Principles, Agents, and Bacon's Rebellion

OK - so my recent post on Tim Kaine and Obama got me feeling like I should re-emerse myself in Virginia state politics after somewhat of a hiatus, so I looked up some Virginia policy blogs and added one - "Bacon's Rebellion" - to my list...

... and I'm already frustrated with one of the posts.

James Bowden had a post on a court decision on public prayer. It's a pretty mundane argument on his part - standard church/state stuff - except for the principle/agent dimension of the court decision that I think he's ignoring. Plus he's doing this and trying to hold himself up as a "strict constructionist" at the same time. He promotes strict constructionism in a way that distorts what most constructionists actually believe. Anyway - weel free to read my comments. I come away from this experience with two insights:

1. Every intelligent person should have an understanding of contracts and the concept of principles and agents, and

2. So-called "strict constructionists" need to understand that just because you don't come up with a phrase in your keyword search of the Constitution doesn't mean that it's unconstitutional or inconsistent with the intent of the founders. Even a restrictive, Jeffersonian interpretation of the Constitution is viable without assuming that.