Tea Leaves

Last week we looked at constitutional interpretation. Today we look at tea leaf interpretation in general.

Not as popular as it used to be, tea leaf reading was a hit at country fairs and amongst those who were into crystal balls, ouija boards, and the like. The idea was to make a cup of tea in the traditional fashion, drink the tea, then study the residue of leaf particles on the interior of the cup. One’s future, it was said, could be accurately predicted. Chicken entrails could serve the same purpose, just messier.

Whether or not you choose to believe that tea leaf readers and crystal ball gazers and clairvoyants are able to predict your future, you have to agree that in the triangle among you, the “expert”, and that all-knowing entity out there, you’re the odd man out. That is, the spirit and the tea leaf reader are on the inside, so you need to pay the reader to deliver the news to you. For you, there’s no direct access to the all-knowing-one — ya gotta pay.

So the question really comes down to this: even if you think this stuff really works, can you trust the tea leaf reader?

The world is full of tea leaf readers. We just don’t call them that. Some of them are originalist constitutional experts, some are prophets, some are consultants, some are preachers, some are mullahs, some are entertainers. What they all have in common is that they say they are in a position to tell you what you should think, and require that you do so in complete dependence on their say-so.

So when somebody tells you that the tea leaves say you need to break up with your spouse, or change jobs, will you? What if the preacher or the priest or the mullah tells you that God doesn’t like certain kinds of people or practices– will you act on that? What if the consultant tells you that for only $8,000 they can optimize your website to get thousands more hits?

Are these things good for you? Do they make sense? Do you have a right to force your neighbour to live according to the dictates of your tea leaf reader?

I know the answers to all these things, and more, and if you send me $1,000,000 I’ll share them with you.