"...a statement of the political realities which reveal that the Constitution is in fact a living document. Every time a political appointment is made the meaning of the document changes. Oliver Wendall Holmes recognized, and approved of, this more than 100 years ago. So did Chief Justice Marshall almost at the founding of the country." [I have elsewhere addressed your stance on Marshall. To recapitulate, Marshall was not a proto-Holmes. Holmes=demon. :) ]
Comptron's point (#470) is very poignant and on mark. You must read the previous paragraph of the article to understand Scalia's point regarding this statement. The unfortunate fact that many have come to believe the judge's role is to rethink the Constitution has led to the political fury over judicial appointments. I would disagree with Scalia, however, that it is a miniplebiscite on the meaning of the Constitution, because it is the Senate only who approves the appointment of the president and so it is an indirect election, the determination of a few on who has authority to rewrite the Constitution. And the current debate more concerns whether the Constitution ought to be viewed as enduring OR changing and therefore, as Computron concludes and I think correctly, dead.
I do wish you to consider Computron's argument. It is important that you understand the implications of viewing the Constitution as a living as opposed to an enduring law. Law must be enduring, especially the Foundational law, for another reason. For if the law constantly changes, it will loose its authority. As I have said I am reading de Tocqueville again and it brings to mind an observation of his.
He noted that Jefferson thought that before any bill was passed (I presume in the state or federal legislatures) it ought to be required that a year go by between its introduction and the vote and that no amendments be allowed. His reasoning was threefold (at least). Firstly that would require more deliberation on the part of the lawmakers and give them time to consider the worthiness of changing the law at all. For hasty laws are very harmful to good lawmaking. In all matters (except where necessity demands immediate action) it is prudent not to act upon the first usually impulsive judgment. However, it is also very true that bad laws, created more often by poor deliberation than ill-will, diminish the authority of the rest of the laws. Secondly in many state legislators of Jefferson's day the terms were only for one year, which would result in one legislature introducing a bill and the next passing it, preventing too many changes in the law and providing for better lawmaking because proposed bills would require agreement and deliberation by more than one legislature. Thirdly and most importantly, the consequence: fewer laws would be passed and those less changeable. There seems agreement among most of the shrewd judges of political matters that it is far better to endure a bad law (so long as it does not undermine the very foundations and purpose of society) than to enforce a good law that few obey (pipe smoking - the little sort -- comes to mind; Aquinas cited prostitution as another) AND even worse is to be shifting from one law to its opposite. As I stated above, if the law is constantly changing, its authority is greatly diminished. It leads to moral ambivalence and ambivalence to law as well. Although the legal and the moral are not the same, they are closely linked and depend on one another. In democracy there is the tendency to think that the sole authority of the law rests in the majority. We often forget that many of the laws, especially in the Constitution are designed to protect the rights of individuals and states from the majority and the tendency of the majority to think that it is the sole authority of law and morality. But if the law changes frequently with every majority there are two evil consequences. One: we begin to think that the sole author of law is the majority; and two: that author is arbitrary because the law is constantly changing. The conclusion is obvious: the majority alone determines what is right and wrong AND it may be whatever the present majority say it is, or to put it simply might makes right. If what is legal becomes illegal and again legal in the span of a few years, then not only that particular law but all laws appear arbitrary merely. And so all morals also appear so. Consider the harm of the Intolerance movement and the Prohibition amendments. (A side note: Jefferson did provide for a means for quick passage of bills requiring immediate action, by permitting any proposed legislation to be immediately voted upon but only passed by a two thirds majority.)
But the above paragraph is a consideration of easily changeable laws and not the Constitution which provides for the Framework of the Federal Government, imposing limits on it and defining its jurisdiction and that of the States. If the Constitution is to change with every new justice, not only the authority of the Constitution is diminished, but the very legitimacy of our federal government is called into question. Moreover, the Constitution is both a democratic and undemocratic instutition. It protects rights of the state and the individual from the majority. To say that the meaning of those limits and rights are to be reinterpretated with the changing times and in accordance with the predominant morality of the day, is to give to the majority absolute power without limit. The Constitution in large part limits the majority from being tyrant over all. To say that the Constitution should be at the mercy of the whims of a miniplebiscite is to render impotent the Constitution as a limit on the power of the majority.
What makes our country enduring is not so much our Constitution: many nations, even the Soviet Union, had Constitutions delineating the limits of governments and the rights not to be infringed by that government. What has caused America to last so long while other Constitutional democracies have failed to take root is the respect for and acceptance of that Constitution. For most democracies of the twentieth century, the Constitutions created were mere words on paper, not understood and even less adhered to by either the governed or the governing bodies. Perhaps along with Great Britain, America was unique: the Constitution was generally accepted, a few particulars merely debated. It was a real Constitution in that it established not merely a theoretical structure but the real structure of government. The amazing fact of our Constitution is that it imposed limits on the majority and both the majority and all those in positions in government agreed to those limits. This is possible only if it is regarded in large part as unopen to interpretation or to interpretation with limits. The federal judiciary was instituted to safegard those limits especially from a temporary and passionate majority, NOT to rewrite the limits themselves. I recommend that you read chapters on the state and federal judiciaries (chapters 6 and 7 of volume one).
That is those chapters in Democracy in America.