Richard Posner, a member of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, who also lectures on the law at the University of Chicago Law School says that studying the constitution is a waste of time for law students and judges.
“I see absolutely no value to a judge of spending decades, years, months, weeks, [days], hours, minutes, or seconds studying the Constitution, the history of its enactment, its amendments, and its implementation.”
“Eighteenth-century guys, however smart, could not foresee the culture, technology, etc., of the 21st century. Which means that the original Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the post–Civil War amendments (including the 14th), do not speak to today.”
If he feels that way about a document that’s only about 2125 years mold, what must he think of the Bible. Is “Love thy neighbor as thyself” and “Thou shalt not kill” also outdated and would he then turn murderers loose because the Bible’s teachings are too old to be relevant?
In short, let’s not let the dead bury the living,” Posner concluded.
This was not the first time Posner has characterized the Constitution as outdated.
During a speech at the Loyola Constitutional Law Colloquium last year, he said he is not “particularly interested in the text of the Constitution.”
“I don’t believe that any document drafted in the 18th century can guide our behavior today,” Posner said.
How did this jerk get to be such a high ranking judge?
Posner was mentioned in 2005 as a potential nominee to replace Sandra Day O’Connor because of his prominence as a scholar and an appellate judge. Robert S. Boynton has written in The Washington Post that he believes Posner will never sit on the Supreme Court because despite his “obvious brilliance,” he would be criticized for his occasionally “outrageous conclusions,” such as his contention “that the rule of law is an accidental and dispensable element of legal ideology,” his argument that buying and selling children on the free market would lead to better outcomes than the present situation, government-regulated adoption, and his support for the legalization of marijuana and LSD.[11]