Letter to the Editor: Law and language are subjective

Published 10:00 am Tuesday, July 28, 2026

I think Kristopher Galvin, for all his insistence that the general public should read legal opinions (“Callais and backward progressive logic,” published July 1), is not a particularly capable reader himself.

He reasons as though language is objective. This inability to consider whether a text could reasonably be interpreted different ways is, I think, a sort of illiteracy, and a failure to understand the nature of language more broadly.

Mr. Galvin claims the Supreme Court is not political. This presupposes that there is no element of interpretation in adjudication, and thus there is exactly one correct way to read and apply the law, divorced from any biases adjudicators might hold.

This is why he repeatedly insists anyone who has actually read Justice Alito’s opinion would agree with his summary of it, and his assertion that the ruling isn’t the overt white supremacist political action the literate amongst us recognize it to be.

I don’t expect anyone to be able to convince him otherwise. If he accepted the subjective nature of language it would shake the foundation of his morality; Mr. Galvin cannot conceive of any morality that is not derived from the reading of a specific, yet many-times-translated, collection of parables.

I’m sure he will continue to humiliate himself by sharing his ham-fisted “reasoning” letter after letter. I look forward to the next one, Mr. Galvin!

Nancy Butler

Enumclaw