In what places do courts ignore or modify law to deliver the result they prefer?
(To be precise: where is that accepted practice, rather than aberrant behaviour by some judges?)
(To be precise: where is that accepted practice, rather than aberrant behaviour by some judges?)
One could argue that 'a corporation has personhood' is a technical contrivance that tries to manipulate the letter of the law into achieving a particular outcome. Going with the spirit of the law instead, that argument would never hold water.
There are vague rights in the constitution.
It could be a disaster for the courts to interpret them too literally (Is literally any weapon OK in the 2nd? Does free speech include a mob boss ordering a hit?) and constitutions are really hard to amend, so heavy interpretation is a nessessary evil.
if the 2nd amendmend was literally interpreted it would be (quoting from memory) “in order to form a well-ordered militia the right to bear arms shall not be infringed”
As in you cannot infringe the right to bear arms in a well ordered militia, but gun ownership might be regulated for example by the militia organization owning the arms. Nothing would speak against codifying in law what constitutes a well-ordered militia, etc.
And the 2nd actually reads (if you fix its grammar since it's ungrammatical by the standards of the modern English language) "since the well-regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" — now notice that it's a conditional rule, and its premise in "since..." is no longer true, militias are not necessary for the security of a country; and so the conclusion should lose its power. And arguably it's what the Founders intended: if they meant it as an absolute rule, they would've omitted the first part of it and would have simply stated that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed", period.
>A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed
It's the only amendment that comes with a justification so it's unusual but there's nothing in the text that limits the right to the listed justification.
I don't agree at all that this is a case of creative reading. The actual text of the amendment is "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
Note that the text does not say "in order to" or anything like that, which is why interpretation of this amendment gets controversial. Was the intent that bearing arms is only a right insofar as people are part of a local militia? Was the intent that people must have the right to bear arms and the militia was simply cited as one example of why? It is genuinely unclear from the text, which means that no matter what we do we have to layer our own interpretation on top. That doesn't mean anyone is reading the law creatively, that's just the unfortunate facts of having to deal with an unclear text.
Historically, not owning a sword or longbow could get you in legal trouble in some cities and time periods, since it meant you weren't capable of helping defend the city. I'd say that in the spirit of the law, it should mostly allow the ownership of useful infantry weapons, or dual purpose ones (hunting rifles?), rather than self defence pistols.
But the US interprets it differently because the constitution is a bit vague, the constitution is hard to change, and practicalities and politics exist.
I was surprised (and then sad) at the realization that Bill Watterson is fading from the cultural ethos as I age.
Most of what happened before 2000 doesn't seem to exist in cultural memory.
It's not quite true that nothing that happened before 1950 exists at all. But you're not going to find many people who are interested in the art, music, literature, design, or architecture of earlier decades - never mind centuries.
It's as a big a break as there was in the 60s. For that generation the 50s were still an influence, but anything earlier pretty much just disappeared.
Watch whatever today's kids watch.
On the other hand, I had to ask them what a Kirby was. I'm still not sure but I know it's pink.
It’s pining for the fjords!
I suppose some of the jokes depend on cultural things that might not be taught as well anymore, like the Trojan Horse. But most of it is about human nature, so it seems like that should hold up.
> Well I didn't vote for him
to which I naturally replied
> You don't vote for kings!
and the next comment was an antimonarchist slamming me for being a royalist toady.
The core issue is that no Constitution, in fact no law or decree at all can account for all possibilities that real life offers, and so all the bodies of law are up for interpretation all the time.
The issue highlighted by, say, the Owens vs Owens example, is that the law as it stood was clear and not open to interpretation, though obviously unfair. The law needed to be changed, which required parliament.
The United States. E.g. ‘the switch in time that saved nine,’ Wickard v. Filburn, Obergefell v. Hodges, Gonzales v. Raich and so forth.