I've Been Accused of being Liberal. Okay I'm laying my cards on the table

JimEverett said

The generalized point was basically questioning the jurisprudence of "originalism" which has become very popular recently with Antonin Scalia and the Federalist Society leading the way. When you are interpreting a part of the Constitution the idea that you can find the "original" intent (for jurisprudence purposes) seems ludicrous given that there were so many varied intents - most notably from the fact that the Constitution wasn;t like a piece of legislation, it was a Constitution "by the people" - and in many cases the people voted for it directly. Now how are you going to find out the intent of all those people? And do you really think that if you could possibly come up with the intent of all those people that you could somehow reduce it to a single "intent"?

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How can you find intent of "these people"--answer--history. Granted, ascertaining "intent" for a 200+ document is very dicey, but I think the intent of the 2nd Amendment was quite clear--to give the "people" the ability to overthrow a tryrannical ruler in the wake of adopting a document which centralized federal power, resulting from a contentious comprimise to give "the people" a measure of safe guards to control leviathan.

These are good points, but pedogocally somewhat flawed. I'm not up on the latest nomenclature of "intent" of the framers. I'm assuming that "originalism" is synonomous with "intent."

The Constitution wasn't drafted, "by the people" but moreso of a coterie of a bunch of elites interested in the survival of a fragile republic. The Bill of Rights, most historians recognize as more of a representation of "the people."

Although the Bill of Rights is part of the Constitution, from a historical perspective, it must be viewed as something seperate and an expression of more of, at the time what the "the people," or the more democratic forces at work at the time.