Scalia Dismisses 'Living Constitution'

Scalia Dismisses 'Living Constitution'
By JONATHAN EWING, Associated Press Writer

PONCE, Puerto Rico - People who believe the Constitution would break if it didn't change with society are "idiots," U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia says.
[Speaking of "idiots," this guy gives a good demonstration of one...]

In a speech Monday sponsored by the conservative Federalist Society, Scalia defended his long-held belief in sticking to the plain text of the Constitution "as it was originally written and intended."
[Yes, the Constitution is primarily a rule-book for the mechanics of running our government. The only thing I think that should be changed in it would be the mechanism of voting, i.e.: the ‘winner take all' voting by the states should be changed to proportional elections based upon popular vote and the elimination of the electoral college.]

"Scalia does have a philosophy, it's called originalism," he said. "That's what prevents him from doing the things he would like to do," he told more than 100 politicians and lawyers from this U.S. island territory.
[Hmmmm.... wonder what he'd really like to do... ]

According to his judicial philosophy, he said, there can be no room for personal, political or religious beliefs.
[Might just as well program the Constitution into a computer and have it automatically render verdicts since there is no evolving belief system based upon societal need which should influence judgements - therefore, no judgement allowed - how simple and simplistic!]

Scalia criticized those who believe in what he called the "living Constitution."
[I assume that he is referring to the Bill of Rights and the subsequent amendments - not the Constitution itself.]

"That's the argument of flexibility and it goes something like this: The Constitution is over 200 years old and societies change. It has to change with society, like a living organism, or it will become brittle and break."
[Oh, it won't become "brittle and break", it will simply lose its relevance if it is not changed or expanded over time.]

"But you would have to be an idiot to believe that," Scalia said. "The Constitution is not a living organism, it is a legal document. It says something and doesn't say other things."
[Similar arguments have been made about the literal interpretation of the Bible, thus not only providing serious problems in logic, but also missing the whole intent and usefulness of that book.]

Proponents of the living constitution want matters to be decided "not by the people, but by the justices of the Supreme Court."
[Unfortunately the Supreme Court is the only remaining representative of the people since other interests have superceded the ‘will of the people.'

Originally, amendment of the Constitution was made intentionally difficult by requiring a super majority vote in the Congress and a three-quarters majority ratification by the states. The people have never had the direct right to modify the Constitution, then nor now. Presently, with the size and diversity of our population which has changed from the largely agrarian culture in the late 1700's to the many headed hydra of today.]

"They are not looking for legal flexibility, they are looking for rigidity, whether it's the right to abortion or the right to homosexual activity, they want that right to be embedded from coast to coast and to be unchangeable," he said.

Scalia was invited to Puerto Rico by the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies. The organization was founded in 1982 as a debating society by students who believed professors at the top law schools were too liberal. Conservatives and libertarians mainly make up the 35,000 members.


[I think it is the history of our nation including the Declaration of Independence and other papers which give relevance to our Constitution and laws. It is the Declaration which gives us the permission to change our government on behalf of the people. It is THE document which justified our becoming an independent nation.

Thus, here is the heart and reasoning of that document:
The Declaration of Independence
IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.


And then, after fighting a war which lasted almost six years, we established our Constitution which reaffirms the Declaration of Independence with a simple preamble:


"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."



The constitution has been amended twenty-seven times, the last amendment was proposed in 1789, passed by the Congress then and finally ratified by 3/4ths of the states in 1992! A span of over 203 years!

"AMENDMENT XXVII
Originally proposed Sept. 25, 1789. Ratified May 7, 1992.

No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of representatives shall have intervened."



Since then, there have been several proposed amendments which have not been ratified by the states which indicate that amending the Constitution through its overly difficult requirements is no longer an option. For example there is the "Equal Rights for Women" amendment which has been abandoned after passing Congress and even receiving extensions for ratification by the states. It is now a dead issue. Thus women don't and won't have a "Constitutional right" to be equal under the law with men!

"Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex."

Nor will any attempt to include the definition of marriage in the Constitution be at all successful - in fact, it has a ‘snowball's chance in hell' of passing muster.

So, despite Scalia's narrow view of law, it has become the responsibility of the Supreme Court to not "write law" but rather to expand and clarify those laws already written in the Bill of rights and subsequent amendments to fit what the majority of Americans now consider to be the fundamental rights of the people - rights which could not have been imagined by the ‘founding fathers' in their simpler culture. The very conservative Supreme Court (9:2) has not in any sense created new amendments as charged.

It is, after all, a matter of rights which affect the people today, not what affected the people over two hundred years ago. ...AG]