I see that our conservative friends are congratulating us all on the wonders of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. I get it. I love our national documents, too, with a passion.

But what’s the point? Our liberal friends will interpret any document six ways from Sunday to make it mean what they want it to mean. “Exegesis” is the word: “critical explanation or interpretation of a text, especially of scripture.”

And if the educated constitutional exegesis of our liberal friends doesn’t deliver the answer they want, why, they’ll get Associate Justice Ketanji Jackson to write some nonsense that justifies the liberal Narrative anyway. (Word to the wise: she needs to demonstrate that she has a brain next time out.)

For some decades, conservatives have championed the idea of an “originalist” interpretation of the Constitution. The idea is for judges to use the original meaning of the Constitution at the time it was written in analyzing constitutional issues before the federal court system. It works as long as conservatives are a majority on the court. But what happens when the liberals get a majority again?

The dirty little secret is that everyone manipulates the texts to advance their Narrative. Or ignores them. Here’s Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor:

“There are days that I’ve come to my office after an announcement of a case and closed my door and cried,” she said.

We conservatives sneer at this, but I think that emotional response is a big part of living as a woman. For Sotomayor, reading the Constitution has nothing to do with the case.

Of course, we men are different. For us, it’s “fight, fight, fight.”

Here’s the lefty version of this. It’s former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbin after resigning as leader in 2019:

“We will forever continue the cause for socialism, for social justice, and for a society based on the needs of all,” he said.

For lefties like him, it’s the fight for justice. The law, sacred documents, and the will of the people have nothing to do with the case.

Here’s another take. If the Supreme Court is too ideological—as in nationwide injunctions from both sides of the house—then there’s a real danger of an ideological revolution like the Reformation. David Rundell:

The Protestant Reformation was ignited when accepted Catholic practices were carried to extremes that became abusive... Once begun, the Reformation was seized upon and accelerated by ambitious German princes[.]

Sorry. I believe that the Reformation was a consequence of the Gutenberg printing press and the printing of the Bible in 1455, not the corruption of the Catholic Church. The Gutenberg communications revolution meant that nobodies—particularly German nobodies—could study the printed Bible, nail theses to doors, and get everyone riled up about it.

After a communications revolution, the universe changes.

In our day, our rulers are corrupt and abusive, just as always. And just as always, they will maintain their corrupt and abusive ways until something stops them. But in the age of Mass Media, we never got to talk back.

Then the universe changed, and now, with Two-way Media, we have ways of talking back.

Let’s call the new age the Age of Conversation. Martin Gurri of The Revolt of the Public calls it The Fifth Wave:

We stand at the earliest moment of what promises to be a cataclysmic expansion of information and communication technologies: the fifth wave.

And so, armed with the new communication technologies, the public is no longer forced to follow orders.

It has largely stopped listening, and it has started talking back.

But I think there is something bigger than the public talking back. Today, with the internet and social media, we the public can talk to each other.

And another thing. We can discuss with each other what we think of the lords that rule over us, right there on X/Twitter.

And another thing. If you are General Mike Flynn, who got shafted by the IC back in 2017, you can comment on X/Twitter about the guy that screwed you over, the former CIA god John Brennan, when it turns out that Brennan is the IC equivalent of Peck’s Bad Boy.

Then there are the people—like Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Bari Weiss—who found they could bail out of their Mass Media jobs and parachute into new careers.

And then there are the people like Joe Rogan and Lex Fridman who didn’t exist before the Age of Conversation. They went from being nobodies to being Lords of the Conversation so that presidential candidates and tech lords are ready, willing, and able to converse with them.

What does it all mean? Here’s an idea.

Back in the industrial revolution, nobodies like Rockefeller and Carnegie started businesses and changed the world. What if this Age of Conversation becomes a cultural revolution of nobodies that changes the world?

I just hope we change the world for the better.

Christopher Chantrill @chrischantrill blogs at The Commoner Manifesto and runs the go-to site on US government finances, usgovernmentspending.com. Also get his American Manifesto and his Road to the Middle Class.

Image: Adele Millicent Smith