Join Me and "Human Guinea Pig" A J Jacobs For A Live Video Chat About SCOTUS!

Wednesday August 12th 5pm ET!

Hey Everyone,

A few weeks ago at Substack’s summer cocktail party in Manhattan, I ran into a friend, fellow substacker, AJ Jacobs who most recently spent a year dressing and attempting to live like a Founding father for his book: The Year of Living Constitutionally: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Constitution's Original Meaning.

Among the list of things he did in order to “live constitutionally”:

I carried a musket on the streets of NYC and shot muskets at a rifle range

I gave up social media in favor of writing pamphlets with a quill pen

I quartered a soldier in my apartment, as is my Third Amendment right

I applied to Congress for a letter of marque, which is my constitutional right to be a pirate.

I started a petition on a scroll of paper and got hundreds of signatures and brought it in person to Congress.

I fined my sons thirty-seven and a half cents for every time they cursed, as was the constitutionally-approved law in New York State in 1789.

I tried unsuccessfully to follow coverture, the 18th century system that says married women can’t sign contracts.

The point of this exercise was to remind his readers of what our Founding fathers intended when they wrote the Constitution, and to explore the idea of “originalism,” the guiding principle by which our Supreme Court issues rulings on guns, religion, women’s rights and more. Supposedly the idea of originalism is to follow the original intentions of the framers.

As many of you know I tackled the thorny topic of originalism in my podcast series: Pipeline to Power, which you can order here.

What did AJ find? And what does it signify for us and this court?

Well, tune in tomorrow at 5pm ET for what promises to be a serious conversation dressed up in AJ’s light, humorous and engaging tone.

You can find his substack at Experimental Living with AJ Jacobs.