Originalism and Its Discontents

I participated in this panel at the Federalist Society's annual academic conference last Friday. The discontent sampled here came largely from the non-standard direction, though not entirely. Perhaps of special interest for MOJ: I'm coming to think that Kevin Walsh and Jeff Pojanowski (among others) have hit on a correct insight that a crucial inflection point on the issue of discontent concerns the necessary relationship (or not) between originalism and legal positivism, something I touched on in my comments. Other discontent, raised by other commenters, involved the relationship of originalism and legal conservatism, and I thought it interesting to hear how other speakers conceived the former and the latter.