Article 4 Section 4: Republican government
The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government,
I have wondered what would have caused Justice Scalia to so often indulge in the literal interpretation of the U. S. Constitution. I am also a student of False Logic. One technique of false logic is to take the or use of a word or concept from one context and apply it to another context to distort or falsely justify an argument.
While I was perusing the Constitution I ran across Article 4 Section 4 and it stood out quite clearly. This explains everything! I don't know if this is the real genesis of this particular aspect of the sometimes illogical opinions of Justice Scalia but it is a good analogy to help explain this point of False Logic as well as an opportunity to help explain the 3rd level of Critical Thinking: Application
Please continue below the fold.
Ok, so The constitution says that
Article 4
Section 4.
The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion; and on application of the legislature, or of the executive (when the legislature cannot be convened) against domestic violence.
Now, back in the day, republican meant what we refer to today as States Rights in the context of the constitution. Today the R is capitalized and Republican brings to mind a political party that includes mostly conservatives or old school republicans and of course the Tea Party and fringe groups (as does any major party) and except for the Pledge of Allegiance, one hardly ever hears the word in everyday conversation and its not States Rights that comes to mind. We hear republican and unless we are in a political science class, its the Republican Party that comes to mind.
So by using the literal interpretation of the word Republican, he votes the Republican viewpoint and uses that viewpoint also in his dissent under the guise of making each state conform with the constitution because of the literal meaning of Republican in todays context of the word. Nice spin huh!
So that would be using literal meanings of words to justify making a conclusion based upon the literal use of the word in current day context to prove that the constitution guarantees each state to operate in accord with the Republican philosophy. Neat trick.
That is just a simple, quick example of a logical fallacy that I stumbled upon when he made the gay marriage decision. I thought it was a clear way of explaining this spin concept. Now lets look at this "fact" or "premise" and look at it through the eyes of the 3rd level of Critical Thinking - Application and see what happens if this "literalism" is applied to something.
In this critical thinking analysis we simply take the fact that we know well enough to describe it in our own words and apply it to another context. For clarity, I will stay in the constitution so the application can be seen in this already familiar setting.
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.
I think we all know this amendment its the Second in the Bill of Rights.
Well, here we seem to have a problem. Right off the bat we have "a well regulated militia." Isn't that the National Guard? I don't know of any other militia that is officially well regulated. Is there a place where your neighborhood militia can go to get certified recognized by SCOTUS?
If the reason we can bare arms is to support the militia, then all of the people that are able to join the militia when needed have the right to bare arms for use in the militia. That both leaves so many of us out! I am getting old. I still want my right to bare arms even though I might not be able to do much!
Obviously I don't understand Scalia. Where was he when people (citizens) were allowed to "open carry" even if they are not fit physically or mentally to be a part of the militia? I also don't see this being a part of the modern day interpretation of this right to limit baring arms to be limited to members of your State National Guard. Back in the day, We were all soldiers if needed, at least those of us that can, but without any agency to regulate who is qualified or not, we don't meet the minimal criteria for having our "right to bare" as literally stated in Article 2. At the present time, there is no regulations on physical or mental health associated with this "right" as literally spelled out in the Constitution. We also do not have to belong to the National Guard. I believe that there is no age requirement. Even the right to bare cigarettes or alcohol have this regulation and both of these rights are at least as dangerous as having arms in the wrong hands.
But we still have another hurdle to clear with the literal application. There is this word "arms."
Maybe its my generation, but when I hear the word "arms" the first thing that comes to my mind is the "Arms Race" We don't want Iran getting Nuclear Arms. Well, I am in pretty good shape for my age so IF we had a certification agency (bigger government?) and I qualify, I want my atomic weapon! That should be a real kick out on the firing range even I could annihilate the target, not to mention really celebrating July 4th with a bang. (a really big bang!)
But alas, if we follow the logic of Scalia in the dissent on gay marriage, we literally do not have any well regulated militia except the National Guard and we, the people are not legally bound to bare our arms to fight in the militia and we have no way to be declared fit to join the National Guard, if Scalia had been a part of any court action, we would have phased arms out of our society long ago OR everyone would be a member of the National Guard for all of us to literally be able to legally have our guns.
What can I say? Either the logic used by Scalia is wrong or there is something wrong with Scalia and his application of his "literalism."
If he understands that his logic is flawed and he only uses flawed logic to cherry pick decisions only to promote his personal agenda or to dissent on those that does not go his way, or he is oblivious to what he is saying or he is a hypocrite. You be the judge.
For this article, however, this little example of Application shows what the consequences can be if you use flawed logic to make a decision. If the premise is incorrect, so is the logical conclusion. If we were living when the Constitution was written, with the proper definition of the terms used were accurate and we all would have been responsible to fight the British as we were not populated enough to have a full time army large enough to win a revolution against such a larger and powerful army as the British. But we all are not in a regulated militia now. There were not any nuclear weapons to speak of back in the day of the bill of rights. If you follow Scalia's literal interpretation of the words of the constitution, we would have total gun control like most of the other developed countries.
Looking at the world today, we analyzed this Justice's interpretation of literalism to be FALSE by describing what would be the result if the premise were to be applied to a situation and compared that to the conclusion of another circumstance. One favored Scalia's view and the other was nonsense when COMPARED with the other example when both are compared with Scaia's record.
I hope you enjoyed this little lesson but most of all I hope that you learned something about False Logic and Critical Thinking Skills. If we all could teach even one other person something about these two skills, we would have a much better informed electorate. As close as elections are in today's society, we only need to educate 5% of the people a little bit and we would be able to see what America can be if we had an informed electorate. There is lots of money out there working to keep as many people as possible informed or misinformed. We can fight that off by each of us that can to be ready to stand up and explain things to those that can't how to do their own critical thinking instead of leaving it up to someone that can not stand up to scrutiny of what they are saying, and putting in ads and robocalls and all the other ways to communicate with people.
Stand up for an informed electorate. We can have differences, but we need these differences to be truthful differences and not differences based upon lies.
America. What a country!
Happy Fourth of July to everyone. Lets take a few moments to consider what each and every one of us can do to inform the electorate to actually think about what we hear and question the logic and validity of arguments. Everyone does not want an informed electorate. Those that want to take advantage of Americans would rather that we just listen to their propaganda and lies and accept them because "it sounds good" and our egos like to be pandered. Lets all do what we can to "Take America Back" to that mythical time when the electorate was informed, arguments were true and debated on their merit and America was the beautiful place that allowed Americans to make decisions based upon fact and not by who could be the best liars and confidence men.
LeZi
God Bless America.