Wednesday, November 26, 2014

The Originalist's dilemma

Justice Scalia has a fallacy that the Constitution must be interpreted within its original meaning, yet he must admit that he should be incredibly incredibly (yes, I mean to say that twice) wary about overturning laws made by elected officials if he is going to do that.

Why?

This power is not expressly granted in the Constitution.

In fact, as I have pointed out many times before, this power comes from the case of Marbury v. Madison, which also said: It cannot be presumed that any clause in the Constitution is intended to be without effect.

So, should he be very wary about declaring laws unconstitutional since that is not a power which is expressly granted by the constitution? 

Additionally, since he went against Marbury once to the detriment of public safety in the Heller decision, should he admit that decision committed the grossest of errors in his political philosophy?

In fact, if anything the Heller decision totally contradicts his claimed belief in that the document should be interpreted as originally intended.  After all, the Second Amendment was implemented by the Militia Act of 1792--not the guns for criminals acts.

Scalia is not as clever as he would like to paint himself as he has painted himself into an ideological corner which those cleverer than he is can laugh at his folly.  The ultimate farce is that he is claiming powers which have not been granted to him by the document he claims to believe in.

3 comments:

  1. "Justice Scalia has a fallacy that the Constitution must be interpreted within its original meaning, yet he must admit that he should be incredibly incredibly (yes, I mean to say that twice) wary about overturning laws made by elected officials if he is going to do that."

    By you making this statement can we then assume that you agree with Republicans on the Federal subsidy issue in the ACA ?

    MBIAC.........

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  2. "In fact, if anything the Heller decision totally contradicts his claimed belief in that the document should be interpreted as originally intended. "

    Indeed, and you don't have to be a lawyer to see that.

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  3. Thank God the founders were smarter than a Scalia and created a check and balance system so a Scalia could not force his partisanship on a whole society.

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