Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2022 June 23

= June 23 =

Are the chicken feet in pet stores suitable for human consumption?
Can you eat them? 2601:545:C780:56C0:3DC9:C70F:855E:1A65 (talk) 18:00, 23 June 2022 (UTC)


 * I'd hazard a guess if they're not food grade, you probably shouldn't. PRAXIDICAE🌈 18:02, 23 June 2022 (UTC)


 * If there are poultry butchers near where you live, you should be able to get chicken feet from them. Since they are used in Chinese cuisine (and many other regional cuisines), another possible source are shops catering to Chinese customers. They may be sold frozen. --Lambiam 12:52, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

text and history
The just-published NYSRPA v. Bruen scotus decision chose a "text and history" standard for interpreting the 2nd amendment, as opposed to the (to me) more familiar ideas of strict or intermediate scrutiny, or rational basis review. Without getting into the gun politics angle, is this text and history standard something new (maybe used in DC v. Heller) and just for the 2A? Or has it come up in other cases as well?

Can it also be used to find that current interpretations of other amendments are too wide? E.g. the Sedition Act of 1798 would probably not withstand 1st amendment analysis under today's precedents, but maybe those can be rolled back given that the Act is part of history and it expired rather than being thrown out by a court? Please ignore this part of the question if it relies on too many unknowns/speculations.

IANAL, am not seeking legal advice, yada yada. M2602:24A:DE47:B8E0:1B43:29FD:A863:33CA (talk) 22:58, 23 June 2022 (UTC)


 * They're not being real "textualists", since Scalia willfully twisted/disregarded the "militia" wording of the second amendment in his Heller ruling. We have an article textualism... AnonMoos (talk) 23:11, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
 * The "militia" bit is in a nominative absolute; it's not really consistent with ordinary English construction to read it as literally restricting the scope of the rest of the sentence. The normal construction would be that it explains the reason for the rest of the sentence.  It's true that it's hard to see why it should be there in that case, but still, that is the literal reading. --Trovatore (talk) 00:43, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
 * It states the overall purpose of the amendment. It doesn't necessarily limit the scope of the amendment only to men at the actual moment when they're actively serving in a militia, but it should discourage some remoter extensions of interpretation (including Scalia in Heller). AnonMoos (talk) 00:52, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Yeah I've heard that other places too, about DC v. Heller and also about other decisions by Scalia and associates.  I'm just wondering if "text and history" is a scrutiny standard that is new and different from the existing ones, or whether it is a traditional thing that I didn't happen to know about.  I do remember a ridiciulously long historical analysis in the Wong Kim Ark decision that seemed like it should have been decided in 1 sentence, "see amendment 14, it means what it says".  2602:24A:DE47:B8E0:1B43:29FD:A863:33CA (talk) 23:47, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
 * 2602:24A:DE47:B8E0:1B43:29FD:A863:33CA -- A judge who included a long historical analysis in Wong Kim Ark is a thousand times better than Antonin Scalia in Heller, since that judge was trying to persuade the persuadable racists of 1898 that the plain wording of the U.S. constitution applied to Chinese as much as to caucasians, while Scalia really didn't care what the constitution said, except as the starting point for meaningless word games to twist them to support his preconceived GOP ideology. AnonMoos (talk) 23:16, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Textualists are like Biblical literalists: they stick to some supposedly literal interpretation of the text when it appears to support their desired doctrines, but are ready to let it go when it does not. --Lambiam 12:42, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

P.S. Here's how Greg Sargent and Paul Waldman express it in The Washington Post: "But as the court's conservatives have already shown, the historical and textual approach they are now using is infinitely flexible, allowing them to arrive at any decision they want." -- AnonMoos (talk) 02:22, 25 June 2022 (UTC)