Conversation Between Humpty Dumpty and an Intentionalist, 1
Humpty Dumpty: “Sometimes I think you and I are the only ones who get it.”
Intentionalist:
Humpty Dumpty: “You understand what I mean when I say: ‘When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’ Like when you said this:
Yes, Leviticus showed up, called the readers here goons, insulted me, then provided (rather poor) answers to some of the questions. I responded by addressing his arguments one by one, and asking follow up questions. Leviticus didn’t return.
“There’s probably a lot of people who would call that a flat-out lie — or at least a recklessly irresponsible falsehood. After all, the comment where you say you responded was #114. You then claim he “didn’t return” — but Leviticus left seven comments after that. He left comments at #157 (responded to by you at #165), and fully six more, at #211, #213, #216, #217, #220, and #221. ‘Didn’t you bother to go back and check the fucking thread before you issued your false little assertion?’ I can hear the carpers complaining.
“But you and I both know that intentionalists get to define their own terms. When you said Leviticus didn’t ‘return,’ despite the fact that he did come back and leave seven more comments . . . well, these stupid textualists don’t get it. It all depends upon what the meaning of ‘return’ is.
Bill Clinton would be proud of both of us.”
Intentionalist: “Where are you going with this?”
I don’t particularly feel like enforcing civility on this thread. Permission to speak freely granted.
Banned commenters remain banned. There’s a reason you assholes were banned to begin with.
Patterico (c218bd) — 5/16/2010 @ 8:26 pmI don’t understand the marks in this post.
daleyrocks (1d0d98) — 5/16/2010 @ 8:34 pmI don’t understand the marks in this post.
Then just change the text.
WITH THE POWER OF YOUR THOUGHTS!
Patterico (c218bd) — 5/16/2010 @ 8:39 pmI’m sure SEK has been watching this debate with amused detachment.
daleyrocks (1d0d98) — 5/16/2010 @ 8:40 pmHumpty Dumpty: I understand you are going on a fishing trip.
Intentionalist:
daleyrocks (1d0d98) — 5/16/2010 @ 8:47 pmWalter Sobchak: Fuck it, dude. Let’s go bowling.
The Other JD (5ee3d0) — 5/16/2010 @ 8:57 pmSomeone misunderstands James P. Carse’s Finite and Infinite Games; they appear to think that speech is a game whose rules should be played with, rather like CalvinBall.
htom (412a17) — 5/16/2010 @ 9:30 pmI haven’t read the articles or commentary on these “and an intentionalist” headers because I knew what sort of sphere it was in. But I found this particular one interesting due to the “conservative” position of pointing out the blatant lies of someone acting out of the “liberal” position.
After posting a couple comments elsewhere, I accidentally clicked on a comment in the “statute” episode while thinking it was this episode and I got an eyefull of what I expect out of a certain person.
Since the special filtration is off this episode (which is on the other episodes), I decided to comment. Hopefully Patterico can survive all the extra bits to get to the end for my input on textualism v intentionalism.
With all due respect for Patterico and Darling Prick and Jeffy “my e-pen0r is bigger than yours” G, I personally feel no need to continue this tete-a-tete. Patterico, you’re only making the pig happy by mud-wrestling it. And you need to quit feeding the prepubescent brats all those lollipops. You’re better than they are, and you know it. You can’t cut them down to size because they all have five brain cells between them and they will never know they got shellacked. Your trying to use intellect and logic with them will always fail because they never actually hear reason and logic.
I really only have one issue with textualism: lawyers. That’s it. They find ways to twist and torment the text to find loopholes that cannot be closed (except through common sense, something lawyers do not have). I am all for an amendment to the US Constitution stating all laws, state and federal, and all ordinances below state level shall be required to contain not more than the total number of characters in the original Constitution, Bill of Rights, and Declaration of Independence combined. This would force a brevity and precision which would likely slay much of the intentionalist bovine biproduct. It would also destroy the idiotic leftist “no, we didn’t read the bill before we voted for it” bovine biproduct.
Very clearly, if a law says 10,000 then it means 10,000 and not 100,000. Conversely, if a law says 100,000 it means 100,000 and not 10,000. And it doesn’t matter what a voter says about the reason for the vote. The law is exactly what the law says, no more and no less.
John Hitchcock (9e8ad9) — 5/16/2010 @ 10:52 pmHe has now deleted the trackback to this post, where I prove that his accusation that “Leviticus didn’t return” is patently false. Apparently he doesn’t want his readers to see a post that shows one of his statements to be a provable falsehood.
Goldstein owes Leviticus a retraction and an apology for his false statement.
Meanwhile, he is re-asking the questions that Leviticus responded to — as if to say: “Hey, if they’re not going to come over here and answer my questions, that shows their bad faith! The fact that I won’t answer theirs — and that I was condescendingly snotty to, and told provable falsehoods about, the one person who bothered to answer mine? IRRELEVANT!”
Patterico (c218bd) — 5/17/2010 @ 7:29 amI am guessing there is another ‘G’. Since I haven’t commented on anything in awhile. Guess I should come up with a better name.
G (5b977c) — 5/17/2010 @ 1:30 pmNo way, man. You’re the original G.
The O.G., if you will.
Leviticus (30ac20) — 5/20/2010 @ 12:55 am