Left Right out

A new slate of congresspeople has just been sworn in. They campaigned on the idea that the government is too big, and has overreached, doing things that it doesn't have the legal authority to do. they claim to be firm followers of the Constitution, view it as sacrosanct, and read it out loud on the floor of Congress to remind everyone how sincere they are about this.

But they didn't.

It is curious that people who claim to want to follow the Original Intent of the drafters of the Constitution didn't actually read the original draft. They read the current version, amendments and repeals included. Even they realized that talk about how blacks only couldn't as 3/5ths of a person, that slavery was legal, and only white males were citizens might cost them votes.

Fair enough. And intelligent enough.

But doesn't that leave them in a fairly hypocritical position? How can they claim to want to follow the original meaning of the Constitution while admitting that it has been shaped and improved over time?

The flash point for this Originalism is the health care laws that got passed. Some claim that there is nothing that allows the government to do such a thing. Yet I think the phrases "provide for the common defense" and "promote the general welfare" are intentionally vague, and cover a lot of ground.