Ethan Davis at the Claremont Institute tells of Justice Scalia's recent visit to Amherst College. Once he made his way through the cursing and chanting protestors,
"...Justice Scalia spoke eloquently, lucidly and politely on originalism in constitutional law. Interpreting the Constitution as it was originally written, he argued, is the only way to restrain liberal and conservative judges alike from imposing their personal preferences on the country. Five out of nine unelected lawyers, Scalia said, should not be legislating for the entire nation. If the Supreme Court makes a mistake, the people can only rectify it by constitutional amendment. Directed by their professors to believe that Scalia would engage only in "vitriolic name-calling," the audience was temporarily mollified. There were embarrassed looks as some of the less radical ones quietly removed their black armbands, and Scalia spoke without interruption for close to 45 minutes."
What an outrageous proposition, that judges shouldn't dictate. Heresy!
I'd note that Scalia says he is not a strict constructionist, but a textualist. That is, for example, freedom of the (printing) press can be construed to reportage on the internet...but not a 'right' to smear chocolate on one's nude body with tax-payer funding.
Hilarity ensues, of course, ending with a rare moment of agreement:
"...the professors and students finally said explicitly what campus conservatives have known for a long time. Dissent is legitimate, so long as it comes from the left."
Read it all: "Repressive Tolerance:
Some Questions Are Beyond the Pale For A "Liberal-Arts" College"
Things have been pretty dead around this blog lately and I'm not sure if that's good news or bad news.
Speaking only for myself, and not all of this site's contributers, I thrive on critiquing court decisions that I believe ignore the rule of Law in the interests of furthering the favored idealism of the justices. That there has been a dearth of such court decisions recently is good for the survival of consent over tyranny, but bad for inspiration for posting cool blog entries.
So, I'm going to make a rather selfish request of all those State and Federal courts out there -- 9th Curcuit, I'm looking in your direction... -- to, please, make with some whacky court decisions already! Have you all gone sensible on us?!
Rule that NAMBLA is as legitimate as UNICEF. Or that Russians have a long unnoticed Constitutional right to U.S. Medicare benefits. Anything!
You could claim that Pat Buchanan won the 2000 election or that saying "bless you" after someone sneezes is not protected speech. Throw me a bone, I'm dyin' here!