Justice Scalia firmly believed in the right of the people to establish a constitutional government that would recognize the ultimate authority of the people, not an elite of unelected judges, to establish laws.
By Albert Mohler, at www.albertmohler.com
Justice Antonin Scalia
“Presidents come and go, but the Supreme Court goes on forever.” So advised a man who ought to know, William Howard Taft. After serving as President of the United States, Taft went on to serve — probably more effectively — as Chief Justice of the United States. But, if the Supreme Court goes on forever, justices do not. Americans were reminded of this truth on Saturday when news broke that Justice Antonin Scalia had been found dead in Texas, where he had gone on a hunting trip.
The 79-year-old justice had served almost 30 years on the nation’s highest court and was by any measure one of the most influential justices in that court’s history. Indeed, Antonin Scalia is almost surely the most influential justice to sit on the Supreme Court in many decades. The loss of his influence, as well as his his crucial vote, is monumental.
Scalia’s significance lies in his commitment to originalism, also known as textualism — the belief that the Constitution of the United States is to be read and understood and applied in keeping with the language, syntax, and vocabulary of its text as understood to be intended by the framers. This was how the Supreme Court had operated for decades, without even having to express originalism as a method. All that changed in modern decades as the Court and the nation’s liberal legal culture adopted an understanding of the Constitution as an evolving document that was to be interpreted in light of current social needs — even if this required the abandonment of the Constitution as a regulative document.
Progressivists, as they styled themselves, argued that the Constitution is to be interpreted as a “living” text that can be made to mean whatever modern jurists and legal theorists want the text to mean. As Scalia would later explain, judges had grown accustomed to remaking the world in their own image, abandoning constitutional government.
This process began earlier than even most conservatives recognize.
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Dr. Mohler is “spot on” with his comments about the death of Antonin Scalia! I fear that our “constitutional republic” is, and will be even more, gone in the future because it is under constant attack by the “progressives”! I just can’t wait to see who Obama proposes as Scalia’s replacement!
Good grief. The republic has existed for more than 200 years. One Supreme Court justice does not ensure it will survive another 200 years. It is only in the last 10 years that the conservatives have become alarmists to find anew for the first time that we are a constitutional republic. What overreach. What exaggeration. And some of Scalia’s opinions have meant chaos such as saying the corporations are people in Citizens United. It is nonsense and just gives the wealthy undue influence in the political process and THAT is undemocratic and potentially undermines the republic.
Ideologically, and also in terms of economics and politics, most PCUSA operatives and apologists are what I called, “Statists” or collectivist in orientation. In that matters of individual liberty, self determination, freedom of expression, should be sacrificed for their version of a corporate or societal benefit. You see aspects of this in groups and movements such as Black Lives Matter and much of the energy of the Warren/Sanders camp of the Democratic party runs off this energy.
In fact the greatest threat to the populist totalitarianism in style currently in the religious/secular Left are people with minds, feet, and able to process their own conclusions, that and a very healthy Second Amendment. And on that score the late Justice was indeed a defender of the Constitution and the Freedoms it provides.
It is not that the people need to fear their government or a denomination, but that government or a denomination needs to fear its people. And that is the essence of freedom, as well as revolution when threatened .
Silly and childish pablum, James….who do YOU say corporations are?!….dogs and cats, perhaps?….we do not lose or give up our freedoms and constitutional rights when we join with others for a voice….your reasoning is extremely fightening. It is chaos if the government can decide it can regulated speech as it sees fit. (you might want to read the last few weeks of George Will and others)
Bravo, Bravo James. You said it very well. Thanks for making the effort.
Some other comments reflect the idea that they should stay on their meds!