My hammer built a house

On Confusing Means With Ends

While listening to two guys discuss Constitutional theory, I was struck by how odd the phrase “original intent” is. Original intent is just intent. What other intention is there? How can a text intend anything other than what its author did? How can a text even be anything except what its author intended? What is there to “being authored” except being what the author intends? To think a text can take on an intent apart from its author is yet another instance of the...