Posted on 08/20/2013 12:47:05 AM PDT by Steve Schulin
"It's not up to the courts to invent new minorities that get special protections," Scalia told a packed hotel ballroom in southwestern Montana... Changes to the Constitution were made to protect minorities and to give women the right to vote, but that's not how the court operates today, he said.
Rather, a majority of five judges decide issues that should be in the hands of Congress or made through a change to the Constitution.
(Excerpt) Read more at hosted.ap.org ...
* Questions such as National Security Administration surveillance of phone records or the privacy questions in the Patriot Act were once answered by Congress, which knows how serious a threat is compared to the intrusiveness of the surveillance. But now the courts are doing so. "Of all the three branches, we are the one that knows the least about the nature of the threats to the country, and we have the least ability to find out about it," Scalia said.
* Scalia answered some questions written by the audience, including a hot-button issue in Montana: the Second Amendment's right to keep and bear arms.
"What remains to be determined ... appears to be the scope of the armament that people can keep and bear," he said. "Can they bear shoulder-fired rocket launchers?"
He said the court will have to take those cases as they come, but his approach will be to apply the historical understanding of the Second Amendment, which was not just in self-defense against animals and home intruders, but for the people to protect themselves against a tyrannical leader.
* Scalia dismissed the idea of term limits for Supreme Court justices, asking, "Who is drooling on the bench?"
* Scalia called the notion of an imperial presidency "garbage," saying the presidency is weak by design and Congress holds the real power. "Congress can do whatever it wants, if it gets its act together," he said.
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He has an honest, intellectually sound mind.
He has a wry wit and is spot on.
You tell us. I resent the fact that Congress is a retirement/nursing home for congresscritters. Why should we assume the Supremes are any different?
In that photo RBG appears to have retired in place.
Unfortunately for now at least, that is where she remains.
The only reason people want to be a “minority” is so that they can play the victim.
It’s gettin old.
Is everyone in America a cryin whining two year old?
It has already been invented. Basically, a minority is anybody who is not white. That’s it. There’s really just one. One. Anybody Not White. They can call themselves ANWs for short.
Everyone is a minority of some sort. Where does it end?
Who has been bribed and puts his wrongly and illegally acquired children above the survival of our republic? THAT is the question!
Ooops, mea culpa. Wishful thinking on my part. Although anyone Barry would replace her with, would be just as bad.
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