There is a school of jurisprudence in the United States I became familiar with in San Francisco, based off Wittgenstein (not ultimately originating in him, but the bulk of their intellectual presumptions are rooted in him. Lots of literature floating around if your interested). The basic idea is that the constitution is a highly flexible document that can mean whatever the hell we want it to mean, just “poof” shit changes.
If we hold this as valid, is there a point to having trials?
Secondly, do we need lawyers, and fixed legal statutes.
Say you am defending yourself in court on conpletely absurd charges that came out of left field, and you are a absolute enthusiast for the law, and read ever legal code and law outthere, and can quote both US Constitutions by heart, and know the rules governing the creation of laws each Congress adopts, as well as every executive order…
…and your defending yourself rationally and adeptly, in a manner that the founding fathers of the American Republic would find admirable. You’ve documented every possible counterpoint ever brought up by a prosecution in the past before the trial, am aware of court precedent… being the absolute genius you are, and allowed for every possible conceivable response by the prosecution to arise, and can refute it, with copies of said laws and precedents in hand… showing your innocence, that you most certainly did NOT violate the law.
As your well into doing this… the prosecuter becomes panicked, and calls “Objection”.
“On what grounds” says the Judge.
“Violates Amendments X, Y, Z, your Honor!”
Your taken aback, as admendments X, Y, and Z have absolutely nothing to do with your charges, or his arguments thus far. As the Prosecutor explains, you realize his is lying, and stretching the logic of the amendments in directions that make them nonsense, has no precedence backing it, and is in general absurd.
Judge allows the motion…
Astonished, you Object to the Objection. Judge overrules you, saying the Constitution is a living treatise, and you just saw it evolve before your eyes. The Judges eyes buldge out as he says this, cock his head to the side, and stares at you without blinking…
You cry out astonished, and whip out a law code, published by the state merely a month ago… But you are told its outdated.
“When did it become outdated” you say?
“Just now, bitch… so bend over and take it, for the law is the law, and we are all equal before it.” Retorts the Judge.
Judge starts banging the gavel… and laughs like a hyena. The prosecutor does too, and so does the bailiff. No jury was present, as like in India, the law evolved out of needing that sort of thing getting in the way of justice.
Your sentenced to jail, hard labor in a Alaskan Gulag, on the charge of excessively studying the law without being approved to do so by the State’s legal Bar association, and for discussing the implications such laws can have on society, openly in public, causing a public disturbance… in a atrium in a public park where people sat attentively listening to you.
Not only did the law evolve, being the living document it is, right before your eyes enough to convict you, the constitutional bar against Cruel and Unusual Punishments evolves too. Your carrying heavy rocks from one side of the arctic ocean to another, nonstop, frostbite be damned.
You later on appeal, pointing out the plain language of the law clearly refutes the opinion of the lower court, but the Appeals Court rules this is inaccurate, as they found definitions in the unabridged Oxford English Dictionary that supports their definitions. You notice the sources in the OED all list paragraphs from your court case, and that this is proof they just made this shit up, as their judgment can’t be the original basis for the definition used to convict you.
The court calls you a annoying panzy ass bitch, and send you back to Alaska, as you simply don’t understand how living documents work. Words are what we make of them, and they exist without tense, beyond causual constraints determining Hermuenetics. What determines Hermuenetics is the bias of the “in crowd”, the cool kids, the people who live around Deloros Park in San Francisco, or professors who smoke pot in class. To them, your a drag, a square, you annoy the fuck out of them, irritating them with rules and laws… they didn’t take those classes in college regarding the laws you claim to follow, dont remember agreeing with any such laws when they became lawyers… so fuck you square.
You appeal to the supreme court, saying you got fucked over hard by the the first court, second court called was clearly inebriated during your hearing, unfairly biased against you, and you gave cause to serious question as to if they ever passed the associated bar, or ever were lawfully elected judges in the first place, and furthermore one judge had a face tattoo, and the other was dress like Judge Dredd. If that wasn’t enough, they also called you a derogatory sexist slur, a “Panzy” which was inappropriate as you weren’t gay.
You argue passionately and rationally, throwing everything down before the mercy of the Supreme Court, and say you need help, “please God, help me” you cry… " a polarbear in Alaska was chasing me and tried to rape me. All I did was hold a calm, public discussion on the law, I don’t deserve any of this, death would be preferable."
Court deliberates, and rules yoy don’t understand how the law works, and it further said during your imprisonment, you violated the Polar Bear’s 14th Admendment right to marry when you resisted it, as the Mahabharata lists Rape as a valid legal categorical union of conjugal marriage, and this Polarbear sounds oftly Hindu to them, and as a previous court ruled Polar Bears are legally people under the Buen Vivir rights it possesses. As you are violating its natural habitat that gives it legal personhood status via the Alaskan Habitat it exists in, it has equal rights to violate you.
Furthermore, given the separation of church and state, and the fifth admendment right of the Polar Bear not to testify against itself, yada yada yada, we we can’t beyond a reasonable doubt determine the polar bear’s religious preference and must assume the Polar Bear is Hindu, and is now is lawfully wedded to you, and has conjugal visitation rights. This doesn’t violate your rights as a heterosexual, as a appeals court previous conformed your a panzy-ass bitch. IGNORANCE IS NO EXCUSE FOR VIOLATING THE LAW.
The polarbear is thrilled to hear of this (was sitting in Court, cheered upon hearing the Verdict), and it now lives happily ever after… with you, in the Gulag, all because you wanted to study and debate the law. Socrates got off lightly with the hemlock.
Yes… this is a extreme rhetorical case, but what stops any part of it from happening under the idea of a “living constitution”? What is the metabolism of said constitution? Can it evolve right before your eyes? When exactly do these standards change? What’s to prevent abuses of power?
Nothing. Absolutely nothing. No conceivable check or separation of power can stop it. If judges and lawyers hold to this philosophy, we ultimately and naturally regress to judicial whims as the laws, and nothing held sacred is upheld in the courts. Everything gets turned upside down, and society turns cynical. The best of intentions in the short run can lead to the worst of results in the long run.
