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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?

Antonin Scalia

You could have 50 different states having 50 different regulations until they were all litigated out.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Different Regulation State Yourself
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.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Change Democracy Freedom Law Right Speech System Virtue
Persuade your fellow citizens it’s a good idea and pass a law. That’s what democracy is all about. It’s not about nine superannuated judges who have been there too long, imposing these demands on society.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Citizenship Demand Goodness Ideas Judgement Society Yourself
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.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Ambience Contradiction Model Respect Statement
I think the main fight is to dissuade Americans from what the secularists are trying to persuade them to be true: that the separation of church and state means that the government cannot favor religion over nonreligion.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Fight Government Religion Thinking True
The attitude of people associating guns with nothing but crime, that is what has to be changed. I grew up at a time when people were not afraid of people with firearms.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Attitude Change Growth Myself People Weapon
Campaign promises are – by long democratic tradition – the least binding form of human commitment.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Commitment Democracy Human Promise Tradition
One can be sophisticated and believe in God. Reason and intellect are not to be laid aside where matters of religion are concerned.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Believe God Intellectual Reason Religion Sophistication
Why can’t the state accede to the public’s wishes?
ANTONIN SCALIA

Public State Wish
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.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Agreement Confirmation Constitution Document Judgement Politics Thinking
A Bill of Rights that means what the majority wants it to mean is worthless.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Majority Right Worth
It is difficult to maintain the illusion that we are interpreting a Constitution, rather than inventing one.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Constitution Difficult Illusion Invention Maintain Oneself
But I also believe that a lot of gun owners would agree that AK-47s belong in the hands of soldiers, not on the streets of our cities.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Believe Hands Ourselves Soldier
People look at rights as if they were muscles — the more you exercise them, the better they get.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Better Exercise People Right Yourself
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.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Destiny Fools Modern Regard Society World
Certainly one cannot ban cross burning in the sanctity of his bedroom.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Bed Burn Room Sanity

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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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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