US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia dead at 79

[chuckd]

Oh, I know what a racist is. We have one in the White House as we speak.

Reverse racism is not a thing. It does not exist in a world where racism is defined as a system of advantages based on race, also known as White Privilege. Non-whites do not benefit from systemic, institutionalised racism, so consequently such people cannot be defined as racist.

White-victimhood now from the extreme white right. The embodiment of crass.

Thank you Charles for confirming that you have entirely no business making any comment on racism. Crassness personified. Enjoy your White Privilege.

Tell you what. Put on your junior rocket scientist hat and find one post where I have been a racist. I've made over 10,000 so there is plenty of material. Find one.

As far as my comment about Obama, look at the record and then try to defend his actions.

If you don't believe black people can be racists then you are not living in the real world.

The only reason I gave you one of these is because, unlike this last post, you didn't deserve two of them

[Publicus]

 

When my dad died, we knew ahead of time he would, the doctor asked if he could do an autopsy as he was perplexed as to what was really wrong. I had no problem, in fact insisted he do so. It was TB, but strange. Anyway, I'm guessing from that the family might need to ok an autopsy. In NM where I was in law enforcement if the circumstances warranted it, the Medical Examiner would call for an autopsy. Usually under suspicious circumstances. The tin foil hat boys will have a good time with this one. I'm guessing from my knowledge of rich Texans that it would be a cold day in hell before anybody at that "ranch" would be involved in an assignation of a right wingnut icon. Although, there are a few sane people left in Texas. If you believe in heaven and hell, his autopsy will come in hell.

I don't know. A guy with that profile you would think an autopsy was a automatic. Would there be a religious reason, some Catholic Tenet, that would have the family decline one? Makes one wonder wether he was terminal and popped a couple pills.

Nothing Catholic about it as far as I could recall from my time in Catholic hell. The Vatican is opposed to cremation last I recall but not necessarily against an autopsy.

States that have a mandatory autopsy law include instances of an unattended death, which this by all accounts is what occurred to Antonin Scalia. I reckon however Texas does not have this law.

The family may have its concerns too but offhand there isn't a pressing reason to conduct an autopsy. It would be the local medical examiner anyway unless the family had a change of heart about it.

The local ME is back in Texas and Scalia's remains are now in Washington so short of an official order back in Texas to return the corpse, it seems past the point of no return.

Besides, US Marshals went directly to the ranch as did US Supreme Court Police in addition to local police, sheriff, detectives and the like and those guys can spot a suffocation or a suspicious pills suicide as soon as they arrive.

[arjunadawn]

Justice Scalia had strong conservative principles, and he will be remembered as a giant of the court. He was, however, too invested in his own celebrity.

I am pretty sure you are an opponent of Scalia's ideology. Therefore, I find your post pretty honorable and gracious.

[sgtsabai]

Autopsy and conspiracy. Assuming you are posting of Scalia, not my dad, I would think as a matter of course there would be an autopsy on Scalia, but it may be up to family. Tell you what, I'm not going back over all your posts, cd, but there have been plenty with lots of dawg whistles, including in this thread. Then again, many racists really don't believe they are racist, so you may fit in that category. Your white privilege shows through like a dying star. Old white men like you have had their day, tick tock, tick tock. You will be in the minority by 2050 at latest, tick tock, tick tock. We won't be around to see it, but you can kiss your beloved racist Republican party good by, unless of course the plutocrats complete their coup.

[Chicog]

Autopsy and conspiracy. Assuming you are posting of Scalia, not my dad, I would think as a matter of course there would be an autopsy on Scalia, but it may be up to family. Tell you what, I'm not going back over all your posts, cd, but there have been plenty with lots of dawg whistles, including in this thread. Then again, many racists really don't believe they are racist, so you may fit in that category. Your white privilege shows through like a dying star. Old white men like you have had their day, tick tock, tick tock. You will be in the minority by 2050 at latest, tick tock, tick tock. We won't be around to see it, but you can kiss your beloved racist Republican party good by, unless of course the plutocrats complete their coup.

I read today that the family have decided against an autopsy, even though his friend said he found him with a pillow over his face.

If that doesn't get Alex Jones foaming at the mouth, nothing will.

[arjunadawn]

Here is a Scalia quote that I wish all SC members, members of Congress and the POTUS would get through their heads. If people want to change society, rather than finding new and spurious interpretations of the Constitution, they should amend it. No member of the SC should be there based on ideology.

"That’s the argument of flexibility and it goes something like this: The Constitution is over 200 years old and societies change. It has to change with society, like a living organism, or it will become brittle and break. But you would have to be an idiot to believe that. The Constitution is not a living organism, it is a legal document. It says something and doesn’t say other things." - Scalia

Well, you are at least as brilliant as Scalia in observing the merits here. With direct attack of the Constitution off the table as a bridge too far, progressivism defined itself (and its goals) by re-defining word meaning on multiple issues. Among the chief targets of this etymology plague has been the oft repeated dishonesty "the Constitution is a living and breathing document." Inculcate something long enough and you will soon find yourself debating those who accept the stipulation- "the constitution is a living and breathing document." Hard to lose arguments once you effectively neutralized your opponents' premise by compromising meaning.

With such a premise stipulated the Constitution became that malleable product which accommodated the vox populi, and as Malcolm Gladwell noted "the tipping point" of social engineering. It is sheer lunacy to think that the minds that framed the Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights, and Constitution would have created a document that would "live and breath" and accommodate itself to the vicissitudes of times and personalities, and be subject to whims, fads, trends, pressures, or intellectual assault, however couched. The Constitution is not commonly subjective.

T cells are to Aids what a "living and breathing document" is the the Constitution- it is the very mechanism of its pathology.

[pegman]

 

When my dad died, we knew ahead of time he would, the doctor asked if he could do an autopsy as he was perplexed as to what was really wrong. I had no problem, in fact insisted he do so. It was TB, but strange. Anyway, I'm guessing from that the family might need to ok an autopsy. In NM where I was in law enforcement if the circumstances warranted it, the Medical Examiner would call for an autopsy. Usually under suspicious circumstances. The tin foil hat boys will have a good time with this one. I'm guessing from my knowledge of rich Texans that it would be a cold day in hell before anybody at that "ranch" would be involved in an assignation of a right wingnut icon. Although, there are a few sane people left in Texas. If you believe in heaven and hell, his autopsy will come in hell.

I don't know. A guy with that profile you would think an autopsy was a automatic. Would there be a religious reason, some Catholic Tenet, that would have the family decline one? Makes one wonder wether he was terminal and popped a couple pills.

Nothing Catholic about it as far as I could recall from my time in Catholic hell. The Vatican is opposed to cremation last I recall but not necessarily against an autopsy.

States that have a mandatory autopsy law include instances of an unattended death, which this by all accounts is what occurred to Antonin Scalia. I reckon however Texas does not have this law.

The family may have its concerns too but offhand there isn't a pressing reason to conduct an autopsy. It would be the local medical examiner anyway unless the family had a change of heart about it.

The local ME is back in Texas and Scalia's remains are now in Washington so short of an official order back in Texas to return the corpse, it seems past the point of no return.

Besides, US Marshals went directly to the ranch as did US Supreme Court Police in addition to local police, sheriff, detectives and the like and those guys can spot a suffocation or a suspicious pills suicide as soon as they arrive.

Something caused this guy's death. If there are no visible signs of what caused it how the hell are these cops going to determine what did? It sounds

I like a Thai investigation to me.

[Ulysses G.]

Tell you what, I'm not going back over all your posts, cd but there have been plenty with lots of dawg whistles, including in this thread. Then again, many racists really don't believe they are racist, so you may fit in that category. Your white privilege shows through like a dying star. Old white men like you have had their day, tick tock, tick tock. You will be in the minority by 2050 at latest, tick tock, tick tock. We won't be around to see it, but you can kiss your beloved racist Republican party good by, unless of course the plutocrats complete their coup.

In other words, you don't have any evidence AT ALL that he is a racist, but you are going to call him one anyway. I don't understand why you get away with posting this kind of hateful rhetoric regularly.

Edited February 15, 2016 by Ulysses G.

[pegman]

Canadian right-wing fish wrap, formerly owned by Brit (USA felon) Conrad Black, the Nat. Post puts a different light on this story. Dem dominated lower courts rule the day for the next year.

http://news.nationalpost.com/news/world/if-republican-led-senate-blocks-obamas-supreme-court-nomination-he-wins-anyway

[Publicus]

 

Here is a Scalia quote that I wish all SC members, members of Congress and the POTUS would get through their heads. If people want to change society, rather than finding new and spurious interpretations of the Constitution, they should amend it. No member of the SC should be there based on ideology.

"That’s the argument of flexibility and it goes something like this: The Constitution is over 200 years old and societies change. It has to change with society, like a living organism, or it will become brittle and break. But you would have to be an idiot to believe that. The Constitution is not a living organism, it is a legal document. It says something and doesn’t say other things." - Scalia

Here is a supremely distinguished American in contrast to Justice Antonin Scalia and whose thoughts have been and continue to be far more profound than the ideological rightwinger appointed to SCOTUS by Ronald Reagan.

I reference the 3rd POTUS Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, Governor of Virginia and president of University of Virginia who also made the Louisiana Purchase from France which over a couple of decades yielded 17 new states....

"I know also, that 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, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and 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 ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors." - Jefferson to H. Tompkinson (AKA Samuel Kercheval), July 12, 1816.

https://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/quotations-jefferson-memorial

The accurate and insightful assertion is one among many great quotes engraved in the stone walls of the magnificent Jefferson Memorial a short distance from the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial and the White House itself.

Rightwingers exemplified by the static and moribund mentality of Justice Antonin Scalia might do well to consider the thoughts and expressed statements of a great and accomplished American founder and creative leader such as Thos Jefferson. Jefferson is a man of a time Scalia presumed arrogantly to represent and to define in the name of his own rightwing, bent doctrinaire and reactionary judicial philsophy.

[NeverSure]

 

Here is a Scalia quote that I wish all SC members, members of Congress and the POTUS would get through their heads. If people want to change society, rather than finding new and spurious interpretations of the Constitution, they should amend it. No member of the SC should be there based on ideology.

"That’s the argument of flexibility and it goes something like this: The Constitution is over 200 years old and societies change. It has to change with society, like a living organism, or it will become brittle and break. But you would have to be an idiot to believe that. The Constitution is not a living organism, it is a legal document. It says something and doesn’t say other things." - Scalia

Here is a supremely distinguished American in contrast to Justice Antonin Scalia and whose thoughts have been and continue to be far more profound than the ideological rightwinger appointed to SCOTUS by Ronald Reagan.

I reference the 3rd POTUS Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, Governor of Virginia and president of University of Virginia who also made the Louisiana Purchase from France which over a couple of decades yielded 17 new states....

"I know also, that 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, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and 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 ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors." - Jefferson to H. Tompkinson (AKA Samuel Kercheval), July 12, 1816.

https://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/quotations-jefferson-memorial

The accurate and insightful assertion is one among many great quotes engraved in the stone walls of the magnificent Jefferson Memorial a short distance from the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial and the White House itself.

Rightwingers exemplified by the static and moribund mentality of Justice Antonin Scalia might do well to consider the thoughts and expressed statements of a great and accomplished American founder and creative leader such as Thos Jefferson. Jefferson is a man of a time Scalia presumed arrogantly to represent and to define in the name of his own rightwing, bent doctrinaire and reactionary judicial philsophy.

You need that long rant just to get an acknowledgement that there is a method to amend the Constitution? What must NOT happen if we want the rule of law is for people to ignore what it says when it says it. You might as well have a Thailand where people just throw the whole thing out every other week at gunpoint.

Just acknowledge that when the Constitution needs to be changed it must go through a process that involves the states and the Senate, rather than have the whole thing hinge on one new appointment - one person.

[Publicus]

 

 

Here is a Scalia quote that I wish all SC members, members of Congress and the POTUS would get through their heads. If people want to change society, rather than finding new and spurious interpretations of the Constitution, they should amend it. No member of the SC should be there based on ideology.

"That’s the argument of flexibility and it goes something like this: The Constitution is over 200 years old and societies change. It has to change with society, like a living organism, or it will become brittle and break. But you would have to be an idiot to believe that. The Constitution is not a living organism, it is a legal document. It says something and doesn’t say other things." - Scalia

Here is a supremely distinguished American in contrast to Justice Antonin Scalia and whose thoughts have been and continue to be far more profound than the ideological rightwinger appointed to SCOTUS by Ronald Reagan.

I reference the 3rd POTUS Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, Governor of Virginia and president of University of Virginia who also made the Louisiana Purchase from France which over a couple of decades yielded 17 new states....

"I know also, that 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, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and 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 ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors." - Jefferson to H. Tompkinson (AKA Samuel Kercheval), July 12, 1816.

https://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/quotations-jefferson-memorial


The accurate and insightful assertion is one among many great quotes engraved in the stone walls of the magnificent Jefferson Memorial a short distance from the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial and the White House itself.

Rightwingers exemplified by the static and moribund mentality of Justice Antonin Scalia might do well to consider the thoughts and expressed statements of a great and accomplished American founder and creative leader such as Thos Jefferson. Jefferson is a man of a time Scalia presumed arrogantly to represent and to define in the name of his own rightwing, bent doctrinaire and reactionary judicial philsophy.

You need that long rant just to get an acknowledgement that there is a method to amend the Constitution? What must NOT happen if we want the rule of law is for people to ignore what it says when it says it. You might as well have a Thailand where people just throw the whole thing out every other week at gunpoint.

Just acknowledge that when the Constitution needs to be changed it must go through a process that involves the states and the Senate, rather than have the whole thing hinge on one new appointment - one person.

To think these points, analysis, insights, are rants then you'd need to burn the midnight oil yet more, even if it might strain both the eyes and the mind.

I reference then quote Justice William J. Brennan appointed by President Eisenhower, that the role of justices is to adapt the Constitution to the present day and to use it, not to preserve a preexisting past society but to make a new one. That Justice Brennan asserts that culture shapes perception, and so we cannot understand the text as the Founders did because we are shaped by our times just as they were shaped by their era. So all judges can ever really do is try to make the Constitution work for todays problems rather than treat it as something that has the same meaning for all times and circumstances.

Now quoting Justice Brennan at Georgetown University in 1985, one year before Antonin Scalia was successfully elevated to the Court by a philosophical fellow Cro Magnon, Ronald Reagan:

"Constitutions are, to use the words of Chief Justice John Marshall, 'designed to approach immortality as nearly as human institutions can approach it.' [T]therefore, our contemplation cannot be only of what has been, but of what may be.

"Interpretation must account for the transformative purpose of the text. Our Constitution was not intended to preserve a preexisting society but to make a new one, to put in place new principles that the prior political community had not sufficiently recognized. For example, when we interpret the Civil War Amendments to the charter -- abolishing slavery, guaranteeing blacks equality under law, and guaranteeing blacks the right to vote -- we must remember that those who put them in place had no desire to enshrine the status quo. Their goal was to make over their world, to eliminate all vestige of slave caste."

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/supremecourt/democracy/sources_document7.html

This of course leaves Justice Antonin Scalia in the company of a struggling 18th century man to include certain expats, while simultaneously having spent a career travelling backwards in time, conditions, circumstances. The reactionary and primitive Justice Antonin Scalia & Co.

Edited February 15, 2016 by Publicus

[JHolmesJr]

"...the progress of the human mind...more developed...more enlightened"

Ha!

[Publicus]

Voices from the Scalia cave colony.

[lannarebirth]

Justice Scalia had strong conservative principles, and he will be remembered as a giant of the court. He was, however, too invested in his own celebrity.

What I find most interesting about Scalia is how he valued intelligence over ideology. At least in others. He suggested Ruth Bader Ginsburg's name to Bill Clinton and Elena Kagan's name to Obama. His argument for each centered on their intellectual gifts rather than how they might vote in any given case before the court.

Edited February 15, 2016 by lannarebirth

[thaibeachlovers]

 

 

When the founding fathers set up the country, homosexuals would probably have been killed, so it doesn't need to be in the constitution for him to know that they would not have approved. It was so outrageous an idea back then that they didn't even think about putting it in the constitution, as it wouldn't have even registered as an idea to them. You might as well ask why they didn't ban nuclear bombs.

Equality under law. It's all over the founding documents, papers, thoughts, discussions, debates, ideas, precepts.

Take note of it here in our time, place, circumstance:

The words "equal justice under law" paraphrase an earlier expression coined in 1891 by the Supreme Court.[7][8] In the case of Caldwell v. Texas, Chief Justice Melville Fuller wrote on behalf of a unanimous Court as follows, regarding the Fourteenth Amendment: "the powers of the States in dealing with crime within their borders are not limited, but no State can deprive particular persons or classes of persons of equal and impartial justice under the law."[9] The last seven words are summarized by the inscription on the U.S. Supreme Court building.[7]

Later in 1891, Fuller's opinion for the Court in Leeper v. Texas again referred to "equal...justice under...law".[10] Like Caldwell, the Leeper opinion was unanimous...[11]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_justice_under_law

Scalia for all his personal attention to privacy missed this completely and it is due to his religious and rightwing views, attitudes, convictions, all of which were in toto in conflict with the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, Federalist Papers etc.

All men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable [sic] rights, chief among them being life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Looks like Justice Antonin Scalia had the wrong creator. His must have been from down below instead.

Sure hope he likes it down there.

You seem to be implying that the founding fathers were NOT, in fact slave owners, and WOULD have allowed acknowledged homosexuals to not only live, but to marry.

The post is again way off base and out in a distant zone of confused and confounded reference.

The Founders certainly would not have approved of it. No one today thinks the Founders would have approved of gay marriage or gay anything, at least not publicly if at all.

The possible material comparison would be whether, if George Washington were potus today, at the present time, would he advocate or support equal justice under law. I propose he indeed would. One can argue it either way but I would argue that President Washington today would not be a rightwhingenut nor would he support Mike Huckabee or as a successor in office, nor would he support overly religious candidates all of which are over on the far fringe right.

A President George Washington today would of course congratulate Barack Hussein Obama and attend the opening ceremony of the President Barack Obama Library and Centre. George btw never graduated university so he might be well impressed by Barack Obama the lawyer. Abraham Lincoln who was a lawyer would surely congratulate Barack Hussein Obama in the White House.

In fact one can suspect Antonin Scalia might have some heavy explaining to do at the Gates to Eternal Greatness where Washington and Lincoln will surely stamp his application with its reject notice.

LOL. Now I know you live in a fantasy world

[Felipesed]

Oh, I know what a racist is. We have one in the White House as we speak.

Reverse racism is not a thing. It does not exist in a world where racism is defined as a system of advantages based on race, also known as White Privilege. Non-whites do not benefit from systemic, institutionalised racism, so consequently such people cannot be defined as racist.

White-victimhood now from the extreme white right. The embodiment of crass.

Have you ever heard of a country formerly called Rhodesia, which was the breadbasket of Africa?

After "independence", the name was changed to Zimbabwe.

Do you know what happened there to the white farmers?

[stillbornagain]

Oh, I know what a racist is. We have one in the White House as we speak.

Reverse racism is not a thing. It does not exist in a world where racism is defined as a system of advantages based on race, also known as White Privilege. Non-whites do not benefit from systemic, institutionalised racism, so consequently such people cannot be defined as racist.

White-victimhood now from the extreme white right. The embodiment of crass.

Have you ever heard of a country formerly called Rhodesia, which was the breadbasket of Africa?

After "independence", the name was changed to Zimbabwe.

Do you know what happened there to the white farmers?

You mean the white farmers who stole the land in the first place and evicted the hative peoples from it? Who saw to it that virtually zero money was spent on their education? Who denied them basic human rights? What do you expect would happen in such a case?

[thaibeachlovers]

Oh, I know what a racist is. We have one in the White House as we speak.

Reverse racism is not a thing. It does not exist in a world where racism is defined as a system of advantages based on race, also known as White Privilege. Non-whites do not benefit from systemic, institutionalised racism, so consequently such people cannot be defined as racist.

White-victimhood now from the extreme white right. The embodiment of crass.

Have you ever heard of a country formerly called Rhodesia, which was the breadbasket of Africa?

After "independence", the name was changed to Zimbabwe.

Do you know what happened there to the white farmers?

You mean the white farmers who stole the land in the first place and evicted the hative peoples from it? Who saw to it that virtually zero money was spent on their education? Who denied them basic human rights? What do you expect would happen in such a case?

If you want to go down that road, the Norman descendents in the UK should give the land back to the Saxon descendents.

The white people that initially took the land died centuries ago. After native rule was established in Rhodesia, the white farmers continued to live there, employing black workers, because it was recognised that they were as much African as the blacks, though with a different coloured skin. The land was taken by Zanu PF to give to cronys , because those farmers were white.

Mind you, it's not so much a racist thing in Zimbabwe as a tribal thing, as Zanu PF hates the other tribes, of whatever colour skin.

[thaibeachlovers]

Oh, I know what a racist is. We have one in the White House as we speak.

Reverse racism is not a thing. It does not exist in a world where racism is defined as a system of advantages based on race, also known as White Privilege. Non-whites do not benefit from systemic, institutionalised racism, so consequently such people cannot be defined as racist.

White-victimhood now from the extreme white right. The embodiment of crass.

You are correct that "Reverse racism is not a thing", as there is no such thing as "reverse" racism. There is only racism, which can be carried out by any coloured people against any other coloured people, or even people of one colour against people of the same colour but a different race. ie English vs Irish, or even Protestant Irish vs Catholic Irish ( different races, same colour ).

[stillbornagain]

 

 

Here is a Scalia quote that I wish all SC members, members of Congress and the POTUS would get through their heads. If people want to change society, rather than finding new and spurious interpretations of the Constitution, they should amend it. No member of the SC should be there based on ideology.

"That’s the argument of flexibility and it goes something like this: The Constitution is over 200 years old and societies change. It has to change with society, like a living organism, or it will become brittle and break. But you would have to be an idiot to believe that. The Constitution is not a living organism, it is a legal document. It says something and doesn’t say other things." - Scalia

Here is a supremely distinguished American in contrast to Justice Antonin Scalia and whose thoughts have been and continue to be far more profound than the ideological rightwinger appointed to SCOTUS by Ronald Reagan.

I reference the 3rd POTUS Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, Governor of Virginia and president of University of Virginia who also made the Louisiana Purchase from France which over a couple of decades yielded 17 new states....

"I know also, that 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, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and 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 ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors." - Jefferson to H. Tompkinson (AKA Samuel Kercheval), July 12, 1816.

https://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/quotations-jefferson-memorial

The accurate and insightful assertion is one among many great quotes engraved in the stone walls of the magnificent Jefferson Memorial a short distance from the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial and the White House itself.

Rightwingers exemplified by the static and moribund mentality of Justice Antonin Scalia might do well to consider the thoughts and expressed statements of a great and accomplished American founder and creative leader such as Thos Jefferson. Jefferson is a man of a time Scalia presumed arrogantly to represent and to define in the name of his own rightwing, bent doctrinaire and reactionary judicial philsophy.

You need that long rant just to get an acknowledgement that there is a method to amend the Constitution? What must NOT happen if we want the rule of law is for people to ignore what it says when it says it. You might as well have a Thailand where people just throw the whole thing out every other week at gunpoint.

Just acknowledge that when the Constitution needs to be changed it must go through a process that involves the states and the Senate, rather than have the whole thing hinge on one new appointment - one person.

To think these points, analysis, insights, are rants then you'd need to burn the midnight oil yet more, even if it might strain both the eyes and the mind.

I reference then quote Justice William J. Brennan appointed by President Eisenhower, that the role of justices is to adapt the Constitution to the present day and to use it, not to preserve a preexisting past society but to make a new one. That Justice Brennan asserts that culture shapes perception, and so we cannot understand the text as the Founders did because we are shaped by our times just as they were shaped by their era. So all judges can ever really do is try to make the Constitution work for todays problems rather than treat it as something that has the same meaning for all times and circumstances.

Now quoting Justice Brennan at Georgetown University in 1985, one year before Antonin Scalia was successfully elevated to the Court by a philosophical fellow Cro Magnon, Ronald Reagan:

"Constitutions are, to use the words of Chief Justice John Marshall, 'designed to approach immortality as nearly as human institutions can approach it.' [T]therefore, our contemplation cannot be only of what has been, but of what may be.

"Interpretation must account for the transformative purpose of the text. Our Constitution was not intended to preserve a preexisting society but to make a new one, to put in place new principles that the prior political community had not sufficiently recognized. For example, when we interpret the Civil War Amendments to the charter -- abolishing slavery, guaranteeing blacks equality under law, and guaranteeing blacks the right to vote -- we must remember that those who put them in place had no desire to enshrine the status quo. Their goal was to make over their world, to eliminate all vestige of slave caste."

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/supremecourt/democracy/sources_document7.html

This of course leaves Justice Antonin Scalia in the company of a struggling 18th century man to include certain expats, while simultaneously having spent a career travelling backwards in time, conditions, circumstances. The reactionary and primitive Justice Antonin Scalia & Co.

The following is from Eric Posner, a fairly conservative and eminent professor of law:

"Scalia’s interpretation of originalist sources has been frequently criticized, and in notable instances when he could not bend them to his will, he simply ignored them. His belief that campaign finance laws and commercial speech regulations violated the First Amendment would have surprised the founders, for example."

Edited February 16, 2016 by stillbornagain

[thaibeachlovers]

Seems that there are people on here that think it's OK for FIVE people to determine the fate of the nation ( as long as it is determined in a way that THEY agree with- if it's opposed, then it's just terrible ). I can't go along with that. That is almost as bad as being in a dictatorship.

[Credo]

Seems that there are people on here that think it's OK for FIVE people to determine the fate of the nation ( as long as it is determined in a way that THEY agree with- if it's opposed, then it's just terrible ). I can't go along with that. That is almost as bad as being in a dictatorship.

What a completely silly and inflammatory thing to say. These 5 people do not determine anyone's fate. The fate is determined by the laws enacted and any court challenges generally go through a myriad of lower courts before reaching the SCOTUS. Even then, they will only look at the Constitutionality of the law, not whether they agree or disagree with it.

They also pick and chose which cases they will hear.

Indeed they are powerful, but they are hardly a dictatorship and it is not unknown for their rulings to go ignored. I don't recall which President said it, but to paraphrase: "If the Supreme Court doesn't like it, then let them enforce it."

The Supreme Court has no policing ability and no army. They can pass a ruling, but they have no means of enforcing it.

[Pinot]

How you feeling Clarence?

So, there is no truth then to the rumors that Clarence Thomas would voluntarily be buried alive with Scalia?

Proof that liberals can be racist.

Clarence Thomas gets up every morning and is disgusted by what he sees. I doubt Thomas has ever had an original thought in his life. How this disappointment to black America got to be on the Supreme Court is beyond reason.

Scalia owned Clarence Thomas. He was his puppet.

How is that above comment racist? Really...explain to me the racism? It's a comment about a poor excuse of a Supreme Court justice and doesn't touch on race.

[jaidam]

 

When my dad died, we knew ahead of time he would, the doctor asked if he could do an autopsy as he was perplexed as to what was really wrong. I had no problem, in fact insisted he do so. It was TB, but strange. Anyway, I'm guessing from that the family might need to ok an autopsy. In NM where I was in law enforcement if the circumstances warranted it, the Medical Examiner would call for an autopsy. Usually under suspicious circumstances. The tin foil hat boys will have a good time with this one. I'm guessing from my knowledge of rich Texans that it would be a cold day in hell before anybody at that "ranch" would be involved in an assignation of a right wingnut icon. Although, there are a few sane people left in Texas. If you believe in heaven and hell, his autopsy will come in hell.

I don't know. A guy with that profile you would think an autopsy was a automatic. Would there be a religious reason, some Catholic Tenet, that would have the family decline one? Makes one wonder wether he was terminal and popped a couple pills.

Nothing Catholic about it as far as I could recall from my time in Catholic hell. The Vatican is opposed to cremation last I recall but not necessarily against an autopsy.

States that have a mandatory autopsy law include instances of an unattended death, which this by all accounts is what occurred to Antonin Scalia. I reckon however Texas does not have this law.

The family may have its concerns too but offhand there isn't a pressing reason to conduct an autopsy. It would be the local medical examiner anyway unless the family had a change of heart about it.

The local ME is back in Texas and Scalia's remains are now in Washington so short of an official order back in Texas to return the corpse, it seems past the point of no return.

Besides, US Marshals went directly to the ranch as did US Supreme Court Police in addition to local police, sheriff, detectives and the like and those guys can spot a suffocation or a suspicious pills suicide as soon as they arrive.

Something caused this guy's death. If there are no visible signs of what caused it how the hell are these cops going to determine what did? It sounds

I like a Thai investigation to me.

the pillow that was covering his head wasn't a visible sign? So, on appearance he was suffocated, but, no need for an autopsy?

[chuckd]

How you feeling Clarence?

So, there is no truth then to the rumors that Clarence Thomas would voluntarily be buried alive with Scalia?

Proof that liberals can be racist.

Clarence Thomas gets up every morning and is disgusted by what he sees. I doubt Thomas has ever had an original thought in his life. How this disappointment to black America got to be on the Supreme Court is beyond reason.

Scalia owned Clarence Thomas. He was his puppet.

How is that above comment racist? Really...explain to me the racism? It's a comment about a poor excuse of a Supreme Court justice and doesn't touch on race.

How can you possibly know what Justice Thomas thinks when he gets up each morning?

How can you possibly claim he never had an original thought in his life?

How can you possibly know that, as you so ignorantly claim, Justice Scalia "owned" Justice Thomas?

To respond to my own questions...you can't know and you don't know.

Just another typical Pinot post.

[chuckd]

After reading over 200 posts on this thread, I am bemused by something that some of you might be able to clear up.

My question is directed towards the Europeans and Aussies that might have posted on this thread.

Precisely which decisions made by Justice Scalia have had a direct impact on the Europeans and Australians that have contributed?

How have his decisions affected you personally?

Anybody?

[stevenl]

After reading over 200 posts on this thread, I am bemused by something that some of you might be able to clear up.

My question is directed towards the Europeans and Aussies that might have posted on this thread.

Precisely which decisions made by Justice Scalia have had a direct impact on the Europeans and Australians that have contributed?

How have his decisions affected you personally?

Anybody?

Most prominent would be his choice to award Bush the presidency over Gore.

[pegman]

After reading over 200 posts on this thread, I am bemused by something that some of you might be able to clear up.

My question is directed towards the Europeans and Aussies that might have posted on this thread.

Precisely which decisions made by Justice Scalia have had a direct impact on the Europeans and Australians that have contributed?

How have his decisions affected you personally?

Anybody?

Most prominent would be his choice to award Bush the presidency over Gore.

Yup, that was a beaut. 10,000's wrongfully killed. 1,000,000's displaced and flooding Europe. Mid-east burning as we speak. All over one man's partisan vote.

[chuckd]

After reading over 200 posts on this thread, I am bemused by something that some of you might be able to clear up.

My question is directed towards the Europeans and Aussies that might have posted on this thread.

Precisely which decisions made by Justice Scalia have had a direct impact on the Europeans and Australians that have contributed?

How have his decisions affected you personally?

Anybody?

Most prominent would be his choice to award Bush the presidency over Gore.

His choice was one of five that voted to stay a decision of the Florida Supreme Court and follow the laws of Florida. He did not single handedly give the election to Bush and your assertion that the election was decided by "his choice" is ridiculous.

Gore lost the election in Florida as was evidenced by the NY Times and other media sources that ultimately decided after a lengthy investigation the election was won by Bush and not Gore.

This is what Justice Scalia said about the decision:

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

"It suffices to say that the issuance of the stay suggests that a majority of the Court, while not deciding the issues presented, believe that the petitioner has a substantial probability of success. The issue is not, as the dissent puts it, whether "counting every legally cast vote can constitute irreparable harm." One of the principal issues in the appeal we have accepted is precisely whether the votes that have been ordered to be counted are, under a reasonable interpretation of Florida law, "legally cast vote." The counting of votes that are of questionable legality does in my view threaten irreparable harm to petitioner Bush, and to the country, by casting a cloud upon what he claims to be the legitimacy of his election. Count first, and rule upon legality afterwards, is not a recipe for producing election results that have the public acceptance democratic stability requires.^[13]"

^{---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------}

Is that all you have?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_v._Gore

Edit in: Pegman, is that all you have as well?

Edited February 16, 2016 by chuckd