[The] government has room to scale back individual rights during wartime without violating the Constitution. The Constitution just sets minimums. Most of the rights that you enjoy go way beyond what the Constitution requires.
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 law can be both economic folly and constitutional.
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Certainly one cannot ban cross burning in the sanctity of his bedroom.
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If you think aficionados of a living Constitution want to bring you flexibility, think again. You think the death penalty is a good idea? Persuade your fellow citizens to adopt it. You want a right to abortion? Persuade your fellow citizens and enact it. That’s flexibility.
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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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The wise do not investigate such silliness.
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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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Why in the world would you have it interpreted by nine lawyers?
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A Bill of Rights that means what the majority wants it to mean is worthless.
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The right of parents to direct the upbringing of their children is among the unalienable rights with which the Declaration of Independence proclaims ‘all Men are endowed by their Creator.’
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The purpose of the Federalist Society was to bring together young people who had this skepticism about what they were being taught and to let them know that there were others who shared this skepticism.
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To be honest about it, that is the view of Christians taken by modern society. Surely those who adhere to all or most of these traditional Christian beliefs are to be regarded as simpleminded.
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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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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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People look at rights as if they were muscles — the more you exercise them, the better they get.
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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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