OT: Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia passed away

[Thunder]

Scalia was 79 years old and had been on the U.S. Supreme Court for 29 years.

http://www.npr.org/2016/02/13/140647230/justice-antonin-scalia-known-for-biting-dissents-dies-at-79

[Klctlc]

Sorry for the late reply to this post.

I feel this may be a safer environment for a slightly political comment.

I am not an attorney, barely made it out of WMU, but it really aggravates me at the apparent joy people have that he died. I personally am conservative, so my bias is towards Justica Scalia, but when Ginsberg dies or Souter ( who is a far bigger letdown because Bush Sr. thought he was conservative! I will not be happy. These are great people, incredibly smart people and people I respect.

It is also hard to argue with Scalia’s logic on the constitution. His Originalism makes so much sense to a layman. If it was not the intent of the framers then who is he to change the meaning of the constitution to his political beliefs? Amendments are hard but they are allowed and that is the democractic process. I know the majority can make bad law (see slavery and Japanese internment camps) and Scalia was not perfect, but if you are liberal or conservative don’t you want the law interpreted as it is written?

[Thunder]

I agree regarding people’s joy about his death. It seems like people’s political opinions often cause them to be less humane, as if political figures are lesser people. Regardless of their political opinions, they are intelligent, high achievers. If anything, the fact that such different types of people reach such heights highlights the idea that intelligent people can have varying opinions.

I identify myself as neither “liberal” nor “conservative”, but yes, it does make sense for laws to be enforced based on the way the Constitution was written, not how we want to interpret it now. Like you said, Amendments can be made if necessary, but otherwise, the Constitution has done a pretty good job of governing this body for over 200 years now, so there’s not a pressing need to “fix” it at this point.

[Author]

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