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| Cult of Scalia |
Overcome by unadulterated awe, we, the votaries of perhaps the greatest jurist of our time, have taken wholeheartedly to the net, that he might be more widely known and appreciated.
Antonin Scalia, was appointed Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court in 1986. Since that time he has fought tirelessly for a Constitution of real meaning and for a democracy under the rule of law--rather than of men.
Read a few of Scalia's wonderful opinions:
Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992)
John Angus Smith v. United States (1993)
Lucas v. S.C. Coastal Council (1992)
Crusan v. Dir.of Dept. of Health (1990)
Employment Division v. Smith (1990)
U.S. v. X-Citement Video (1994)
Plaut v. Spendthrift Farm (1995)
Webster v. Reproductive Health Services (1989)
Rutan v. Republican Party of Illinois (1990)
More!
If in the opinion of the people the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this in one instance may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit which the use can at any time yield. --George Washington, Farewell Address (1796).
Political reasons have not the requisite certainty to afford juridical interpretation. They are different in different men. They are different in the same men at different times. And when a strict interpretation of the Constitution, according to the fixed rules which govern the interpretation of laws, is abandoned, and the theoretical opinions of individuals are allowed to control its meaning, we have no longer a Constitution; we are under a government of individual men, who for the time being have the power to declare what the Constitution is, according to their own views of that it ought to mean. Dred Scott v.Sanford, 19 How. 393, 620 (1857) (Curtis, J., dissenting).
But the Court does not wish to be fettered by any such limitations on its preferences. The Court's statement that it is "tempting" to acknowledge the authoritativeness of tradition in order to "cur[b] the discretion of federal judges,". . . is of course rhetoric rather than reality; no government official is "tempted" to place restraints on his own freedom of action, which is why Lord Acton did not say "Power tends to purify." The Court's temptation is in the quite opposite and more natural direction--towards systematically eliminating checks upon its own power; and it succumbs. Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833, 981 (1992) (Scalia, J., dissenting).
A judge, attributing to the law a meaning it does not have--because he is convinced it is for the best--is like a police officer who plants evidence to convict a man he is sure is guilty. He takes on a power that is not lawfully his to accomplish what he personally views as "just." This has no place in a democratic republic. - Anonymous
Christian Science Monitor article on Scalia
Glen Elsasser's Chicago Tribune Article on Scalia
Scalia Biography at Cornell's LII
An important essay by the Justice is now available from the Princeton University Press:
"A Matter of Interpretation: Federal Courts and the Law" gives a succinct and insightful treatment of fundamental questions about the proper role of the federal judiciary and its power to interpret our statutory and constitutional law. Commentaries by Lawrence Tribe, Ronald Dworkin and others, give the good Justice a run for his money. It is a "must read" for anyone interested in constitutional interpretation, whatever their own position might be. [excerpts]
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Scalia, Antonin Scalia, Justice Scalia, Scalia, J., Cult of Scalia, Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia