Democrats & Alito

[isomin at gmu.edu]

My sense is that it's a combination of instrumental and principled reasoning, with the exact proportion varying as between different libertarians. 

For some, the instrumental reason is paramount: originalism (at least in the US) is likely to lead to more constraints on government power than any other reasonably plausible theory of interpretation. Others would argue that there is at least some basis to the "consent" theory of originalism. 

Finally, there are more sophisticated arguments such as Randy Barnett's claim that originalism is essential to ensure any systematic enforcement of a written constitution.


Ilya Somin
Assistant Professor of Law
George Mason University School of Law
3301 Fairfax Dr.
Arlington, VA 22201
ph: 703-993-8069
fax: 703-993-8202
e-mail: isomin at gmu.edu
Website: http://mason.gmu.edu/~isomin/

----- Original Message -----
From: RJLipkin at aol.com
Date: Monday, January 16, 2006 9:11 pm
Subject: Re: Democrats & Alito

> 
> 
> In a message dated 1/16/2006 7:46:34 PM Eastern Standard Time,  
> isomin at gmu.edu writes:
> 
> Many,  though by no means all, libertarian judges and law 
> professors are  
> originalists. 
> 
> 
> Is there a principled  libertarian reason for this? Put 
> differently, do these 
> libertarian judges  and law professors embrace originalism because 
> they 
> believe that the  original meaning of all constitutional 
> provisions (of the U.S. 
> Constitution)  are, as a matter of historical fact, libertarian or 
> that  
> libertarianism requires a commitment to original meaning whatever 
> the  original 
> meaning happens to be in a variety of different historical  
> contexts? 
> 
> Bobby
> 
> Robert Justin Lipkin
> Professor of Law
> Widener  University School of Law
> Delaware
>