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Campaign promises are – by long democratic tradition – the least binding form of human commitment.

Antonin Scalia

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
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
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
A journalistic purpose could be someone with a Xerox machine in a basement.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Basement Journey Machine Purpose
Bear in mind that brains and learning, like muscle and physical skill, are articles of commerce. They are bought and sold. You can hire them by the year or by the hour. The only thing in the world not for sale is character.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Brain Character Learning Mindset Physical Skills World
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
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
Power tends to corrupt. But the power in Washington resides in Congress, if it wants to use it. It can do anything-it can stop the Vietnam War. It can make its will felt, if it can ever get its act together to do anything.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Corruption Politics Power Togetherness War Willing
You could have 50 different states having 50 different regulations until they were all litigated out.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Different Regulation State Yourself
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
A Bill of Rights that means what the majority wants it to mean is worthless.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Majority Right Worth
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
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
[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
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
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

Campaign promises are – by long democratic tradition – the least binding form of human commitment.

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Campaign promises are – by long democratic tradition – the least binding form of human commitment.

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