Scalia Says Opponents Are 'Idiots'

[im10ashus]

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: February 14, 2006

Filed at 11:03 a.m. ET

PONCE, Puerto Rico (AP) -- People who believe the Constitution would break if it didn't change with society are ''idiots,'' U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia says.

In a speech Monday sponsored by the conservative Federalist Society, Scalia defended his long-held belief in sticking to the plain text of the Constitution ''as it was originally written and intended.''

''Scalia does have a philosophy, it's called originalism,'' he said. ''That's what prevents him from doing the things he would like to do,'' he told more than 100 politicians and lawyers from this U.S. island territory.

According to his judicial philosophy, he said, there can be no room for personal, political or religious beliefs.

Scalia criticized those who believe in what he called the ''living Constitution.''

cont'd..

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1154AP_Scalia_Constitution.html

[C_U_L8R]

1. Does he really talk about himself in the third person ???

What a whack-job

(and quite an idiot as well)

[im10ashus]

5. And he is a hypocrite.

Originalism as a doctrine doesn't hold up at all. And Scalia doesn't even stick with it. Just a few months ago, he voted with the minority in the Oregon physician-assisted suicide case (with his fellow originalist dissenters Roberts and Thomas). Under the originalist view, this is clearly a state's rights issue - the federal government doesn't have the right to invalidate a state law that falls out of the federal government's enumerated powers. That, in fact, is what the majority found.

So Scalia is less of an originalist, and more of a hypocrite.

[txindy]

2. Now, wait. He refers to himself as "Scalia?" Seriously?!

''Scalia does have a philosophy, it's called originalism,'' he said. ''That's what prevents him from doing the things he would like to do,'' he told more than 100 politicians and lawyers from this U.S. island territory.


:rofl:

[Democrats_win]

3. This unethical POS should STFU.

[leeroysphitz]

4. "no room for personal, political or religious beliefs"

I only wish that were so... The he and "Scalito" wouldn't be half the threat to our freedom that they are now.

[sakabatou]

6. No love for Scalia

:grr:

[gratuitous]

7. The argument of a jackass

If I read this right, Scalia's argument boils down to the constitution is only to be read as it was originally written and intended. And who decides what was intended? Why, Mr. Scalia and Mr. Scalia alone, of course! You don't need to read The Federalist Papers, you don't need to look at the historical context of what was put into the constitution and how those articles and amendments might be applied today, a far different time and place (where, for example, human slavery is no longer regarded as a peculiar institution but as an unmitigated evil against the dignity of all of humanity, master and slave alike). Simply consult the all-knowing, all-wise oracle of "Fat Tony" Scalia; because if you don't, you're an idiot.

That about capture it, Mr. Scalia? Because your argument is as bogus as your proposition.

[im10ashus]

9. He's a hypocrite.

Read my response up-thread a bit. He's SUCH a hypocrite.

[gratuitous]

15. He had the same problem in Bush v. Gore

Somehow, the Supreme Court had to pierce the state supreme court's veil over its authority to interpret Florida state laws. And Fat Tony found it: Did you know that ballots have a 14th Amendment right to due process? Me neither, but Fat Tony found that the disputed Florida ballots' right to due process trumped all other considerations, including determining the rightful winner of the Florida election. Astonishing, really, but since that was his ruling in Bush v. Gore, it is ipso facto indisputable that the 14th Amendment applies to paper ballots, though perhaps not to citizens. Thus saith Fat Tony, so mote it be.

[im10ashus]

18. That I did not know.

Thanks for that information.

[Johonny]

16. Pretty much

[dusmcj]

8. not a bad idea if he'd act accordingly

In this day and age when we too frequently can't find a principle with both hands and a flashlight, and when the notion of absolutes and abstractions makes us feel queasy because their acceptance might imply that some effort would be required on our part, a position which states that the Founders made it their life's work to identify sound abstractions for successful government in a free society, and largely succeeded, is a useful and needed one to take. Since absolutes are by definition absolute and don't change with time - like every man's inherent right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for example. Such a position denies access to influence for the mediocre, the self-satisfied and the self-interested, who would have us turn and twist according to group opinion of the moment, which is merely the unconscious output of other mediocrities like themselves. We know what opinions are like...

And yet we are concerned whether this self-proclaimed champion of rational government will act accordingly.

[BurtWorm]

10. Jefferson to Madison: "The earth belongs to the living..."

The subject was debt, but read between the lines, Scalia. He's talking about all claims the dead have on the living.


http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/P/tj3/writings/brf/jefl81.htm

To James Madison Paris, Sep. 6, 1789
DEAR SIR,

-- I sit down to write to you without knowing by what occasion I shall send my letter. I do it because a subject comes into my head which I would wish to develope a little more than is practicable in the hurry of the moment of making up general despatches.

The question Whether one generation of men has a right to bind another, seems never to have been started either on this or our side of the water. Yet it is a question of such consequences as not only to merit decision, but place also, among the fundamental principles of every government. The course of reflection in which we are immersed here on the elementary principles of society has presented this question to my mind; and that no such obligation can be transmitted I think very capable of proof. I set out on this ground which I suppose to be self evident, "that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living;" that the dead have neither powers nor rights over it. The portion occupied by an individual ceases to be his when himself ceases to be, and reverts to the society. If the society has formed no rules for the appropriation of its lands in severalty, it will be taken by the first occupants. These will generally be the wife and children of the decedent. If they have formed rules of appropriation, those rules may give it to the wife and children, or to some one of them, or to the legatee of the deceased. So they may give it to his creditor. But the child, the legatee or creditor takes it, not by any natural right, but by a law of the society of which they are members, and to which they are subject. Then no man can by natural right oblige the lands he occupied, or the persons who succeed him in that occupation, to the paiment of debts contracted by him. For if he could, he might during his own life, eat up the usufruct of the lands for several generations to come, and then the lands would belong to the dead, and not to the living, which would be reverse of our principle. What is true of every member of the society individually, is true of them all collectively, since the rights of the whole can be no more than the sum of the rights of individuals. To keep our ideas clear when applying them to a multitude, let us suppose a whole generation of men to be born on the same day, to attain mature age on the same day, and to die on the same day, leaving a succeeding generation in the moment of attaining their mature age all together. Let the ripe age be supposed of 21. years, and their period of life 34. years more, that being the average term given by the bills of mortality to persons who have already attained 21. years of age. Each successive generation would, in this way, come on and go off the stage at a fixed moment, as individuals do now. Then I say the earth belongs to each of these generations during it's course, fully, and in their own right. The 2d. generation receives it clear of the debts and incumbrances of the 1st., the 3d. of the 2d. and so on. For if the 1st. could charge it with a debt, then the earth would belong to the dead and not the living generation. Then no generation can contract debts greater than may be paid during the course of it's own existence. At 21. years of age they may bind themselves and their lands for 34. years to come: at 22. for 33: at 23 for 32. and at 54 for one year only; because these are the terms of life which remain to them at those respective epochs. But a material difference must be noted between the succession of an individual and that of a whole generation. Individuals are parts only of a society, subject to the laws of a whole. These laws may appropriate the portion of land occupied by a decedent to his creditor rather than to any other, or to his child, on condition he satisfies his creditor. But when a whole generation, that is, the whole society dies, as in the case we have supposed, and another generation or society succeeds, this forms a whole, and there is no superior who can give their territory to a third society, who may have lent money to their predecessors beyond their faculty of paying.

[BurtWorm]

11. More of Jefferson's rebuttal of Scalidiot.

http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/jeff1000.htm

16. Amending the Constitution


No work of man is perfect. It is inevitable that, in the course of time, the imperfections of a written Constitution will become apparent. Moreover, the passage of time will bring changes in society which a Constitution must accommodate if it is to remain suitable for the nation. It was imperative, therefore, that a practicable means of amending the Constitution be provided.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


"Whatever be the Constitution, great care must be taken to provide a mode of amendment when experience or change of circumstances shall have manifested that any part of it is unadapted to the good of the nation. In some of our States it requires a new authority from the whole people, acting by their representatives, chosen for this express purpose, and assembled in convention. This is found too difficult for remedying the imperfections which experience develops from time to time in an organization of the first impression. A greater facility of ammendment is certainly requisite to maintain it in a course of action accommodated to the times and changes through which we are ever passing." --Thomas Jefferson to A. Coray, 1823. ME 15:488
"Time and changes in the condition and constitution of society may require occasional and corresponding modifications." --Thomas Jefferson to Edward Livingston, 1825. ME 16:113

"Nothing is more likely than that enumeration of powers is defective. This is the ordinary case of all human works. Let us then go on perfecting it by adding by way of amendment to the Constitution those powers which time and trial show are still wanting." --Thomas Jefferson to Wilson Nicholas, 1803. ME 10:419

"Though we may say with confidence, that the worst of the American constitutions is better than the best which ever existed before in any other country, and that they are wonderfully perfect for a first essay, yet every human essay must have defects. It will remain, therefore, to those now coming on the stage of public affairs, to perfect what has been so well begun by those going off it." --Thomas Jefferson to T. M. Randolph, Jr., 1787. ME 6:165

"We must be contented to travel on towards perfection, step by step. We must be contented with the ground which Constitution will gain for us, and hope that a favorable moment will come for correcting what is amiss in it." --Thomas Jefferson to the Count de Moustier, 1788. ME 7:13

"To secure the ground we gain, and gain what more we can, is, I think, the wisest course." --Thomas Jefferson to George Mason, 1790. ME 8:35

"Our government wanted bracing. Still, we must take care not to run from one extreme to another; not to brace too high." --Thomas Jefferson to Edward Rutledge, 1788. ME 7:81

"This peaceable and legitimate resource , to which we are in the habit of implicit obedience, superseding all appeal to force and being always within our reach, shows a precious principle of self-preservation in our composition, till a change of circumstances shall take place, which is not within prospect at any definite period." --Thomas Jefferson to Joseph Priestley, 1801. ME 10:230

[im10ashus]

19. Thanks BurtWorm!

Scalia is, in a nutshell, shitting all over our Constitution.

[Lucille]

12. Only he and other originalists know what was originally

intended.

They weren't there, but...they just know.



And you have to trust them. And if you don't, you're an idiot.

[Crankie Avalon]

13. Very intellectually impressive, elevated forensic discourse, there...

...now all he needs to do is call the other side "a big bunch of poopie-heads," hold his thumb to his nose while waving his fingers in the air, and shout "NEENER, NEENER, NEENER" to sew up his ranking as a modern day Cicero.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

14. Time for another hunting trip with Dickie.....

.....DUCK!

[Clark2008]

17. I wish Cheney would take Scalia hunting again.

That would solve some problems.

:think:

[im10ashus]

20. This is actually a question on CNN's Cafferty file today.

I sent my reply.

cnn.com/caffertyfile