Some time ago, I came across an article talking about someone who had a problem with the money left in his name. According to the article, the person in question was left a sizable amount of money from his late father, while his stepmother and step-siblings were specifically left with nothing. It’s not that they were not mentioned in the will, but that the father believed the step-mother was financially well-off on her own and have been doting on their children all this time while he was alive while his son wasn’t. It was believed that the money in the inheritance would be used by the son to go to college and to start life fresh. The person in question was a minor when his father died, so the money was put in a trust.
When the person in question turned seventeen, though, he discovered that his step-mother bought a new pricey house for her and her new husband and her children to live in. She also got herself a brand-new luxury vehicle and another one for her new husband. When asked how she could afford these things, she claimed she could afford it, but he soon found out that it really came from his trust. Apparently, she was put in charge of the trust until the person in question could legally assume it when he turned eighteen, and she had been bleeding it all this time on things for her children and on her new husband, and he will soon have nothing but pennies.
The person in question was understandably incensed and asked how she could steal from the trust set in his name. She said that they needed the money more. He said that the money was to be specifically given to him in his father’s will. She responded by saying “that’s not what he really intended. He really intended for all of us to have that money.”
Yes, what she did could be considered a crime. But that requires expensive lawyers to fight in court, and, as you can imagine, he wouldn’t even be able to afford a cheap lawyer.
For the past few decades, the United States Supreme Court has been infiltrated by justices that claim to follow what they call “original intent” or “originalism”. They claim to follow only what the United States Constitution says, and only what they believe the founders “intended” the Constitution to mean. They reject and condemn a “living” Constitution, which allows for changes in time and society. They firmly believe that whatever was written was eternal and whatever they see the “intent” would be is set in stone and unchangeable.
As a libertarian, albeit a practical one, I strongly oppose and reject this idea of “original intent” when it comes to the Constitution. If it says “don’t do (X)” or if it says “you must do (Y)” then that should be pretty clear and irrefutable. Bringing in this idea of “original intent” or simply “intent”, however, makes what it actually says a perversion.
For instance, when the First Amendment says “Congress shall make no law”, that’s pretty straightforward. Then it talks about “respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” The late Justice William O. Douglas was pretty clear in his view that “no law” meant “no law”. No law, no regulation, no government action whatsoever. Sounds odd for what was considered a liberal justice.
But here, so-called conservative justices have perverted the First Amendment with what they claim was the “original intent”. They have perverted the word “respecting” to mean “you cannot officially establish a national religion, but you can impose elements of the dominant religion in your laws” because, you know, that’s what they claim the “original intent” was. They have perverted the “abridging the freedom” part in regards to speech and to the press and to peaceful assembly to mean “you can’t offend people, you can’t say bad things about the government in the media, and you can only assemble when we allow it” because they also claim that these were the “original intent” from the founders.
This fraud of “original intent” was brought to the forefront in the Supreme Court decision of June 25th, 2022 regarding the right to abortion. In their misogynistic 6-3 majority ruling, the court declared that the “Roe v Wade” decision of 1973 to be, in their words, “wrong”, because – as according to “originalist” Justice Samuel Alito – there was no specific mention of a right to abortion in the Fourteenth Amendment, which was crafted in the 19th century. To bolster his claim of “original intent”, Alito pulled on texts from a 16th century judge named Sir Edward Cooke as well as a 17th century judge named Sir Matthew Hale.
To be clear, these are not founding fathers. These are British judges, centuries before the founding of America. They are the very enemies that American colonists went to war to free themselves from. And they’re not exactly friendly towards women. Both ordered women executed for witchcraft – a hysterical charge with no proof that runs solely on delusion, hearsay, and “intent” – and reportedly had no problem whatsoever with spousal rape. To call on them to decide “original intent” is no different than to call on the insane and malignant King George III as a “founding father”.
Even worse, by claiming there is no specific mention of this right, Alito and company open the door for other rulings to be overturned on the same light. Every decision over the past fifty years involving any kind of a right to privacy is now in danger of being repealed simply because Justice Alito claims he personally did not envision it from the authors of a 19th century amendment to an 18th century document.
Making this fraud of “intent” even more hypocritical was an earlier decision made by the justices in another 6-3 ruling involving a border patrol agent. In that instance, the justices ignored both the letter and the “intent” of the Fourth Amendment’s rule against warrantless acts in the name of “protecting the border”, as well as barring the First Amendment guarantee to petition the government for a redress of grievances. They don’t even call on some distorted rule of “intent” from some 16th or 17th century foreign judge, but rather declare officers of Customs and Border Protection to be untouchable simply because. Something that even our actual founding fathers – who saw such intrusions first-hand in their time – would most likely consider to be unacceptable.
Let’s get brutally honest here... preaching about knowing “original intent” or “originalism” is nothing short of fraud. Claiming to have “original intent” of people long since dead is like con artists pretending to be spiritual mediums and claiming to see or hear dead relatives. Much like the stepmother who pilfers a child’s trust fund for her own gain, these “original intent” people are liars at best and criminals at worst.
This commentator not only strongly condemns the decision of the 6-3 majority in both instances, but I call on Justice Alito and the rest of that majority who support his malicious supposition to either resign or to be removed from the court on the basis of that fraud. They have perverted the court as well as the judicial branch, and for every day that they continue to sit on the bench, continuing to pretend to know the “intent” of people long since dead, they continue to pervert and corrupt the court.
The people who wrote the U.S. Constitution never envisioned the events, society, or technologies of the 19th, 20th, or 21st century. They never envisioned the cotton gin, industrialization, railroads, hot air balloons, aircraft, the telegraph, telephones, radio broadcasts, television, motion pictures, the Internet, corporate monopolies, nuclear war, chemical warfare, high-powered assault weapons, fast food franchises, or malignant narcissists who make King George III look outright sane. In their written words, though, they did come up with a constitution that offered room for change and to be amended. Because they knew that the Constitution was never meant to be stagnant and locked in only to the time of its creation. For any judge today to claim to know otherwise is either a hack or sees something that only exists in their mind.
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