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The wise do not investigate such silliness.

Antonin Scalia

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
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
[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
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
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
Interior decorating is a rock-hard science compared to psychology practiced by amateurs.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Amateuer Decoration Practice Science
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
Why can’t the state accede to the public’s wishes?
ANTONIN SCALIA

Public State Wish
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
Certainly one cannot ban cross burning in the sanctity of his bedroom.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Bed Burn Room Sanity
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
Under all the usual rules of interpretation, in short, the Government should lose this case. But normal rules of interpretation seem always to yield to the overriding principle of the present Court: The Affordable Care Act must be saved.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Act Case Lose Myself Principle Rule Save Short
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 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.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Purpose Share Society Teaching
The Constitution does not trust judges to make determinations of criminal guilt.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Criminal Determination Guilty Judgement Trust
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 search is a search, even if it happens to disclose nothing but the bottom of a turntable.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Close Search Table
Words have meaning. And their meaning doesn’t change.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Change Meaning Word
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
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
[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
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
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
The wise do not investigate such silliness.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Investigation Silly Weird Wisdom
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
[If critics of the Pledge of Allegiance persuaded the public it should be changed] then we could eliminate under God from the Pledge of Allegiance, that could be democratically done.
ANTONIN SCALIA

Change Democracy Elimination God
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

The wise do not investigate such silliness.

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The wise do not investigate such silliness.

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