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Notes -
Don't these points contradict each other?
Doesn’t your insurrection views do the same thing?
And yes I wander how much of my view is usefulness versus honest reasoning.
No.
I have strong views about various aspects of law. For example, I think laws should be enforced strictly whether I agree with them or not, I think judges should apply the law as written and not turn themselves into policymakers, I think the meaning of a law is set at the time it is enacted and (unless specifically written to do so) it does not change over time, etc. Basically I'm a firm law-and-order conservative who endorses the originalist legal philosophy.
It follows from this perspective that I should endorse legal definitions according to their original public meaning. For example, the 8th Amendment prohibits "cruel and unusual punishment". Hanging is pretty unusual these days but was not at the time the amendment was adopted. So is hanging "cruel and unusual punishment"? I say no, and the fact that I am opposed to the death penalty is irrelevant to that question.
The question for me is not whether I like broad definitions or narrow ones, or whether a certain definition helps Donald Trump or hurts Donald Trump. It is what a normal reasonable person would have understood words and phrases to have meant at the time the law was made.
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