Antonin Scalia Must Have Been Hangin' Out with David Vitter When They Discussed the Ninth Amendment

But...but...

Heterosexshuls never EVER engage in teh durty evul sodumy! Itz a SINNNNNN! Thay'll go strate to HELLLLLL and bern up in thatthere HELLFIRE n BRIMSTONE!

Morans.

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by: Louise @ Fri Nov 20, 2009 at 10:07:12 AM CST

Recently on C-SPAN

The Great Justice Scalia stated that the proponents of same-sex marriage who rely on the 14th Amendment to make their case are mistaken because,(drumroll, please) the 14th Amendment was intended to be applied only to freed blacks. So my friends, if you are not a freed slave you don't have any right to expect equal protection under the laws. I guess we can throw out the Due Process Section too...

"Money is the only thing they respond to, the only thing they understand. The vision of the Founding Fathers is dead. The Constitution is dead. Only bribery remains." -RW Givens

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by: canoebum @ Fri Nov 20, 2009 at 11:04:25 AM CST

for the love of.....

the day Scalia draws his last breathe will be a better day for America!  

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by: rextrek @ Fri Nov 20, 2009 at 11:09:21 AM CST

How about the day he *retires*.

As long as he's alive, he has the opportunity to grow a clue.

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by: M @ Fri Nov 20, 2009 at 15:06:54 PM CST

[ Parent ]

I always wonder

about the point of "original intent" in light of the fact that the constitution has been amended so many times.  Does "original intent" mean senators should still be appointed by state legislatures rather than elected?  Should the vice president still be the person who draws the second-highest number of votes in the electoral college?  Should there still be no guarantee of equal justice under law, as guaranteed by the 14th amendment?  (I think we can guess Scalia's opinion on that one.)

The fetish right-wingers have for the "original intent" of the founders has always puzzled me.  In what other country are leaders of the past so revered that their every whim has to be honored?  If a politician in France, say, were to oppose a new law on the ground that Charlemagne wouldn't have liked it; if a legislator in England were to suggest that the country should still be governed by the principles espoused by King John; if a Russian pol were to want to pass laws of the sort that were in effect during Ivan the Terrible's reign--they'd be laughed into obscurity overnight.  But here in the Greatest Country in the World (TM), when Scalia or Gingrich or any of the rest make a similar suggestion, they are treated as sages and their opinions are taken seriously.  

For the record, here is one very good example of original intent:  

[L]aws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind...  We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Samuel Kercheval, 1816

Cynic, n.  A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.  
-Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

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by: QScribe @ Fri Nov 20, 2009 at 11:14:50 AM CST

The difference is that none of these countries have a written constitution

And the fundamental purpose of a written constitution is to lay out why government exists, order how it should function and delineate what it can and cannot do.

What I find so damned hypocritical about Scalia is that his very right to pontificate on the matter is itself based on a non-constitutional extention of the Constitution's power. Until 1803, the power of the United States Supreme Court was limited solely to being the court of last appeal. The case of Marbury v. Madison established the doctrine of judicial review and made the Supreme Court the final arbiter of what is and what is not constitutional.

So when Scalia spouts off about whether or not something is constitutional, he is excercising a legal power NOT granted to Supreme Court justices by the Constitution. Quite the "strict constructionist," isn't he.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même merde.

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by: TechBear @ Fri Nov 20, 2009 at 11:43:40 AM CST

[ Parent ]