Comment for the New York Times article "Why Bother With the Constitutuion"

One basic problem is that most people believe that given as set of rules or laws that there is a "correct" answer to any problem. It turns out that it can be proven that this isn't true. As I learned in graduate school at MIT, Gödel's incompleteness theorem establishes inherent limitations of all but the most trivial axiomatic systems. Even with an infinite set of rules (or laws for this discussion) there are infinitely many problems which can't be proved either true or false using those rules or laws. So it is with the Constitution, even if the judges weren't biased and were completely logical, there is no way that they could determine from the constitution (or even adding all the case law) which way to decide many cases, especially the interesting ones. Either way they rule would be consistent with the Constitution. But, of course, they have to make a decision. So they do. It would be much more honest if they would admit that their decision is arbitrary.
This is why we need wise judges, not computers, to interpret the laws and Constitution.

No comments:

Sculpture Garden Party this Saturday, August 12, 4-7pm All are Welcome.

 I am having an open studio at my sculpture garden on Saturday August 12 from 4 to 7. The address is 18 Wequobsque Road in Chilmark. Turn l...