Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Comments

  1. I don’t know if we are unique, but I believe MA is in the minority in requiring a police officer at each precinct. They should be the only armed people anywhere near a poll.

  2. I’m not at all sure that the new Supreme Court will preserve Heller.

    None of the statements of Ms. Barrett suggest that she has any respect at all for prior decisions.

    • I really wish people would more aggressively throw originalism back at those who advocate that theory relative to the 2nd amendment. There is overwhelming evidence that the drafters knew what they were doing when they premised the right to keep and bear arms on the existence of a well-regulated militia.

      • The eagerness of the right wing to build an entire ideology upon originalism is strikingly similar to the eagerness of the same people (by and large) to structure their lives around literal fundamentalism.

        I’ve enjoyed several humorous exchanges with passionate fundamentalists after I first have them explain all about the literal “inerrancy” of the Bible (God guiding the hands of the writers and all that) — and then have them explain why the “King James” version is the gold standard. I then ask them how they decide WHICH KJV is the actual “Word of God”. It gets fun when they learn that there are several (most evangelical Protestants don’t know).

        Countless tacky Sunday morning sermons have been based on the gross mistranslation of the original text of Matthew 19:24 (“…it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”). For those who may be unfamiliar with this chestnut, in Aramaic and Koine Greek (the two original languages of this text) the words for “camel” and “rope” are either the same (“gml” in Aramaic — no vowels), or homonyms (“Kamelon” vs “Kamilon” in Koine Greek that mean “camel” and “rope”). So the original metaphor was an attempt to pass a rope through the eye of a needle.

        Similarly, the entire 2nd Amendment hysteria is a result of commas that are present in some but not all existing hand copies of the original document and lengthy exercises in legalistic grammar.

        Somebody apparently forgot to tell Mr. Scalia and his followers that the bit about angels and pins was NOT an example to be emulated.

        • Reading The Folklore of Capitalism by Thurman Arnold now, a book from 1938. Arnold taught law at Yale and refers to Supreme Court decisions as a kind of literary criticism and interpretation, which shows you a little about his clear-sightedness.

          Good to know that fundamentalists still believe the King James Bible was written in the original language of Jesus and the Apostles.

          I’ve read that there was a pass caravans used to reach Jerusalem called the Eye of the Needle. It was so narrow that the camels had to be unloaded to travel through it. So you can add that to the just-so stories interpreting the Bible if you wish.

        • One skill I regret not having is being able to read the Bible in the original languages so I could make my own interpretive judgments. I know there are multiple English translations, but I did not realize there was more than one KJV.

      • Re “throw originalism back” etc.: Do we have any reason to believe that “originalism” really is what its proponents claim it is?

        I think they will apply it as partially and selectively as they apply anything else.

Archives