Hates freedom

Bloomberg Says Interpretation of Constitution Will ‘Have to Change’ After Boston Bombing | Politicker.

This article is a few days old by now, and has already been thoroughly dismantled and mocked by writers much more talented than I.  But I wanted to take a few moments to make one additional point I haven’t yet seen elsewhere; that his entire premise is fundamentally flawed.

As much as I hate the stupid cliché of referring to the dictionary, I think it’s useful in this instance.  The first definition of “interpret” at dictionary.com states:  “To give or provide the meaning of.”  Now while it’s true that certain portions of the constitution could be interpreted in a variety of different ways, it is not true that you can suddenly just change the interpretation of it.  That’s not how it works.  The meaning hasn’t changed, so the interpretation of any one particular individual cannot change either.  You don’t just wake up one morning and decide that something means something different than what it meant yesterday, regardless of how many terrorist attacks there have been in the meantime.

What Bloomberg has essentially done here is admit what those of us in the liberty movement have been trying to say all along:  That the entire concept of judicial review is a sham.  That the Supreme Court does not “interpret” the constitution at all.  What they do is decide how they think things should be, and then attempt to justify how their decision might fit within the guidelines of the constitution.  The fact that Bloomberg takes it as a given that an interpretation can change, in an instant, based on current events, should be proof that he does not actually believe there is any real interpreting going on at all.

His assertion that the interpretation of the constitution has changed over time is technically correct, but not in a way that is relevant to the point he is trying to make.  The interpretation of the constitution by the Supreme Court has changed because the composition of the Supreme Court has changed.  As far as I know, one particular court has never reversed itself on any substantial issue.  Rather, issues are revisited when the court is different, and sometimes a new court reverses a decision made by the old one.

For the Supreme Court to come out and reverse a decision that this exact court has made earlier with the justification of “current events require us to change our interpretation” would be proof positive that everyone on the Supreme Court is not taking their oath seriously, and is 100% desirous of legislating from the bench.  Not only does Bloomberg not see this as a problem, he sees it as a benefit.  The fact that our rights are subject to the whims of nine robed figures we are supposed to revere is a feature to him, not a bug.  Not a very surprising viewpoint, coming from someone who desires to be a dictator himself.