USPOL
It's utterly bizarre to me how American liberals are so against constitutional originalism for things like voting rights or slavery, but are happy to turn around and argue that 2A should be evaluated only in the context of 18th-century muskets and militias.
Pick a lane.
USPOL
@LouisIngenthron I can't tell if this is really clever irony or if you really forgot that we needed to amend the constitution to end slavery and get Voting Rights?
USPOL
@evanpeterjones I didn't forget. Those amendments did some of the heavy lifting, but not all of it.
For example, it took a fairly expansive interpretation of a combination of 14&15A to enforce the Voting Rights Act for 40 years to prevent voter disenfranchisement on racial lines (until it was killed by SCOTUS in 2013).
To be fair though, maybe "marriage and abortion rights" would have been better and more timely examples to make my point than "slavery and voting rights".
USPOL
@LouisIngenthron idk if marriage and abortion are defined in the constitution, but i don't think someone needs to believe in your philosophical framework to use it against you.
USPOL
@evanpeterjones They aren't in the constitution. That's the point. American liberals want 14A to protect them as if they were.
Which is a good thing! But my OP was about them using expansionism to protect personal liberties like marriage and abortion while simultaneously using originalism to strip away personal liberties for guns. The hypocrisy undercuts both arguments.
USPOL
@evanpeterjones Yes, it is. That was my point. The GOP has taken the expansionist position on 2A.
@LouisIngenthron okay, but the conservatives taking that position are the hypocrites.
I think there's a false dichotomy between Living Document and Originalism, they're more like rectangles and squares in my mind, but maybe I'm wrong?
@evanpeterjones Both sides are huge hypocrites on this one. If your reasoning changes based on your desired outcome, you're not actually reasoning at all.
I've come to expect that from the GOP, but that liberals do the same thing with no self-awareness drives me up a wall.
USPOL
@LouisIngenthron but viewing the 2nd amendment in terms of muskets should be the originalist perspective.