There’s a saying in software that the only numbers you should be seeing in code are zero, one, and infinity. If you’re seeing other specific numbers (e.g., there can only be 140 characters in a message, or 255 characters in a filename, or a finite number of elements in a list), then someone is being lazy.
It occurs to me that the same is true when considering the ‘interpretation’ of constitutions by courts. Just recently, SCOTUS decided that POTUS didn’t have the authority to forgive student loan debt without action by SCOTUS.
Justice Kagan’s response? That this is terrible because ‘some 40 million Americans will not receive the benefits the plan provides’.
So, 40 million Americans would be let off the hook for up to $20,000 each. According to Justice Kagan, that’s sufficient reason to leave the program in place.
But what if the numbers were 4 million and $2000? Or 400 and $20? Should those numbers make any difference at all? They should not. As a rule, if you’re basing an argument on numbers, it means you’ve lost your connection to the underlying principles involved.
Note that the same is true about arguments over gun control, education, all flavors of welfare, voting, censorship, and so on. If you think that
RKBA works differently if the number of people killed with guns each year is 30,000 or 300;
a tax on income or assets is justified if it’s ‘small enough’;
a war on drugs is justified if the number of deaths from overdose is ‘large enough’;
shutting down entire economies and cultures and stripping people of the rights you’re supposed to be protecting becomes necessary when an infection rate is ‘high enough’;
and so on, then you have completely misunderstood the concepts of individual rights, delegated powers, and government by consent, and you shouldn’t be allowed to officiate at a little league game, let alone on the nation’s highest court.
