The neglect of legal culture by constitutional scholars has undoubtedly impoverished the understanding of constitutional law. Normative arguments are tossed back and forth on many crucial issues: for example, what ways of "interpreting" the Constitution are legitimate and what ways are illegitimate. "Originalists" claim that the duty of judges is to seek out the original intent of the Framers; judges have no legitimate right to read their own values into the Constitution. Such arguments, rhetorically speaking, put the issue very starkly as a kind of either-or position. Apparently, the only alternative to strict construction is a situation in which judges act arbitrarily, according to whim, and simply spin constitutional doctrines out of their heads. In a system of checks and balances, where are the checks and balances on the power of the Supreme Court Justices to create law out of thin air?