The Constitution does not trust judges to make determinations of criminal guilt.
ANTONIN SCALIAThe Constitution does not trust judges to make determinations of criminal guilt.
More Antonin Scalia Quotes
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As long as judges tinker with the Constitution to ‘do what the people want,’ instead of what the document actually commands, politicians who pick and confirm new federal judges will naturally want only those who agree with them politically.
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For in order for capitalism to work — in order for it to produce a good and a stable society — the traditional Christian virtues are essential.
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I even accept for the sake of argument that sexual orgies eliminate social tensions and ought to be encouraged.
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The death penalty? Give me a break. It’s easy. Abortion? Absolutely easy. Nobody ever thought the constitution prevented restrictions on abortion. Homosexual sodomy? Come on. For 200 years, it was criminal in every state.
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Words no longer have meaning if an Exchange that is not established by a State is “established by the State”.
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A Bill of Rights that means what the majority wants it to mean is worthless.
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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.
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To many Americans, everything from the Easter morning to the Ascension had to be made up by the groveling enthusiasts as part of their plan to get themselves martyred.
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Words have meaning. And their meaning doesn’t change.
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People look at rights as if they were muscles — the more you exercise them, the better they get.
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The virtue of a democratic system with a [constitutionally guaranteed right to free speech] is that it readily enables the people, over time, to be persuaded that what they took for granted is not so, and to change their laws accordingly.
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Who ever thought that intimacy and spirituality [whatever that means] were freedoms? And if intimacy is, one would think Freedom of Intimacy is abridged rather than expanded by marriage. Ask the nearest hippie.
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Devout Christians are destined to be regarded as fools in modern society. We are fools for Christ’s sake. We must pray for courage to endure the scorn of the sophisticated world.
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A search is a search, even if it happens to disclose nothing but the bottom of a turntable.
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Campaign promises are – by long democratic tradition – the least binding form of human commitment.
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Rather than rewriting the law under the pretense of interpreting it, the Court should have left it to Congress to decide what to do about the Act’s limitation of tax credits to state Exchanges.
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Why can’t the state accede to the public’s wishes?
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[If critics of the Pledge of Allegiance persuaded the public it should be changed] then we could eliminate under God from the Pledge of Allegiance, that could be democratically done.
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Day by day, case by case, the Supreme Court is busy designing a Constitution for a country I do not recognize.
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Power tends to corrupt. But the power in Washington resides in Congress, if it wants to use it. It can do anything-it can stop the Vietnam War. It can make its will felt, if it can ever get its act together to do anything.
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Interior decorating is a rock-hard science compared to psychology practiced by amateurs.
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What is a moderate interpretation of the text? Halfway between what it really means and what you’d like it to mean?
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A journalistic purpose could be someone with a Xerox machine in a basement.
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On this day, when we’re celebrating our constitutional heritage, I urge you to be faithful to that heritage – to impose on our fellow citizens only the restrictions that are there in the Constitution, not invent new ones, not to invent the right because it’s a good idea.
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Certainly one cannot ban cross burning in the sanctity of his bedroom.
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It would be gross understatement to say that the Telecommunications Act of 1996 is not a model of clarity. It is in many important respects a model of ambiguity or indeed even self-contradiction.
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