Scalia Scary!

bravo said:
Relax folks...put everything in context....keep everything in perspective, if you have the intelligence to do so....

This was a philosophical debate on the Constitution....it goes to intent of Amendments at the time and in the time they were written and voted on...
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You believe in an enduring constitution rather than an evolving constitution. What does that mean to you?
In its most important aspects, the Constitution tells the current society that it cannot do [whatever] it wants to do. It is a decision that the society has made that in order to take certain actions, you need the extraordinary effort that it takes to amend the Constitution. Now if you give to those many provisions of the Constitution that are necessarily broad—such as due process of law, cruel and unusual punishments, equal protection of the laws—----if you give them an evolving meaning so that they have whatever meaning the current society thinks they ought to have, they are no limitation on the current society at all. If the cruel and unusual punishments clause simply means that today's society should not do anything that it considers cruel and unusual, it means nothing except, "To thine own self be true."
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Disagree. During times of war most populations do not have a choice but to fight (they are drafted) and most populations do not have a "dog in the fight" either. That means, once captured, the people can no longer fight so there is no legitimate reason to punish them other than detain them and prevent them from fighting. Anything else is cruel punishment.

In 1868, when the 39th Congress was debating and ultimately proposing the 14th Amendment, I don't think anybody would have thought that equal protection applied to sex discrimination, or certainly not to sexual orientation. So does that mean that we've gone off in error by applying the 14th Amendment to both?

Read it.

http://www.callawyer.com/story.cfm?eid=913358&evid=1
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The 14th Amendment is about equality. No society can be considered "free" and "just" if it practices any form of discrimination. Surely that is evident enough.
 
if you give them an evolving meaning so that they have whatever meaning the current society thinks they ought to have, they are no limitation on the current society at all.
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this is why Scalia, for all of his originalist bullshit, shows himself to be wrong on the constitution most of the time. The constitution doesn't put limits on society, it puts limits on the government.
 
SmarterThanYou said:
this is why Scalia, for all of his originalist bullshit, shows himself to be wrong on the constitution most of the time. The constitution doesn't put limits on society, it puts limits on the government.
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this absolutely true

federal or state laws put limits on society, but the constitution is strictly for the government
 
apple0154 said:
Disagree. During times of war most populations do not have a choice but to fight (they are drafted) and most populations do not have a "dog in the fight" either. That means, once captured, the people can no longer fight so there is no legitimate reason to punish them other than detain them and prevent them from fighting. Anything else is cruel punishment.



The 14th Amendment is about equality. No society can be considered "free" and "just" if it practices any form of discrimination. Surely that is evident enough.
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then you're against affirmative action.....right???
 
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