Original Intent of the Constitution

Original Intent of the Constitution

Top of Mind with Julie Rose - Radio Archive, Episode 224 , Segment 5

Episode: Iowa Caucuses, Sundance Film Festival, Constitution, Volkswagen

  • Feb 2, 2016 11:00 pm
  • 36:00 mins

Guest: James Phillips, Clerk for Justice Tom Lee at the Utah State Supreme Court, Former Visiting Law Professor at BYU  The job of the US Supreme Court is to interpret the Constitution in all kinds of current legal disputes. But the Constitution was ratified in 1789. So, the question that often comes up is, should we be trying to interpret the Constitution in just the way the founders intended it? Or should we be look it as a living document, with a meaning that evolves as modern life evolves?  If you adhere to the idea that original intent matters most, you get into the trouble of knowing just what the founding fathers meant when they wrote the word “commerce” or the phrase “to carry arms.” You might think it’d be as easy as turning to an English dictionary from 1788 and looking up the word “commerce” or “arms.” But you’d be wrong, says James Phillips, a former visiting professor at BYU’s Law School and now a clerk for the Utah State Supreme Court.

Other Segments

Sundance Film Festival: Land of Mine

14 MINS

Guest: Chip Oscarson, PhD, Associate Professor of Interdisciplinary Humanities and Scandinavian Studies and Coordinator for the International Cinema Studies Program at BYU  One of the more devastating tactics of ISIS is their recruitment of youth as foot soldiers. But, really, sending teenagers to war is nothing new. In 1945, at the end of World War II, 2,000 German POWs—many of them just in their teens—were forced to clear a million and half land mines buried in the Western beaches of Denmark. Half of these prisoners were killed or injured.  This event is dramatized in a brutal—and at the same time, tender—new film out of Denmark. It’s called Land of Mine and it made its American premiere at the Sundance Film Festival last week.

Guest: Chip Oscarson, PhD, Associate Professor of Interdisciplinary Humanities and Scandinavian Studies and Coordinator for the International Cinema Studies Program at BYU  One of the more devastating tactics of ISIS is their recruitment of youth as foot soldiers. But, really, sending teenagers to war is nothing new. In 1945, at the end of World War II, 2,000 German POWs—many of them just in their teens—were forced to clear a million and half land mines buried in the Western beaches of Denmark. Half of these prisoners were killed or injured.  This event is dramatized in a brutal—and at the same time, tender—new film out of Denmark. It’s called Land of Mine and it made its American premiere at the Sundance Film Festival last week.