the following oath or affirmation before performing the duties of his office: “I, ___ ___, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as ___ under the Constitution and laws of the United States. So help me God.”

(June 25, 1948, ch. 646, 62 Stat. 907; Pub. L. 101–650, title IV, § 404, Dec. 1, 1990, 104 Stat. 5124.)

[CexMashean]

Is he right?

I'm going to have to go with No, because the constitution has wording permitting changes be made to it.

So, those "eighteenth-century guys" even knew that times would change and evolve, and wrote in the process to make those changes.

[LANTIRN]

You are talking about killing a lot of people; most employees of the federal government outside of the military believe the same thing. There is a type of sickness in certain kinds of people that leads them to seek out position that allow them to wield power over others. Some are just men but many/most are not.

Now imagine a very large percentage of the population in many states thinking the same way and you will understand why I want NYC and others in the northeast corridor to be nuked.

You may be surprised at how many in the military don't understand or really support the constitution. Not that it is ther fault; most are young 18 and 19 year old kids who were never taught it or were taught liberal interpretations of it. Stll, the military isn't quite as conservative as portrayed by the media.

[svauto-erotic855]

You may be surprised at how many in the military don't understand or really support the constitution. Not that it is ther fault; most are young 18 and 19 year old kids who were never taught it or were taught liberal interpretations of it. Stll, the military isn't quite as conservative as portrayed by the media.

Contempt for the Constitution is nearly ubiquitous for people in the federal bureaucracy; the level of contempt is MUCH lower for those in the uniformed services was what I was trying to say.

[LANTIRN]

Contempt for the Constitution is nearly ubiquitous for people in the federal bureaucracy; the level of contempt is MUCH lower for those in the uniformed services was what I was trying to say.

That is true.

[sc281]

Constitution means nothing, eh?

Someday, maybe soon, guys of his ilk will pass their own version of the intolerable acts.

Will they be as surprised as the British parliament was when after their long train of abuses and usurpations pursuing invariably the same object, having envinced a design to reduce the American people under a similar absolute despotism, that the American people exercise their Creator endowed right- their duty- to throw off such government and provide new Guards for their future security?

It's looking more and more like we're going to find out.

[David]

Give it a couple more generations and it'll all make sense.

[GhostTX]

Give it a couple more generations and it'll all make sense.

Yes, because then all the liberal schooling and indoctrination will make the Constitution moot.