The plaintiffs’ arguments in Moore v. United States have little basis in law — unless you think that a list of long-ago-discarded laissez-faire decisions from the early 20th century remain good law. And a decision favoring these plaintiffs could blow a huge hole in the federal budget. While no Warren-style wealth tax is on the books, the Moore plaintiffs do challenge an existing tax that is expected to raise $340 billion over the course of a decade.

But Republicans also hold six seats on the nation’s highest Court, so there is some risk that a majority of the justices will accept the plaintiffs’ dubious legal arguments. And if they do so, they could do considerable damage to the government’s ability to fund itself.

  • @Zombiepirate
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    376 months ago

    Well said.

    The stated goal of “originalism” is to read the Constitution without interpretation.

    Which would be bad enough, since it was written by a bunch of slavers without any input from women whatsoever.

    But in reality it is impossible to read something (especially law) without interpretation; they simply start with the desired conclusion and look for any historical justification no matter how implausible.

    • @[email protected]
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      6 months ago

      But in reality it is impossible to read something (especially law) without interpretation

      Some people might see that as a challenge, so I’d state it even more bluntly: reading is interpretation. Reading without interpretation is not just impossible; it’s an oxymoron.

      • @[email protected]
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        26 months ago

        I would hope every single high school graduate could remember the simple pictograph of how communication works:

        • Person A has an idea -
        • Person A encodes the idea and transmits it -
        • Person B receives the transmission and decodes it -
        • Person B has the idea-
        • Reverse the process for feedback and confirmation of idea -

        That encoding bit is pretty important…

        • @Daft_ish
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          26 months ago

          So cool, because this is also how tcp/ip works.