Trusting other Americans

Stories:

• On a cruise to Scandinavia, an acquaintance was impressed by those countries’ affluence, and even more impressed by their welfare systems. A conservative, he noted that the welfare systems were paid from taxation, a high level of taxation which, he was surprised to find, seemed to be accepted by most people. As a US conservative, he could not understand this acceptance of high taxes until an American guide had suggested that, in general, Scandinavians trusted the government, whereas “Americans don’t trust the government”.

Originalist sin

Antonin Scala was interviewed by Calvin Massey with the main topic being Scalia’s originalist belief in an enduring constitution rather than an evolving constitution in that “the Constitution tells the current society that it cannot do [whatever] it wants to do” (“The Orginalist”,California Lawyer, January 2011) – however not everybody agreed with the original constitution (and Thomas Jefferson thought it would be short-lived). Massey wondered whether, when the 39th Congress was proposing the 14th Amendment, anybody would have thought that equal protection applied to sex discrimination, or to sexual orientation, and Scalia replied that “the Constitution does not require discrimination on the basis of sex. The only issue is whether it prohibits it. It doesn't.”