Scalia Knows Best

Scalia Tortures Court, Constitution and Country

So What Else is New, DC

July 9, 2015

How do we get Antonin Scalia to stop talking?

Before I go any further, let us remember just what kind of person the Reagan-appointed Antonin Scalia is. In 2007 Antonin Scalia waxed apoplectic about a fictional character saving America by torturing people. Real-life experts insist that torture doesn’t work. Why would a Supreme Court justice bother himself with a bunch of facts and cogent arguments when he can just quote fiction as though he was a Fux News talking head. The self-described “originalist” Scalia claims to live by the word of our Founders, which he and apparently he alone knows without question. It is his job to impart unto us the precise meaning intended by each and every word they wrote. Let us not quibble over the fact that even they were not sure of what they were doing and that they clearly intended for the Constitution to evolve along with the great experiment that was the new nation they designed. Most interesting to me is learning just how flexible the Founders’ intentions were when it comes to war, corporations and invasion of privacy. Who the hell wants to form a more perfect Union anyway?

Even the often clueless conservative commentator/columnist George Will had something constructive to add on the Founder’s intent in a recent column: "In 1824, in retirement 37 years after serving as the Constitutional Convention's prime mover, James Madison, 73, noted that the 1787 "language of our Constitution is already undergoing interpretations unknown to its founders." He knew that the purport of the text would evolve "with the changeable meaning of the words composing it." Madison, our fourth president, considered by many to be the "Father of the Constitution," was also the key champion and author of the Bill of Rights. Madison’s political views evolved during his life, as did those of most of his contemporaries. During the drafting and ratification of the constitution, he championed a strong national government. He subsequently came to favor stronger state governments, finally settling between the two extremes late in his life. I know what you’re thinking (even Scalia doesn’t know that). What the hell does Madison know?  He’s been dead for 179 years and never even owned an assault rifle.

Yes, that would be the same Antonin Scalia who flouted the very foundation of democracy by illegally halting the counting of votes in Florida’s 2000 presidential contest and then blithely appointing George W. Bush president despite Bush’s having lost the popular vote and very likely the Electoral College. Scalia had no problem with the fact that there was no precedent for this decision and happily insisted that this unheard-of judgment (more accurately described as a coup d’état) could not be cited in future cases. I believe this was the original WTF moment. Scalia has more recently shown his disdain for voters and his desire for corporate control of our electoral process by siding with his cohorts on the Court who ruled in favor of Citizens United in 2009 and gutted the 1965 Voting Rights Act in 2013.

Scalia Scorches SCOTUS

Scalia is now freaking out about two major decisions he and his eight colleagues decided, with Scalia, his lapdog Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito on the losing end. Scalia hates the idea of poor Americans getting health insurance with the help of the federal government. Scalia is also mortified by the thought of marriage equality and by all appearances, most civil rights. Obamacare was upheld by a 6-3 vote, a decision Scalia labeled “interpretive jiggery-pokery” and “Pure applesauce.” Strangely, Obamacare still probably helps insurance corporations at least as much as it helps the insured. Marriage equality passed 5-4; Scalia called this decision a “threat to Democracy” and “constitutional revision by an unelected committee of nine.”

Somewhere…the Rainbow

In a striking rebuke from the pot to the kettle, Chief Hypocrite of the Supreme Court Scalia said Justice Anthony Kennedy’s majority opinion was, "couched in a style that is as pretentious as its content is egotistic." It is also rumored that Clarence Thomas had and wrote an opinion. Said Uncle Thomas, “Slaves did not lose their dignity (any more than they lost their humanity) because the government allowed them to be enslaved.” Nope, can’t think of anything more dignified or humanity-affirming than being a slave. Can you? Is Clarence Thomas just another Rachel Dolezal? He looks black, but that’s about it. Dolezal didn’t look, and apparently isn’t nearly as black as she acted - the exact opposite of Uncle Thomas.

Black tie. Very dignified.

The Court Giveth and The Court Sucketh Away

Fortunately, the Court quickly got back on track after briefly erring on the side of people and civil rights instead of their usual - protecting corporations from people like you and me. Scalia will be happy again now that air pollution is safe from the tyrannical EPA  and prisoners can still be killed by eventually-lethal or lethal-ish injection – just like in other paragons of virtue like China, Iran, North Korea and Yemen. Pretty good company, no?

James Madison, though dead since 1836, is still more intellectually honest, reasonable and adaptable than Antonin Scalia. Be careful America, I’m pretty sure Dick Cheney’s old hunting buddy Scalia owns guns - and they’re not all Constitutionally-authorized muskets. If I were Scalia wouldn’t take any more of this pathetic revisionism; I would stand up for my firmly-held, coldhearted, archaic beliefs and resign.

To all those who agree with Scalia on these devastating blows to the United States – providing health care and civil rights to Americans – let me say to you what people like you were so fond of saying to people like me back in the 1960s and 1970s: Love it or Leave it.

I. Mangrey reporting. Yippie!