# Bricker, you are not a law professor **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [November 17, 2009, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bricker-you-are-not-a-law-professor/517930 "2009-11-17T17:24:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 71
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2009, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bricker-you-are-not-a-law-professor/517930/71 "2009-11-18T06:09:48Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > **mhendo** : Dictionary definitions aside, surely the word constitutional means “allowed under the Constitution _according to US law_,” if not exclusively, at least in addition to “allowed under the Constitution according to my personal understanding of what the Constitution means.” If I tell you that segregated schools are constitutional, am I not subject to correction? Well, sort of. But you’re begging the very question here. If you offer that argument in a context where it is clear that you are, in fact, disagreeing with previous decisions, and that you believe the Constitution itself to permit segregated schools, then what’s the problem? If, on the other hand, you are making the argument that segregated schools have been found, and are currently held under US law, to be Constitutional, then you would indeed be subject to correction. That’s why **Bricker** ’s question about authority within particular bailiwicks, asked above and answered quite ably by **DMC** , is so asinine. I have never once claimed that there’s anything wrong with a definition that looks specifically to what the current law actually is. In my first post in this thread, i made very clear that i believe this to be an important thing. My point has simply been that, in addition to this particular use of the term, there is also a more general use of “Constitutional” that does, in fact, refer to a person’s feelings on what _ought_ to be, based on their own reading of the document. In cases where it is unclear which definition someone is using, i have no problem with asking for clarification. But if it’s clear, from the context of their post, that someone is using Definition B, then it’s disingenuous to respond to them as if they were only using Definition A. For example, one of the sentences that **Bricker** referred to as requiring correction in the other thread was this one: > [@Fake Marine in full uniform at his High School reunion is found out by classmate & arrested With pic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fake-marine-in-full-uniform-at-his-high-school-reunion-is-found-out-by-classmate-arrested-with-pic/517292/53): > > “Let’s honor those who fought and died protecting the Constitution by wiping our asses with it!” How can you interpret that as anything but a personal belief about the principles enunciated in the Constitution? Hell, he never even used the word “Constitutional.” He simply observed that the law in question was an example of wiping our asses with the Constitution. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bricker-you-are-not-a-law-professor/517930)._