Tuesday, February 14, 2006

The Constitution is dead

And I'm an idiot - I thought "alive" was a metaphor for a socio-historical and semiotic reality. Long live the Constitution!

Scalia criticized those who believe in what he called the "living Constitution."

"That's the argument of flexibility and it goes something like this: The Constitution is over 200 years old and societies change. It has to change with society, like a living organism, or it will become brittle and break."

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

2 comments:

Neil Shakespeare said...

It says some things and doesn't say other things? Gosh, that's a brilliant mind at work there! I hope that guy's on the Supreme Court!

helmut said...

But he can't distinguish between the two because he speaks a somewhat different "language" than Madison.