Tim Sandefur has responded to my post below.
To be candid, I find Sandefur’s response perplexing. He seems to want to wage epic battles over natural law versus positivism, with him as the champion of natural law and me as the evil positivist. But the questions we were discussing have nothing to do with natural law or positivism. When I was explaining what the cases say, I wasn’t saying that I think the cases are right, are true, reflect God’s will, or anything like that. I wasn’t staking out any jurisprudential ground at all. I was just saying that’s what the cases say, for those who happen to care about such things. If you want to have a theory of the True Constitution that makes caselaw irrelevant, that’s great: Just say that you think the cases are irrelevant and move on. I won’t object.