[neverdem]

The last ten words were omitted.

[ClearCase_guy]

If the founders had wanted to Constitution to be able to "change with the times" they would have included provisions for amending the document at some future point.

Ohhhhh yeah. They did that.

[ladtx]

"But you would have to be an idiot to believe that," Justice Scalia said. "The Constitution is not a living organism; it is a legal document. It says something and doesn't say other things."

Far be it from me to offer my agreement with Justice Scalia, he doesn't need my approval. But, of course he is totally correct. It's the Constitution not a Honey-do list that my wifes sticks to fridge, and changes daily, where she lets me know it's time to paint the dining room green or throw out the trash.

[AZRepublican]

Here is a great response to a Living Constitution theory and why it cannot work:

Living Constitution Crapola

[Straight Vermonter]

If we don't like what the Constitution say we can just shop aroud until we find a foreign law that says what we like.

It's all the same.

[Mr. Blonde]

So he really did speak in the 3rd person? He is right, but I struggle to take anyone seriously who talks like that. Seems like that would drive the other justices insane. "Scalia thinks this is unconstitutional. Scalia will be writing a dissent."

[Mrs. Darla Ruth Schwerin]

"But you would have to be an idiot to believe that," Justice Scalia said. "The Constitution is not a living organism; it is a legal document. It says something and doesn't say other things."

You've got my vote, Scalia.

[theBuckwheat]

>>
Proponents of the living Constitution want matters to be decided "not by the people, but by the justices of the Supreme Court."

<<

Lenin asked, "Who, Whom?" Who gets to make the rules and for whom those rules apply, and for whom exemptions are allowed. A "living" Constitution is an invitation for it to be molded and shaped to create rights and to deny rights.

Should anyone doubt this, today we have a major political party basing its most important objection to the the nomination of Alito on a right that cannot be found in the plain text of the Constitution, but that they insist is there, while denying a right that not only is in the plain text Constitution, but "shall not be infringed".

We also have depreciated the Ninth and Tenth Amendments to such an extent that people like myself call the Original Constitution, the Constitution in Exile. Indeed, none other than Senator Schumer (D, NY) observed that some loonies would dare to call it by that name, hoping to provoke nominee Alito into volunteering his opinion on the matter.

Even as I love and admire the Constitution that people like Senator Schumer have in fact exiled, who would return to a Constitution that treated any human as only three fifths of a person? I could not. This single issue is the only defect that must be exiled, even as people like Senator Schumer would exile whole Amendments, starting with the First, the Second, the Ninth and the Tenth.

[Semper Paratus]

By making the Constitution transparently malleable, then 5 Supreme Court Justices could effectively take over the country.

[Fiddlstix]

........Justice Scalia defended his long-held belief in sticking to the plain text of the Constitution "as it was originally written and intended...

Hear! Hear!

[FixitGuy]

Our "etched in stone" Constitution has been shredded to bits by liberal courts, the Congress and many presidents.

What would happen if these same people were actually allowed to change it? The selfish criminals in our government have been trying to rewrite it for years now. Thank God they were only able to weaken it so far!

[cryptical]

David Bernstein over at the Volokh Conspiracy has this to say to Justice Scalia:

So remind me again, Justice Scalia, how putting people in jail for the noncommercial cultivation and use of marijuana in California by California residents for medical purposes as allowed by California law comes within Congress's power to "regulate commerce ... among the several states." Unless you were an advocate of the "argument of flexibility" and the idea that the Constitution "has to change with society like a living organism," you would have to be an idiot to believe that the Necessary and Proper Clause somehow allows Congress to also regulate noncommercial intrastate activity with no substantial effect on interstate commerce, no?

Scalia, Living in a Glass House

[sagar]

"They are not looking for legal flexibility, they are looking for rigidity, whether it's the right to abortion or the right to homosexual activity, they want that right to be embedded from coast to coast and to be unchangeable," he said."

Is it constitutionally okay for judges to rule that homosexual "activity"(sex) is not their right, but instead the homos have to get government permit? Perhaps, the Department of Homosexual Activity that monitors and issues licenses for approved homosexuals... good god! lol