A "strict interpretation" of the Constitution, a phrase that's all the rage among the current administration, pretty much goes out the window as soon as you're not dealing with issues affected white landowners in the 17-1800s.

Do people get that?

Literalists say, "that's not in the actual words", but do they really want to restrict the Constitution to meaning from when women had little rights if any and blacks were almost exclusively slaves?

Would we then just chuck the application of the First Amendment because there wasn't television, phones, the internet? The right to free speech doesn't apply to yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater, but if there weren't theaters then do we not have the ability to say that at all.

It seems that as soon as you, well, get past the past, you automatically begin interpreting for the present, and as soon as you're interpreting for the present, most "strict interpretation" theories don't make any sense.

You're just arguing over the amount of interpretation, and not admiting your biases.

"Strict interpretation"'s brother phrase, "activist judges" is another ridiculous term, one I've commented on before. They're "activist" when they don't rule the way you want them to on your laws.

In the first 200 years of the Supreme Court, the Court struck down 127 Federal laws. In the last 18 under Chief Justice Rehnquist, they've struck down 36. But yet that's not an activist court, because it's dominated by conservatives under a conservative administration.

At least if people would admit their hypocracy and biases, it'd be out in the open, but I think it's pretty shameful to try and hide it under neutral and academic sounding phrases.