- Disapprove
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- Nov 07, 2020
Antonin Scalia Quotes
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- Last Updated on May 30, 2021
- Death
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- Nov 07, 2020
There exists in some parts of the world sanctimonious criticism of America's death penalty, as somehow unworthy of a civilized society.
- Good
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- Nov 07, 2020
A good, hard-hitting dissent keeps you honest.
- New
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- Nov 07, 2020
There is nothing new in the realization that the Constitution sometimes insulates the criminality of a few in order to protect the privacy of us all.
- Disclose
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- Nov 07, 2020
A search is a search, even if it happens to disclose nothing but the bottom of a turntable.
- Converting
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- Nov 07, 2020
The Court today completes the process of converting Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 from a guarantee that race or sex will not be the basis for often will.
- Economic
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- Nov 07, 2020
A law can be both economic folly and constitutional.
- Family
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- Nov 07, 2020
In a big family the first child is kind of like the first pancake. If it's not perfect, that's okay, there are a lot more coming along.
- Good
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- Nov 07, 2020
If we're picking people to draw out of their own conscience and experience a 'new' Constitution, we should not look principally for good lawyers. We should look to people who agree with us. When we are in that mode, you realize we have rendered the Constitution useless.
- Enact
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- Nov 07, 2020
If you think aficionados of a living Constitution want to bring you flexibility, think again. You think the death penalty is a good idea? Persuade your fellow citizens to adopt it. You want a right to abortion? Persuade your fellow citizens and enact it. That's flexibility.
- Nov 07, 2020
Why can't the state accede to the public's wishes?
- Mean
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- Nov 07, 2020
What is a moderate interpretation of the text? Halfway between what it really means and what you'd like it to mean?
- Having
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- Nov 07, 2020
You could have 50 different states having 50 different regulations... until they were all litigated out.
- Law
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- Nov 07, 2020
I do accept that, with - with respect to those vague terms in the Constitution such as equal protection of the laws, due process of law, cruel and unusual punishments. I fully accept that those things have to apply to new phenomena that didn't exist at the time.
- Government
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- Nov 07, 2020
Burning the flag is a form of expression. Speech doesn't just mean written words or oral words. It could be semaphore. And burning a flag is a symbol that expresses an idea - I hate the government, the government is unjust, whatever.
- Death
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- Nov 07, 2020
It's absolutely clear that whatever cruel and unusual punishments may - may mean with regard to future things, such as death by injection or the electric chair, it's clear that - that the death penalty, in and of itself, is not considered cruel and unusual punishment.
- Good
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- Nov 07, 2020
My view is regardless of whether you think prohibiting abortion is good or whether you think prohibiting abortion is bad, regardless of how you come out on that, my only point is the Constitution does not say anything about it. It leaves it up to democratic choice.
- Death
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- Nov 07, 2020
But I'm not pro death penalty. I - I'm just anti the notion that it is not a matter for democratic choice, that it has been taken away from the democratic choice of the people by a provision of the Constitution.
- Crime
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- Nov 07, 2020
If you are sentenced to torture for a crime, yes, that is a cruel punishment. But the mere fact that somebody is tortured is - is unlawful under - under our statutes, but the Constitution happens not to address it, just as it does not address a lot of other horrible things.
- Like
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- Nov 07, 2020
I would not like to be replaced by someone who immediately sets about undoing what I've tried to do for 25-26 years.
- History
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- Nov 07, 2020
Originalism is sort of subspecies of textualism. Textualism means you are governed by the text. That's the only thing that is relevant to your decision, not whether the outcome is desirable, not whether legislative history says this or that. But the text of the statute.
- Modern
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- Nov 07, 2020
Originalism says that when you consult the text, you give it the meaning it had when it was adopted, not some later modern meaning.
- Meaning
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- Nov 07, 2020
Words have meaning. And their meaning doesn't change.
- Feel
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- Nov 07, 2020
I am something of a contrarian, I suppose. I feel less comfortable when everybody agrees with me. I say, 'I better reexamine my position!' I probably believe that the worst opinions in my court have been unanimous. Because there's nobody on the other side pointing out all the flaws.
- Now
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- Nov 07, 2020
And what I would say now is, yes, if a state enacted a law permitting flogging, it is immensely stupid, but it is not unconstitutional. A lot of stuff that's stupid is not unconstitutional.
- Living
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- Nov 07, 2020
I used to say that the Constitution is not a living document. It's dead, dead, dead. But I've gotten better. I no longer say that. The truth is that the Constitution is not one that morphs. It's an enduring Constitution, not a changing Constitution. That is what I've meant when I've said that the Constitution is dead.
- Decisions
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- Nov 07, 2020
The court makes an amazing amount of decisions that ought to be made by the people.
- Enemy
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- Nov 07, 2020
By formally declaring anyone opposed to same-sex marriage an enemy of human decency, the majority arms well every challenger to a state law restricting marriage to its traditional definition.
- Power
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- Nov 07, 2020
As a young man, you're dazzled by the power of the White House and all that. But power tends to corrupt.
- Good
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- Nov 07, 2020
I'm nervous about our civic culture. I'm not sure the Internet is largely the cause of it. It's certainly the cause of careless writing. People who get used to blurbing things on the Internet are never going to be good writers.
- Faith
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- Nov 07, 2020
I spent my junior year in Switzerland. On the way back home, I spent some time in England, and I remember going to Hyde Park Corner. And there was a Roman Catholic priest in his collar, standing on a soapbox, preaching the Catholic faith and being heckled by a group. And I thought, 'My goodness.' I thought that was admirable.
- Loved
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- Nov 07, 2020
I watched 'The Sopranos,' I saw a couple of episodes of 'Mad Men.' I loved 'Seinfeld.' In fact, I got some CDs of 'Seinfeld.' 'Seinfeld' was hilarious. Oh, boy. The Nazi soup kitchen? 'No soup for you!'
- Punishment
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- Nov 07, 2020
Like other human institutions, courts and juries are not perfect. One cannot have a system of criminal punishment without accepting the possibility that someone will be punished mistakenly.
- Capital Punishment
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- Nov 07, 2020
The American people have determined that the good to be derived from capital punishment - in deterrence, and perhaps most of all in the meting out of condign justice for horrible crimes - outweighs the risk of error.
- Feelings
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- Nov 07, 2020
If we cannot have moral feelings against homosexuality, can we have it against murder? Can we have it against other things?
- Tell
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- Nov 07, 2020
I'm not a scientist. That's why I don't want to have to deal with global warming, to tell you the truth.
- Business
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- Nov 07, 2020
Many Americans do not want persons who openly engage in homosexual conduct as partners in their business, as scoutmasters for their children, as teachers in their children's schools, or as boarders in their home. They view this as protecting themselves and their families from a lifestyle that they believe to be immoral and destructive.
- Living
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- Nov 07, 2020
The Constitution that I interpret and apply is not living, but dead, or as I prefer to call it, enduring. It means, today, not what current society, much less the court, thinks it ought to mean, but what it meant when it was adopted.
- Environmental
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- Nov 07, 2020
It is not rational, never mind 'appropriate,' to impose billions of dollars in economic costs in return for a few dollars in health or environmental benefits.
- Death
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- Nov 07, 2020
Because values change, legislatures abolish the death penalty, permit same-sex marriage if they want, abolish laws against homosexual conduct. That's how the change in a society occurs. Society doesn't change through a Constitution.
- Guy
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- Nov 07, 2020
I'm a law-and-order guy. I mean, I confess I'm a social conservative, but it does not affect my views on cases.
- Good
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- Nov 07, 2020
I attack ideas. I don't attack people. And some very good people have some very bad ideas. And if you can't separate the two, you gotta get another day job. You don't want to be a judge. At least not a judge on a multi-member panel.
- Love
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- Nov 07, 2020
I love to argue. I've always loved to argue. And I love to point out the weaknesses of the opposing arguments. It may well be that I'm something of a shin kicker. It may well be that I'm something of a contrarian.
- Most
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- Nov 07, 2020
Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited... It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.
- Hate
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- Nov 07, 2020
If there's anything you absolutely hate, why, it must be unconstitutional. Or, if there's anything you absolutely have to have, it must be required by the Constitution. That's where we are. That is utterly mindless.
- Government
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- Nov 07, 2020
Wringing your hands about states' rights, forget it. They're gone. Basically, the federal government can do whatever it wants. Who's going to protect the states? My court? Ha - we're feds!
- Attempted
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- Nov 07, 2020
Until the courts put a stop to it, public debate over same-sex marriage displayed American democracy at its best. Individuals on both sides of the issue passionately, but respectfully, attempted to persuade their fellow citizens to accept their views.
- More
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- Nov 07, 2020
To allow the policy question of same-sex marriage to be considered and resolved by a select, patrician, highly unrepresentative panel of nine is to violate a principle even more fundamental than no taxation without representation: no social transformation without representation.
- Law
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- Nov 07, 2020
With each decision of ours that takes from the People a question properly left to them - with each decision that is unabashedly based not on law, but on the 'reasoned judgment' of a bare majority of this Court - we move one step closer to being reminded of our impotence.
- Cruel
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- Nov 07, 2020
Society's mores have changed, and what used to be thought not to be cruel and unusual now is thought to be cruel and unusual.
- Nice
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- Nov 07, 2020
I think I'm a pretty nice fella.
- Nov 07, 2020
If you condemn someone who has committed a crime to be tortured, that would be unconstitutional.
- Cruel
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- Nov 07, 2020
We have laws against torture. The Constitution says nothing whatever about torture. It speaks of punishment; 'cruel and unusual' punishments are forbidden.
- Business
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- Nov 07, 2020
The only way to eliminate any government choice on what art is worthwhile, what art isn't worthwhile, is to get the government totally out of the business of funding.
- Everything
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- Nov 07, 2020
The main business of a lawyer is to take the romance, the mystery, the irony, the ambiguity out of everything he touches.
- Follow
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- Nov 07, 2020
Indeed, follow your star if you want to head north and it's the North Star. But if you want to head north and it's Mars, you had better follow somebody else's star.
- Direction
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- Nov 07, 2020
If I had to choose, I would always take the less dynamic, indeed even the lazy person who knows what's right than the zealot in the cause of error. He may move slower, but he's headed in the right direction.
- Important
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- Nov 07, 2020
More important than your obligation to follow your conscience, or at least prior to it, is your obligation to form your conscience correctly.
- Person
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- Nov 07, 2020
Being a good person begins with being a wise person. Then, when you follow your conscience, will you be headed in the right direction.
- Nov 07, 2020
I'm an originalist and a textualist, not a nut.
- Never
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- Nov 07, 2020
Winning and losing, that's never been my objective. It's my hope that in the fullness of time, the majority of the court will come to see things as I do.
- People
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- Nov 07, 2020
Some people are inherently likeable. If you're not - work on it. It may even improve your social life.
- People
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- Nov 07, 2020