The US Constitution doesn’t provide a right to clean drinking water or accurate information from public officials, a divided federal appeals court ruled.
The Constitution sometimes says the purpose of laws. You’ve shown the preamble. Another one I’m familiar with is in the Copyright Clause, where it says the purpose is to promote the progress of useful science and arts. Another is the “well-regulated militia” clause of the 2nd Amendment.
I’m not a lawyer, but as far as I can tell, Constitutional scholars today don’t think those parts have much, if any, legal weight at all. It’s like, the other parts are the important things, and the “why” is just to give context.
I think this is exactly backwards. Whenever the Constitution says “why”, that’s the most important part. Those parts set a standard by which the laws can each be tested, and inserts a lot of objectivity.
I mean, “promote the general welfare” is almost exactly a description of utilitarianism. If a law makes people generally worse off, then it should be unconstitutional on that basis alone.
If I was rewriting the Constitution, rather than specific laws, it would consist almost entirely of the goals of the government (such as having a democracy that reflects the will of citizens), and the rest of the Constitution would mostly list the legal rights of citizens. Laws would have to say in what measurable way they’re getting closer to the goals, and they’d become invalid if they didn’t live up to the measure. Any laws that moved us farther from our ideals would not be allowed.
The Constitution sometimes says the purpose of laws. You’ve shown the preamble. Another one I’m familiar with is in the Copyright Clause, where it says the purpose is to promote the progress of useful science and arts. Another is the “well-regulated militia” clause of the 2nd Amendment.
I’m not a lawyer, but as far as I can tell, Constitutional scholars today don’t think those parts have much, if any, legal weight at all. It’s like, the other parts are the important things, and the “why” is just to give context.
I think this is exactly backwards. Whenever the Constitution says “why”, that’s the most important part. Those parts set a standard by which the laws can each be tested, and inserts a lot of objectivity.
I mean, “promote the general welfare” is almost exactly a description of utilitarianism. If a law makes people generally worse off, then it should be unconstitutional on that basis alone.
If I was rewriting the Constitution, rather than specific laws, it would consist almost entirely of the goals of the government (such as having a democracy that reflects the will of citizens), and the rest of the Constitution would mostly list the legal rights of citizens. Laws would have to say in what measurable way they’re getting closer to the goals, and they’d become invalid if they didn’t live up to the measure. Any laws that moved us farther from our ideals would not be allowed.