I happened to be watching CSPAN the other night and caught SC Justice Scalia talking to a group at the Woodrow Wilson Center. He was talking about the ways in which this court has overstepped its bounds and is trying to hide behind the idea that the Costitution is “a living document” in which judges can find new meanings that were not intended by those who wrote it.
Here's the CSPAN clip if you care to watch.
Some points he made that I find rather brilliant:
--“What was ‘cruel and unusual’ and unconstitutional in 1791 remains that today. Executing someone under 18 was not unconstitutional in 1791, so it is not unconstitutional today. Now, it may be very stupid, it may be a very bad idea, just as notching ears, which was a punishment in 1791, is a very bad idea. But the people can … eliminate those stupidities if and when they want. … All you need is a legislature and the ballot box.” Can someone remind federal appeals courts and moronic state supreme courts of this?
--“If, on the other hand, we are picking people to draw out of their own conscience and experience a new constitution, with all sorts of new values to govern our society, then we should not look principally for good lawyers. We should look principally for people who agree with us, the majority, as to whether there ought to be this right, that right or the other right. When judges become lawmakers reflecting the will of the majority, Scalia said, “We have rendered the Constitution useless.”
--""We want moderate judges...what is a moderate interpretation? Halfway between what the law says and what some judge wants it to say?" Brilliant!
Bush....when Renquist steps down, please have the courage to appoint a man who finds the U.S. Constitution as the original legal document by which to make judgements rather than some amorphous "sense of decency" that evolves over time.
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