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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.

Antonin Scalia

With respect to public acknowledgment of religious belief, it is entirely clear from our nation’s historical practices that the Establishment Clause permits this disregard of polytheists and believers in unconcerned deities, just as it permits the disregard of devout atheists.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Acknowledgement Atheist History Nation Practice Public Respect
[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 SCALIA

Constitution Enjoyment Government Minimum Right Time Violence War Yourself
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.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Essential Order Production Society Virtue
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.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Adoption Citizenship Constitution Flexibility Live Yourself
A journalistic purpose could be someone with a Xerox machine in a basement.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Basement Journey Machine Purpose
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.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Children Family Kind Perfection
What is a moderate interpretation of the text? Halfway between what it really means and what you’d like it to mean?
ANTONIN SCALIA

Literature Meaning 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
A search is a search, even if it happens to disclose nothing but the bottom of a turntable.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Close Search Table
[International law] doesn’t show what the Constitution originally meant, and it doesn’t show what is fundamentally important to Americans today. It shows what’s fundamentally important to somebody else today.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Constitution Day Fundamental Important Meaning Original
Why can’t the state accede to the public’s wishes?
ANTONIN SCALIA

Public State Wish
This is an execution, not surgery. Where does that come from, that you must find the method of execution that causes the least pain?
ANTONIN SCALIA

Execution Pain Surgery
The principal purpose of stare decisis is to protect reliance interest and further stability in the law.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Interest Law Principle Protection Stability State
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.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Freedom Intimacy Marriage Oneself Spirituality
You could have 50 different states having 50 different regulations until they were all litigated out.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Different Regulation State Yourself
The wise do not investigate such silliness.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Investigation Silly Weird Wisdom
I even accept for the sake of argument that sexual orgies eliminate social tensions and ought to be encouraged.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Acceptance Argument Encouragement Myself Sexuality
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
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
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
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
Certainly the Constitution does not require discrimination on the basis of sex. The only issue is whether it prohibits it. It doesn’t.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Allow Constitution Discrimination Rule Sex
Words have meaning. And their meaning doesn’t change.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Change Meaning Word
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.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Faith Goodness Judgement Reach Wrong
The court’s job is to uphold the Constitution and you don’t call that off in times of crisis. Would the framers have allowed this practice?
ANTONIN SCALIA

Constitution Frame Job Practice Time
Words no longer have meaning if an Exchange that is not established by a State is “established by the State”.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Establishment Meaning State Word
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.’
ANTONIN SCALIA

Children Creation Independence Parents Right

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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Popular Authors

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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