Scalia: Constitution is ‘dead, dead, dead’
Source: The Hill
Scalia: Constitution is dead, dead, dead
By Jonathan Easley - 01/29/13 09:11 AM ET
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia emphatically rebutted the notion that the Constitution is a living document in a lecture at Southern Methodist University on Monday.
Its not a living document, Scalia said, according to a report in the Dallas Morning News. Its dead, dead, dead.
Scalia also told the crowd that sometimes the decisions he arrives at are not in concert with his political convictions.
The judge who always likes the results he reaches is a bad judge, he said.
Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/279789-scalia-constitution-is-dead-dead-dead#ixzz2JO4Hi7vI
villager
(26,001 posts)Well, thanks for being honest, at least, Scalia.
kestrel91316
(51,666 posts)ancestors would have had no vote, nor many rights, and then HE HIMSELF today would be poor and landless and so unable to vote.
Does he truly not know how to add 2 and 2?????
Scairp
(2,749 posts)Bush I? Reagan? I don't recall but fuck you very much whoever it was. Didn't he read the job description for a Supreme court justice? It specifically involves interpreting the Constitution to determine if a particular case or law or bill passed is Constitutional. Maybe that's why we get such crazy shit from him. He doesn't even believe in the thing he is supposed to cherish. What an abomination.
PerceptionManagement
(462 posts)he is an asshole. Pick a side in any decision he has made and you can be sure Fat Tony will have done whatever it takes to hurt as many people as possible and then claim 'strict constitutionalism'. In hell, ann coulter will blow scalia's soft dick for eternity.
MynameisBlarney
(2,979 posts)to impeach the asshole.
demwing
(16,916 posts)please proceed, Justice...
Ian Iam
(386 posts)DhhD
(4,695 posts)And his version of the Bill of Rights too.
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)demwing
(16,916 posts)The Night of the Living Bill of Rights!
Downtown Hound
(12,618 posts)lrellok
(41 posts)Why should we then not replace it with something relevant to modern society?
Angry Dragon
(36,693 posts)Last edited Tue Jan 29, 2013, 03:39 PM - Edit history (1)
sakabatou
(42,146 posts)demwing
(16,916 posts)I don't think he'll do it himself
Dyedinthewoolliberal
(15,563 posts)given so much attention? He's not the Chief Justice..........
wilt the stilt
(4,528 posts)malthaussen
(17,184 posts)I dunno, like, isn't that a little late for defense?
-- Mal
NoGOPZone
(2,971 posts)Botany
(70,483 posts)If the Constitution is no longer a living and dynamic document in your view
then quit right now.
kysrsoze
(6,019 posts)msanthrope
(37,549 posts)robertpaulsen
(8,632 posts)If I can agree with you that the Constitution is not "living", i.e. it doesn't eat, sleep, breathe, shit and fuck, then can you agree with me that a corporation is not a "person", i.e. it doesn't eat, sleep, breathe, shit and fuck?
Well, OK, maybe corporations do shit all over indigenous people from third-world countries and fuck us all with their greenhouse gas emissions, but let's not nitpick, OK?
Scuba
(53,475 posts)Baitball Blogger
(46,699 posts)that strict constructionist have no place on the Supreme Court.
JHB
(37,158 posts)There's just people who claim they are because it gives their views a coat of patriotic whitewash.
yardwork
(61,588 posts)We should have let the Republicans appoint Bork. He's gone now and Obama would be appointing a replacement, and no way could Bork have been as bad as Scalia.
n2doc
(47,953 posts)Kennedy was. Scalia was a later appointment, as was Thomas. If your world we would have had both, because the Repubs had already decided to go all extreme on their choices.
yardwork
(61,588 posts)The Bork nomination was separate.
Scratch my plan.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan_Supreme_Court_candidates
SunSeeker
(51,550 posts)MADem
(135,425 posts)I can't bear that jerk...!
NinetySix
(1,301 posts)are under the thumb of tyrants 200-years dead.
Rousseau held that Sovereignty, the general will of a people, is superior to government, and that when government no longer serves the ends of that Sovereignty, namely the common good, that government is dispensible and may be replaced with a new government of a different form. A government is thus always in flux ("alive," in this sense), mutating to better serve public ends, else it is in peril of being abolished and replaced.
So, Mr. Justice: ever read Rousseau, you ignorant fuck? The Founders did.
John2
(2,730 posts)of the men who wrote the Constitution and also placed into it the Bill of Rights. The overthrow of the British Government was the justification for the American Revolution. The right for the people to rebel was also the justification for the French Revolution. Those men were thinking in the context of the Era.
I also read the comments from right wingers praising Justice Scalia. I've made these comments over and over. The only power given to any Constitution is if the people consent to it. The people have the right to change it by not only peaceful means but violent means also. Time and time again, people in the Republican Party or on the Right continue to cite the original intent of the men who created this document. That document was created after4r the violent overthrow of a government and it was also changed after a violent Civil War. It was also changed through less violent means during the Civil Rights Movement but there was still violence. By it's own history, this is a living document and subject to change. The country is changing through demographics. In order to meet those changes, the Constitution also needs to evolve. There are a small group in this country, that likes to live in the Past and rule the majority. You can only push the majority too far before they use the last resort. The Republican Party is playing a dangerous game.
Paladin
(28,246 posts)Klukie
(2,237 posts)"Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the ark of the Covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment... laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind... as that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, institutions must advance also, to keep pace with the times.... We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain forever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors." -- Thomas Jefferson, on reform of the Virginia Constitution
demwing
(16,916 posts)Attn Justice Scalia.
http://www.supremecourt.gov/contact/contact_pio.aspx
MessiahRp
(5,405 posts)He was amazing as Jefferson.
broadcaster75201
(387 posts)Who knew.
Plucketeer
(12,882 posts)His powers of comprehension are DEAD - DEAD - DEAD.
Edit to observe..... Antonin would be well advised to adopt Clarabell Thomas' approcah to pontificating. How's that line go..... Better to not speak and let folks only SPECULATE as to your ignorance - rather than confirming you're a dunce by speaking your tiny mind.
global1
(25,240 posts)LeftInTX
(25,224 posts)DhhD
(4,695 posts)hack89
(39,171 posts)The Congress shall have Power to:
To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;
To provide and maintain a Navy;
To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;
Lesmoderesstupides
(156 posts)hence the 2 year DoD budget cycle, gives em wiggle room around the pesky Constitution the FF were not fans for a permanent Standing Army, Navy different story they PROTECT Commerce and trade.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)A soldier, at that.
Crowman1979
(3,844 posts)Just like the bible!
pansypoo53219
(20,969 posts)oh wait. he would say yes.
Response to kpete (Original post)
Post removed
dbackjon
(6,578 posts)Of you, Alito and Thomas
DallasNE
(7,402 posts)In the Bush v Gore and Citizens United rulings? Those are extreme examples of legislating from the bench, where you were in the 5-4 majorities, showing that you have no credibility.
Jack Rabbit
(45,984 posts)While I agree with Scalia that a good judge will arrive at decisions he does not like, his "originalist" view of the Constitution is both unimaginative and unsatisfactory. Do we need to amend the constitution every time a new technological advance creates a situation that James Madison could not have fathomed in his wildest dreams? Would Scalia interpret the Second Amendment to give the right of an individual to put a Howitzer in his back yard or to build a nuclear bomb in his garage?
DhhD
(4,695 posts)Militia is needed anymore.
Jack Rabbit
(45,984 posts)So where was Scalia when we needed him during the Vietnam War? Would his originalist legal philosophy have led him to declare the draft unconstitutional?
Madmiddle
(459 posts)Hey Toe Knee, how's your wife in bed? His answer; dead, dead, dead. Quite honest for a schmuck.
Old and In the Way
(37,540 posts)Justice Scalia's utter disrespect for the role he should be playing in interpreting it. He is a partisan Republican hack who is willing to subvert the ideals of the document to further the interests of a small minority of people in this country.
GoCubsGo
(32,078 posts)It kills him to know that the Constitution gives to all of the unwashed masses all sorts of freedoms he doesn't think we deserve. What a vile man.
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)If Sotomayor said this, it would be national news, congressional repubs would be calling for her dismissal and there would be a congressional investigation into Obama's selection, vetting and approval processes...
bongbong
(5,436 posts)IOKIYAR
rocktivity
(44,575 posts)a 'murderer, murderer, murder'.
rocktivity
AzDar
(14,023 posts)yellowcanine
(35,699 posts)Are you now conceding that was bad judging?
GoCubsGo
(32,078 posts)He is saying that he doesn't like the some of the decisions he makes, because he is forced to comply with the Constitution, even though he disagrees with it. I'm sure he is quite content with his Bush v Gore decision, as he was able to come up with a rationalization that his warped decision was somehow constitutional.
geardaddy
(24,926 posts)cynzke
(1,254 posts)What are you there for? A paycheck? So when did the constitution "die, die, die"? Before or after your appointment? What a stupid, irresponsible and dangerous claim to make.
Igel
(35,296 posts)It doesn't grow and change that much. If you want it changed, you amend it.
I have a cat. It grows and changes. If I want it changed, I can amend it--it's neutered, making it loss some function--but if I do that too many times then it, too, is dead. Hard to amend it to give it *new* functions.
Since it's gotten harder to make changes to the Constitution the alternative has been to amend the definitions of the terms used in it and to make it say novel things--not just expand "freedom of the press" to similar kinds of activities, but to make it say novel things. "Emanations of penumbras" sort of things.
Odin2005
(53,521 posts)Demeter
(85,373 posts)GoCubsGo
(32,078 posts)This asshole doesn't belong on a road-kill pick-up crew, let alone on the Supreme Court. Just because you hate what's in the Constitution doesn't mean it's dead, you filthy dirt bag.
MissMarple
(9,656 posts)I saw an interview with him a few years ago, he actually stated that he was always right. The other justices can be wrong but not Tony. Although it must be a trial to be surrounded by so many deficient people, he does manage maintain cordial relationships with them.
Lint Head
(15,064 posts)unblock
(52,188 posts)and it was crap he himself didn't believe in then, too.
Hosnon
(7,800 posts)When he is off the Court, that interpretation will likely have one less proponent.
high density
(13,397 posts)and then it suddenly becomes living and people like Scalia interpret it how they want to.
muntrv
(14,505 posts)the Constitution.
Zorra
(27,670 posts)cantbeserious
(13,039 posts)eom
davidpdx
(22,000 posts)I'm going to get spanked hard on DU and I'll take it. The day he dies I will be grave dancing.
I absolutely despise him.
ZRT2209
(1,357 posts)Incitatus
(5,317 posts)olddad56
(5,732 posts)The constitution was pretty much superceded by the provisions in the Patriot Act. The most unpatriotic of all acts.
SoapBox
(18,791 posts)Fuck off!!!
aquart
(69,014 posts)wickerwoman
(5,662 posts)47of74
(18,470 posts)RedCloud
(9,230 posts)BudHardener
(16 posts)The judge who always likes the results he reaches is a bad judge, he said.
So, Scalia admits he always likes his results.
LiberalFighter
(50,862 posts)Thor_MN
(11,843 posts)Initech
(100,060 posts)Sunlei
(22,651 posts)He got in very easy compaired to some but I don't think he lied under oath.
I wish there were about 10 more Justices,none of them were allowed to take any bribes for them or family (removed if they did) and more were Constitution professors for at least 10 years before appointment.
lunatica
(53,410 posts)But as usual, in his conceit he overestimates the results of his own actions.