Good on Antonin!! (But Lewis Carroll was there first.)
“The Constitution says what it says and it doesn’t say anything more,” said Scalia to an audience of 250 people, most of them legal professionals and academics.
...“Under the guise of interpreting the Constitution and under the banner of a living Constitution, judges, especially those on the Supreme Court, now wield an enormous amount of political power,” continued Scalia, “because they don’t just apply the rules that have been written, they create new rules.”
Scalia pointed out that the high court distorted the meaning of “due process” (referring to legal procedure) in the 14th Amendment to invent new rights under a “made up” concept of “substantial due process.” That has allowed the 14th Amendment to become the gateway to legal abortion and other behaviors
Lewis Carroll anticipated such cretins as Brennan and Blackmun and foretold The Problem With SCOTUS.
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master - - that's all."
The voters of Iowa decided the question of "master." There will be more such deciding.
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5 comments:
Perhaps Scalia should practice what he preaches.
Interesting how he and some of his conservative brethren perpetuated the lie in Citizens United, whose foundation lay with the infamous 1886 Santa Clara railroad case in Citizens United.
Somehow corporations were considered "natural persons", and it become accepted that they had political rights under due process, even though the Court never officially made a ruling addressing that specific matter in Santa Clara. Subsequent rulings rest on a fallacy that corporations have "political free speech".
Mind you, corporations have "economic free speech" granted by the state through their charter. Past precedent using the 14th Amendment under this concept has been thoroughly established. A company may use that speech to promote and protect their product.
"Political free speech", however, had been reserved exclusively to individual citizens until a series of court cases beginning in the 1970's, based on the Santa Clara case, perversely gave companies, which are "artificial entities", those rights reserved exclusively for citizens who are "natural born".
Chief Justice William Rehnquist in particular noted this fallacy in Bank of Boston v. Bellotti (1977).
www.reclaimdemocracy.org/corporate_speech/rehnquist_dissent_bellotti.php
Well, as soon as SCOTUS declared that 'money IS speech,' they were in a corner.
Be careful what you wish for. The AFL-CIO is not a 'natural' person, either--nor AFSCME.
That would be about $125 Million in just the '10 cycle between the two of them, not counting "volunteer" time spent.
"Well, as soon as SCOTUS declared that 'money IS speech,' they were in a corner."
Absolutely not. The conservatives on the court could have observed precedent and past Congressional law on the matter, which was overturned in Citizens United. They choose to make that decision.
I wonder why???
Sounds like a case of conservative judicial activism to me.
"Be careful what you wish for. The AFL-CIO is not a 'natural' person, either--nor AFSCME."
Absolutely, no argument here.
Well.
"Precedent" is not a god.
If "precedent" were all that important, the Roe decision would have gone the other way.
Perhaps SCOTUS just decided that speech was speech, regardless of the source--respecting, thus, the AFLCIO and AFSCME (et al) rights.
Scalia's moral views have a habit of grafting themselves onto his constitutional philosophy, and some of his decisions have even led conservatives who hold precedent in high-esteem to label him as a hypocrite willing to cast his principles of limited government aside in order to further his own agenda.
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