Is Scalia going off the deep end?

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Is Scalia going off the deep end?

Postby chiggerbit » Wed Apr 12, 2006 3:56 pm

Like Paul Harvey and Pat Robertson, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has been drawing attention to himself a lot lately with outrageous gestures and statements. Had a lefty Supreme made a statement about Al Gore, identical to Scalia's below, he would have been skinned, dismembered, and his head put on a flagpole. Is this man going off his rocker, or showing early signs of dementia? Hmmmm, past hunting partner of Cheney's? Ahhh....<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.wfsb.com/Global/story.asp?S=4761664">www.wfsb.com/Global/story.asp?S=4761664</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>HARTFORD, Conn. -- <br><br>"Conservative U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia on Wednesday called his 2004 decision not to recuse himself from a case involving his friend Vice President Dick Cheney the "proudest thing" he's done on the court.<br><br><br>Scalia's remarks came as he took questions from students during a lecture at the University of Connecticut's law school.<br><br>The case in question involved Cheney's request to keep private the details of closed-door White House strategy sessions that produced the administration's energy policy. The administration fought a lawsuit brought by watchdog and environmental groups that contended that industry executives, including former Enron chairman Ken Lay, helped shape that policy. The Supreme Court upheld the administration position on a 7-2 vote.<br><br>Scalia refused to recuse himself from the case, rejecting arguments by critics who said his impartiality was brought into question because of a hunting vacation that he took with Cheney while the court was considering the vice president's appeal.<br><br>"For Pete's sake, if you can't trust your Supreme Court justice more than that, get a life," he said Wednesday.<br><br>He told students he would have recused himself if the case had involved Cheney personally, but that he viewed the situation differently because the vice president was named in his official capacity as head of the group.<br><br>"I think the proudest thing I have done on the bench is not allowed myself to be chased off that case," Scalia said.<br><br>Scalia's appearance at the law school was met with protests...." <p></p><i></i>
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Nah.

Postby Ike Broflovski » Wed Apr 12, 2006 4:03 pm

He knows exactly what he's doing. He's confirmed for life, so there's no need to play nice any more. He may be drunk from his new power and showing his ass a little, but he hasn't lost it. <p></p><i></i>
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Pride

Postby nomo » Wed Apr 12, 2006 4:06 pm

<!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>"I think the proudest thing I have done on the bench is not allowed myself to be chased off that case," Scalia said.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>Give the guy a break. He doesn't have much else to be "proud" of.<br> <p></p><i></i>
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Re: Nah.

Postby chiggerbit » Wed Apr 12, 2006 4:09 pm

He's sure making the conservative ones look bad, even weird, definitely very partisan. Personally, I think one of the changes this country needs is to do away with life appointments. There's something about his actions that seems more impulsive lately, which makes me wonder. <p></p><i></i>
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Re: Nah.

Postby bvonahsen » Wed Apr 12, 2006 10:41 pm

Supreme justices actually tend to soften their views. Due, no doubt, to their freedom from everyday political pressures. That same freedom could unhinge lesser minds I supppose, and Scalia could be losing it. I think he lost his marbles long ago so I'm a tad biased. <br><br><!--EZCODE EMOTICON START ;) --><img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/wink.gif ALT=";)"><!--EZCODE EMOTICON END--> <p></p><i></i>
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Re: Nah.

Postby chiggerbit » Wed Apr 12, 2006 11:11 pm

<!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>"...Due, no doubt, to their freedom from everyday political pressures..."</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--><br><br>He would appear to be getting more extreme, at least more publicly extreme. Juvenile, even. <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=chiggerbit@rigorousintuition>chiggerbit</A> at: 4/12/06 9:12 pm<br></i>
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Re: Nah.

Postby Col Quisp » Wed Apr 12, 2006 11:14 pm

Didn't he recently give someone the finger on camera? Old fart at play... <p></p><i></i>
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Scalia has a God complex or maybe Spanish Inquisition...

Postby Hugh Manatee Wins » Wed Apr 12, 2006 11:38 pm

Scalia is one sick twisted murderous fuck. Like many fascists in American government today. But medieval.<br><br>He actually wrote regarding the death penalty that the state rules in the name of God and so has the right to put people to death.<br><br>He also wrote that democracy has a tendency to contradict God's Will and it is up to people like him...to correct that.<br><br>I'm not kidding.<br><br>"The reaction of people of faith to this tendency of democracy to obscure the divine authority behind government should not be resignation to it, but the resolution to combat it as effectively as possible."<br><!--EZCODE EMOTICON START :x --><img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/sick.gif ALT=":x"><!--EZCODE EMOTICON END--> <br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.prodeathpenalty.com/scalia.htm">www.prodeathpenalty.com/scalia.htm</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>God’s Justice and Ours<br>Antonin Scalia<br>....<br>The death penalty is undoubtedly wrong unless one accords to the state a scope of moral action that goes beyond what is permitted to the individual. <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>In my view, the major impetus behind modern aversion to the death penalty is the equation of private morality with governmental morality. This is a predictable (though I believe erroneous and regrettable) reaction to modern, democratic self–government.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br>Few doubted the morality of the death penalty in the age that believed in the divine right of kings. Or even in earlier times. St. Paul had this to say (I am quoting, as you might expect, the King James version):<br><br> <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? Do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: for he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake. (Romans 13:1–5)</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--><br><br>This is not the Old Testament, I emphasize, but St. Paul. One can understand his words as referring only to lawfully constituted authority, or even only to lawfully constituted authority that rules justly. <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>But the core of his message is that government—however you want to limit that concept—derives its moral authority from God. It is the “minister of God” with powers to “revenge,” to “execute wrath,” including even wrath by the sword (which is unmistakably a reference to the death penalty).</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> Paul of course did not believe that the individual possessed any such powers. Only a few lines before this passage, he wrote, “Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.” And in this world the Lord repaid—did justice—through His minister, the state.<br><br>These passages from Romans represent the consensus of Western thought until very recent times. Not just of Christian or religious thought, but of secular thought regarding the powers of the state. <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>That consensus has been upset, I think, by the emergence of democracy. It is easy to see the hand of the Almighty behind rulers whose forebears, in the dim mists of history, were supposedly anointed by God, or who at least obtained their thrones in awful and unpredictable battles whose outcome was determined by the Lord of Hosts, that is, the Lord of Armies. It is much more difficult to see the hand of God—or any higher moral authority—behind the fools and rogues (as the losers would have it) whom we ourselves elect to do our own will.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> How can their power to avenge—to vindicate the “public order”—be any greater than our own?<br><br>So it is no accident, I think, that the modern view that the death penalty is immoral is centered in the West. That has little to do with the fact that the West has a Christian tradition, and everything to do with the fact that the West is the home of democracy. <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Indeed, it seems to me that the more Christian a country is the less likely it is to regard the death penalty as immoral.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> Abolition has taken its firmest hold in post–Christian Europe, and has least support in the church–going United States. I attribute that to the fact that, for the believing Christian, death is no big deal. Intentionally killing an innocent person is a big deal: it is a grave sin, which causes one to lose his soul. But losing this life, in exchange for the next? <br>....<br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Besides being less likely to regard death as an utterly cataclysmic punishment, the Christian is also more likely to regard punishment in general as deserved. </strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END-->The doctrine of free will—the ability of man to resist temptations to evil, which God will not permit beyond man’s capacity to resist—is central to the Christian doctrine of salvation and damnation, heaven and hell. <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>The post–Freudian secularist, on the other hand, is more inclined to think that people are what their history and circumstances have made them, and there is little sense in assigning blame.<br></strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br>Of course those who deny the authority of a government to exact vengeance are not entirely logical. Many crimes—for example, domestic murder in the heat of passion—are neither deterred by punishment meted out to others nor likely to be committed a second time by the same offender. Yet opponents of capital punishment do not object to sending such an offender to prison, perhaps for life. Because he deserves punishment. Because it is just.<br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>The mistaken tendency to believe that a democratic government, being nothing more than the composite will of its individual citizens, has no more moral power or authority than they do as individuals has adverse effects in other areas as well. It fosters civil disobedience, for example, which proceeds on the assumption that what the individual citizen considers an unjust law—even if it does not compel him to act unjustly—need not be obeyed.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> St. Paul would not agree. “Ye must needs be subject,” he said, “not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake.” For conscience sake. <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>The reaction of people of faith to this tendency of democracy to obscure the divine authority behind government should not be resignation to it, but the resolution to combat it as effectively as possible. </strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END-->We have done that in this country (and continental Europe has not) by preserving in our public life many visible reminders that—in the words of a Supreme Court opinion from the 1940s—“we are a religious people, whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being.” These reminders include: “In God we trust” on our coins, “one nation, under God” in our Pledge of Allegiance, the opening of sessions of our legislatures with a prayer, the opening of sessions of my Court with “God save the United States and this Honorable Court,” annual Thanksgiving proclamations issued by our President at the direction of Congress, and constant invocations of divine support in the speeches of our political leaders, which often conclude, “God bless America.” <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>All this, as I say, is most un–European, and helps explain why our people are more inclined to understand, as St. Paul did, that government carries the sword as “the minister of God,” to “execute wrath” upon the evildoer.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--> <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=hughmanateewins>Hugh Manatee Wins</A> at: 4/12/06 9:40 pm<br></i>
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Re: Nah.

Postby chiggerbit » Wed Apr 12, 2006 11:38 pm

Senile old fart "at play". Just like Reagan was in his first term, only the MSM refused to report it. <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=chiggerbit@rigorousintuition>chiggerbit</A> at: 4/12/06 9:46 pm<br></i>
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