The conscience of the Court

Posted on by albrooke

Critics of Justice Scalia often accused him of inconsistency. And insofar as he was a methodological originalist he sometimes was inconsistent. But I think the heart of his jurisprudence was disciplinary originalism, and with his death the most powerful embodiment of that vital principle was lost. I do not think we shall look upon his like again. And that means that our Supreme Court will continue to make the kinds of decisions it has been making for decades, but will have no one on its bench to remind it of what it’s really doing. Antonin Scalia was the conscience of SCOTUS, and I don’t see how it’s going to get another one.

Alan Jacobs, “Scalia and Disciplnary Originalism,” The American Conservative (Mar. 7, 2016) [link].

Jacobs makes the point that if we want the Constitution to mean anything at all in our conversation, we have to allow it “to speak” to us.  There is a followup at [link].

Civic duty?

Posted on by albrooke

Here’s the question.  Do we have a civic duty (or a spiritual duty) to vote?  What if our two-party system gives us two politically/morally/spiritually unacceptable candidates?  What then?

One answer is given by Russell Moore in “Should Christians Vote for the Lesser of Two Evils?” Christianity Today (Mar. 2, 2016) [link].

Moore says

“This side of the New Jerusalem, we will never have a perfect candidate. But we cannot vote for evil, even if it’s our only option.”

The article is very short.  I want to write something over the weekend, but that might be a good place to start the thought process.

Fallacy?

Posted on by albrooke

An insightful look at why we don’t do things we think we should — the author wants us to think beyond “I don’t feel like it.”  I think she is right, though it may not always be easy to do what she suggests.

Darya Rose, “The ‘I Don’t Feel Like It’ Fallacy,” Medium (Mar. 1, 2016) [link]

Two thoughts:

  1. This has application far beyond food/diet/health.
  2. Paul has further thoughts about the disconnect between “what I do” and “what I want to do” which are also relevant to this problem. Romans 7.