A number of famous cases involve resolving internal conflicts. The Pentagon Papers, for example, required balancing freedom of the press with national security. Recent cases about businesses’ compliance with anti-discrimination laws require balancing freedom of religion with the guarantee of equal treatment.

I agree that the endpoint of constitutional law isn’t as clear cut as checkmate, and that the evolution of society means the “board” doesn’t have a fixed number of squares and pieces, so to speak. But it’s also that evolution that forces us to grapple with the fact that the “facts” are open to interpretation.

And that’s really the thrust of the analogy: that the facts aren’t there in some objective sense. They have to be understood. And the constitution isn’t just one command, but many, and you can’t always obey all of them all the time. Just like you can’t play multiple strategies at the same time. You have to prioritize.