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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.

Antonin Scalia

[The Freedom of Information Act is] the Taj Mahal of the Doctrine of Unanticipated Consequences, the Sistine Chapel of Cost-Benefit Analysis Ignored.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Benefit Consequence Cost Freedom Ignorance
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.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Death Morning Planning
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
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.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Celebration Constitution Day Faith Goodness Ideas Invention Restriction
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.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Credit Decision exchange Law Limitation Tax Writing
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
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
Why in the world would you have it interpreted by nine lawyers?
ANTONIN SCALIA

Law World Yourself
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.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Constitution Crime Privacy Protection Realization
A journalistic purpose could be someone with a Xerox machine in a basement.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Basement Journey Machine Purpose
Campaign promises are – by long democratic tradition – the least binding form of human commitment.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Commitment Democracy Human Promise Tradition
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
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
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
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.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Convert Guarantee Process Race Sex Willing

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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Popular Authors

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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