Scalia: supporters of "living Constitution" are idiots!

[El Tejon]

GTSSteve03, I see no reference to a "pursuit of happiness" or reefer in the Constitution. This is the problem that Scalia speaks to.

Those that wish to transform their desires, "Man, I soooo want to get high; it's now my right, dood", into "rights" destroy the Constitution by reading in their desires, e.g. the free the weed people. The "pursuit of happiness" is not mentioned in the Constitution, however everyone desires it to be, thus it now becomes a Constitutional right.

If dope, or abortion, or a welfare check, or education or a thousand other desires become "rights", real Constitutional rights, e.g. the RKBA, suffer.

This is not to say that legalizing 13 (or abortion or sodomy or whatever) is not good policy. However, we should not confuse good policy with a Constitutional right.

 

[publius]

"And it is eminently practical to put foreign convictions to the same use as domestic ones," the dissenters said. "Foreign convictions indicate dangerousness just as reliably as domestic convictions."

How about if the Cuban government finds someone an "enemy of the State"?

 

[GTSteve03]

If dope, or abortion, or a welfare check, or education or a thousand other desires become "rights", real Constitutional rights, e.g. the RKBA, suffer.

I disagree. The basis of the Constitution was only to lay out rights that the Founders felt would be most important for people to have that an oppressive gov't would try and take away. They then left this rather important final Amendments:

Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed
to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor
prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to
the people.

Basically, the US gov't has repeatedly ignored these Amendments and taken away rights of the People at multiple times, and the only way we can seem to get them back is to have it down in writing that these rights are not something that can be limited by the gov't.

So what you are saying is that if in spite of the Founding Father's written claims of all rights not specifically written down are the rights of the People being ignored, we should not try to have these rights written down to keep the gov't from continually infringing on them?

How does this weaken the RKBA?

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

Well I can't speak for others; but my point was that Scalia only sees State's Rights when it is convenient for him. As soon as he sees something he dislikes, he is quick to find a reason the federal government should have jursidiction over that issue.

 

[Waitone]

The issue is what kind of judicial activism we will endure. We've had 70 years of statist judicial activism and it looks like the table have ever so slightly turned toward state's authority.

We will never see the rise of originists to dominate. Government is not about impartial evaluation. It is about the acquisition and maintenance of power. Makes no difference who does it.

 

[LAR-15]

He was appointed by Reagan so what do you expect??