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 SCALIAIf you’re going to be a good and faithful judge, you have to resign yourself to the fact that you’re not always going to like the conclusions you reach. If you like them all the time, you’re probably doing something wrong.
More Antonin Scalia Quotes
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A journalistic purpose could be someone with a Xerox machine in a basement.
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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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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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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.
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If you’re going to be a good and faithful judge, you have to resign yourself to the fact that you’re not always going to like the conclusions you reach. If you like them all the time, you’re probably doing something wrong.
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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 Constitution does not trust judges to make determinations of criminal guilt.
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[The Freedom of Information Act is] the Taj Mahal of the Doctrine of Unanticipated Consequences, the Sistine Chapel of Cost-Benefit Analysis Ignored.
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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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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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The wise do not investigate such silliness.
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Words have meaning. And their meaning doesn’t change.
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It is difficult to maintain the illusion that we are interpreting a Constitution, rather than inventing one.
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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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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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