Justice Scalia is most well known for his “strict constructionist” approach to judicial interpretation of the constitution, and his well-connected hunting buddies. Both make him a paragon of d-baggery, but the decision handed down today in District of Columbia v. Heller proves Scalia is one of our leading d-bags.
Though law is generally a subject that bores the majority of d-bags, your loving Chunque will attempt to navigate the complexities of the decision to point out where and how Scalia defended d-baggery in our name. In reference to the text of the second amendment of the constitution that “a well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed,” Scalia wrote, “all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding.”
Scalia’s self-professed strict constructionist method is meant at root to cripple judicial activism that offended d-bags in the 50s with decisions like Brown v. Board of Education that overruled the idea that racial segregation in the US is law. If the founders didn’t write it in the constitution it takes an act of Congress or a constitutional amendment to update the document for our times. The Constitution of the United States of America is not a living document. So for Scalia to write that the word “arms” in the second amendment might include howitzers or laser beams (or semi-automatic handguns) are not protected by the constitution — until he changes his mind, at which time it is not only good policy, but sound jurisprudence, for the Justice to ventriloquize the founders.
For making up rules to which others must adhere while reserving the right to break them yourself, we salute Antonin Scalia as our d-bag of the day!
I TOTALLY concur. Strict constructionism is one of those one-way streets. It works great (from the conservative viewpoint) as long as it serves their own agenda. When it doesn’t, as in this instance you’ve noted, they abandon it like a hot potato.
Though I happen to believe the right to bear arms partly serves the citizen as a restraint on the state, I absolutely believe that communities have a right to restrict “arms” in the interest of public safety–including children living in homes where their parents are too stupid to protect them.
Ginger56
http://ginger56.wordpress.com/
The principle of d-baggery is to assert principles without having any. That’s what makes it so much fun!