C
- Status
S
Sonny1954
Guest
Gee, maybe he should **resign his seat **in protest?
A
Adeodatus
Guest
Yes, that would certainly help promote the cause of abortion.
Wait… why would you as a Catholic support that?
J
JimG
Guest
“The due process clause has been distorted so it’s no longer a guarantee of process but a guarantee of liberty,” Scalia expounded. “But some of the liberties the Supreme Court has found to be protected by that word - liberty - nobody thought constituted a liberty when the 14th Amendment was adopted. Homosexual sodomy? It was criminal in all the states. Abortion? It was criminal in all the states.”Scalia is right. Rather than properly amend the Constitution, Justices now find it more expeditious merely to change the meaning attributed to the words of the document.
In the end, this means that words mean nothing.
The same occurs in the legislative and executive branches. The Congress passes legislation, (sometimes) presuming that it knows the meaning of the words that it enacts into law. Then an agency of the executive branch oversees how those words will be interpreted, and writes regulations to put its own meaning on the legislature’s words.
But the Court has long since made Constitutional amendments unnecessary, since it can change the meaning of words at will.
In the end, this means that words mean nothing.
The same occurs in the legislative and executive branches. The Congress passes legislation, (sometimes) presuming that it knows the meaning of the words that it enacts into law. Then an agency of the executive branch oversees how those words will be interpreted, and writes regulations to put its own meaning on the legislature’s words.
But the Court has long since made Constitutional amendments unnecessary, since it can change the meaning of words at will.
R
Rich_Olszewski
Guest
It’s a lot more efficient that way, and the Court is demonstrating that the Constitution is a living document and not a piece of paper being clutched in the hands of men dead for more than 200 years.
If that upsets Scalia so much, perhaps he ought to resign rather than be part of a Court he doesn’t approve of…
J
JimG
Guest
Yes, it’s a lot more efficient that way. I didn’t realize that efficiency was the point of constitutional law.
And I suppose that if the meaning of the words of the Constitution can be changed at will, so can the meaning of the words in my mortgage documents. And I want to be the one to decide the meaning.
And I suppose that if the meaning of the words of the Constitution can be changed at will, so can the meaning of the words in my mortgage documents. And I want to be the one to decide the meaning.
R
Rich_Olszewski
Guest
You can’t, but a court could do that. As a party to your mortgage, you can’t unilaterally change the words any more than the mortgage company could change them unilaterally.
But, in certain situations, a court could revise your contract with the mortgage lender.
H
Havard
Guest
[Dons top hat and monocle.]
I say, old bean, it would appear that there just so happens to be a longstanding debate with regard to this issue!
R
Rich_Olszewski
Guest
Rahther! Start a thread on that topic and it will run longer than the threads on letting a bloke carry a gun in his pocket.[Dons top hat and monocle.]
I say, old bean, it would appear that there just so happens to be a longstanding debate with regard to this issue!
M
manualman
Guest
It’s not about efficiency, it’s about checks and balances. Now that the Court can simply conjure up any new law it can manage to keep a straight face when it decrees, the balance of power shifts dramatically away from elected officials and into appointed judges. I find it hard to believe Adams, Jefferson et al wanted it that way. Rather, they left us an amendment process for changing the Constitution that requires that people assemble a large democratic majority to make a major change in the EFFECTIVE meaning of the constitution.
R
Rich_Olszewski
Guest
The Court is powerless to conjure up new laws. It is NOT a court of original jurisdiction except for disputes between states. It hears cases only if they’ve been adjudicated and are on appeal to the Court. They accept very few of those submitted to them,
So, if you think that they can make laws on whim, think again.
M
manualman
Guest
True, they can only rule on cases brought before them. But who chooses which cases get brought before them of the HUNDREDS of cases which petition the SC? THEY do, of course. So their menu of issues on which they can utterly turn the law on it’s head is rather more ample than you imply here. At least under the ‘loose constructionist’ view of the Constitution, that is (of which Roe v Wade is a most famous example).
J
JimG
Guest
In practice, it seems the Court made itself the preeminent of the three branches. It can essentially overrule Congressional legislation, or State legislation. When the intent of the written word is ignored, it really does mean that words have become meaningless. The Court has said as much: the Constitution means what we say it means. And when the words of the Constitution and of laws are so malleable as to be formed by the Court to mean something never intended by their authors, then we are no longer a nation of laws, but of men.
S
Sonny1954
Guest
The Supreme Court is “Constitutionally Infallible”. The Constitution means what the Supreme Court says it means. While the Constitution remains stable, our understanding of it evolves. Of course, people are free to disagree with what the High Court says the Constitution means, but that doesn’t change it’s authentic meaning. The Supreme Court is sort of like a collective, secular “papacy” in that regard.
J
JimG
Guest
That’s true, with one profound difference.
The job of the papacy, as well as the entire magesterium, is to preserve and pass on the teaching of Christ which has been handed down to it. The first question a pope must ask himself, when presented a question, is: Is this what we have always believed? Is this what has been handed down? Because no pope and no bishop can believe himself to be empowered to change what has been handed down, just by deciding that the words now mean something different than they did 200 or 2,000 years ago.
What Scalia is talking about is that the words of the Constitution and its amendments meant something to those who wrote them. And that the Court ought not to feel empowered to make them mean something 180 degrees different than their authors obviously intended.
R
Rich_Olszewski
Guest
You are speaking of the teachings of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. His teachings and Catholic doctrine cannot be compared to any nation’s constitution!! And, keep in mind that even those teachings had to be interpreted by the Church - the doctrine of the Trinity is not spelled out, for example, and the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception was not promulgated until the 19th century…
As none of the writers of the Constitution are on a level with Jesus Christ, what they wrote is not Dogma, so there’s no reason to say that what those men held 200 years ago must be held the exact same way in 2010.
I, for one, do not see the Constitution as something frozen in the late 18th century, so favor the Court having the flexibility to decide cases in light of the Constitution and of the era in which we live.
J
JimG
Guest
Let me go back to the example used by Scalia in the cited article. Nobody thought when the 14th Amendment was adopted, that it protected the “rights” to abortion or to homosexual sodomy. Both were criminal acts at the time of its adoption. Obviously the amendment was not intended to, nor did it, overturn those laws.
Yet the Court later invoked that same amendment to say that laws prohibiting both acts must be overturned as unconstitutional!
That is not judicial interpretation of the text; it is simply the Court using “raw judicial power” to make words mean something other than what they were intended to mean by their authors.
And if words no longer mean anything, then we are no longer a nation of laws. For if the Constitution says “black,” the Court can interpret it to mean “white.” The Constitution becomes mostly irrelevant.
It is as if the authors of the Constitution were to preface it with: “OK, here is what we wrote. We put a lot of work into it. But it means nothing, because you can make it mean whatever you want.”
Yet the Court later invoked that same amendment to say that laws prohibiting both acts must be overturned as unconstitutional!
That is not judicial interpretation of the text; it is simply the Court using “raw judicial power” to make words mean something other than what they were intended to mean by their authors.
And if words no longer mean anything, then we are no longer a nation of laws. For if the Constitution says “black,” the Court can interpret it to mean “white.” The Constitution becomes mostly irrelevant.
It is as if the authors of the Constitution were to preface it with: “OK, here is what we wrote. We put a lot of work into it. But it means nothing, because you can make it mean whatever you want.”
B
buffalo
Guest
The “living constitution” idea is a sham. It is a ploy to advance freedom without responsibility.
R
Rich_Olszewski
Guest
The Constitution can be made to mean whatever we want. One way to do it is via the Supreme Court, another way is via the amendment process. The end result either way can be something the authors didn’t intend at all.
J
JimG
Guest
Yes, but the amendment process is the method that was actually provided for changing the Constitution. And it involves the (name removed by moderator)ut of the States and the people. That’s the correct way to do it. The other way is to have the Court rewrite its own whims into the document while pretending that they were there all along.The Constitution can be made to mean whatever we want. One way to do it is via the Supreme Court, another way is via the amendment process. The end result either way can be something the authors didn’t intend at all.
- Status