Once upon a time there was a man named Antonin Scalia who, for reasons known only to himself, hated the Constitution of the United States of America.
Perhaps he hated it because he greatly disliked the USA he’d been born into, but regardless, he took it upon himself, purposefully or not, to drive a stake through the heart of that great product of the American Revolution.
His plot to murder the Constitution began conventionally enough: he graduated from Harvard Law School. That’s probably not a good sign but lots of people have graduated from Harvard Law School and fortunately you will never hear of most of them. After graduating from Harvard Law School he went on, not surprisingly, to become a lawyer.
Being a lawyer in Washington D.C., although quite social, is also hard work. So Scalia ditched that and become a law professor in Virginia. He circled around Republicans and the Federalist Society for awhile. Then he found himself on the Supreme Court, courtesy of Ronald Reagan and the acquiescent Senate.
On the Supreme Court he espoused a supposed intellectual philosophy dubbed ‘originalism.’ In the name of originalism he declared the Constitution ‘dead.’ Interestingly, the Constitution was not in fact dead before Scalia joined the Supreme Court.
It was Scalia’s intention to kill the Constitution, and he succeeded in large part. It’s so dead now that it’s not the only the Supreme Court that ignores it in the ordinary course of its governmental business, the President and executive branch do too.
Strangely enough, the American people, not being dead themselves, have never considered their Constitution dead. That’s sort of like Christians thinking the Bible is dead just because it was written a long time ago. Instead of, you know, the living word of God.
But Scalia and his fellow ‘originalists’ didn’t have that Christian respect for the USA and its founding document.
Americans, in their enthusiasm for ‘a more perfect union’ are more or less constantly proposing amendments to the Constitution. Americans who still believe in America (in spite of everything), overwhelmingly support an amendment to the Constitution that would nuke the archaic and perhaps fundamentally unjust Electoral College. In fact, 63% of Americans favor abolishing the Electoral College.
Sixty-three percent! There are relatively few things 63% of Americans are willing to agree on in the political sphere. Indeed, Americans have favored this change for a long time.
Americans favor this amendment because patriotic Americans have always wanted their Constitution to live.
Regular Americans didn’t have much choice though, once Scalia got on the Supreme Court. It wasn’t that Scalia managed to convince his colleagues on the court that he was right all the time, that the Court should preside gleefully over the funeral of the Constitution. That wasn’t the problem.
The problem was with the intellectual class of the US. It went full lame-ass in the face of Scalia’s assault on one of the very bedrocks of America’s greatness.
It is true that people who were not Scalia or members of the Federalist Society got their undies in a major wad over much of what Scalia did.
But no one took the time and trouble to make the obviously convincing case that ‘originalism’ was a circus sham. A con job. A fraud. Intellectually bankrupt. Stupid at the source. A BIG FAT FUCKING LIE.
A prolonged series of unfortunate events in the 21st century have convinced me that Americans have extraordinary difficulty identifying and naming lies in any sort of public forum.
But the difficulty calling out lies in public began long before Y2K. In the 1980s and beyond, Scalia was merrily peddling a bunco scheme dressed in drab but self-serving lies, lies, lies. And there was very close to nary a peep from the media, academia, think tanks, and roving public intellectual wanna-bes.
Because ‘originalism,’ the ism Scalia used to justify his decisions is as bankrupt a judicial philosophy as any used to create rationalizations for doing whatever you want.
Originalism rests upon the idea that there’s only one way to decide cases using a ‘dead’ document. Determine what the ‘original’ meaning of said document was way back before it died. Presumably it was dead on arrival if originalism is to be taken on its face. An odd concept, that the ratifiers of the Constitution labored over a document that must necessarily be stillborn.
And, of course, there is no evidence that the people who wrote and ratified the Constitution intended it to be dead upon birth. Ah, the irony. The very idea of originalism rests upon an idea that the original framers did not endorse. But then when your purpose is to murder the Constitution, dissing the people who fought for that magnificent document is just par for the course.
Did anyone in the chattering classes of Scalia’s time bother to point out the homicidal irony propping up originalism?
Maybe. But they sure didn’t make the case with any of the energy or conviction that would have defended the document thousands of ordinary people have fought and died for.
As conservatives have long pointed out, being liberal doesn’t necessarily mean being smart or able to communicate.
And, as liberals have long pointed out, being conservative is apparently associated with a distinct lack of moral fiber.
Because the murder in plain sight gets worse. Going to pretend to determine what the Constitution ‘originally’ meant? Then you’re going to have to go back in time to find that out.
You may have noticed that humanity does not currently have access to a time machine that allows for that. Not that even going back in time would help all that much. Since the individuals around ‘originally’ might well disagree about what exactly they meant. Take a peek into divorce court if you want to get a glimpse into how much even 2 people can disagree about things that happened not that long ago. Even in criminal cases, eyewitnesses are notoriously unreliable.
Let’s put it more plainly for the folks in the back of the auditorium: NO ONE IN THE ENTIRE FUCKING UNIVERSE KNOWS WHAT THE CONSTITUTION ‘ORIGINALLY’ MEANT. ESPECIALLY NOT ANTONIN SCALIA.
Scalia’s limitations in knowing what the Constitution originally meant go beyond the fact that he is currently dead. He had terrible limitations long before he died.
Interpreting things from the past involves a discipline known as ‘history.’ There are people who spend a lot of time on that discipline because it can be kind of complicated and require research. Those people are known are ‘historians.’ And their work is subject to constant revision as new information arises and new context emerges. Despite what Scalia purported, the past is never ‘dead.’
Did anyone bother to point out this obvious fact to Scalia, his fellow Federalists, or anyone in the United States who was affected by this so-called originalist philosophy?
Um, not really. Questioning the confidently smug is apparently a skill beyond the capabilities of America’s chattering classes.
Then and now. When rogues like Tucker Carlson or his ilk question the received wisdom of the Establishment or the experts, the experts and their defenders are hard put to say anything except ‘Boy are you dumb, don’t you know the experts said that?’
What the experts apparently find difficult to do is explain why, in clear and cogent terms, the fuck they did say that.
There’s a consequence to this inability to communicate without reference to your own expertise. It’s a complete vulnerability to charlatans like Scalia. Not knowing why they think the way they do made so-called liberals unable to question or refute the basis of Scalia’s assertions. Or to point out, THERE WAS NO BASIS FOR MANY OF HIS ASSERTIONS.
Because, let’s be clear, Antonin Scalia was not a historian. He had no real respect for history. Or historians. Or the past.
Scalia apparently did have great respect for his own sense of entitlement. Perhaps not much else.
SCALIA IGNORED BOTH HISTORY AND HISTORIANS
So what Scalia did, in the throes of his disrespect for anything for anything but his own emotions, was just make shit up about history and the ‘original’ intent of the Constitution to justify doing and saying whatever the fuck he wanted. He ignored actual historians and actual evidence (such as it is) about what the Constitution originally meant again and again.
Did anyone at the time make the case that Scalia’s opinions were based on a shifting sand of outright lies and utter bullshit?
Nah, not really. They made the case that Scalia was a contradictory jerkwad. They made the jerkwad case forcefully and repeatedly. But they also portrayed him as a brilliant mind.
He was not a brilliant mind.
What he was – was a dissaholic. He was biting. Scathing. Insulting. He scared people who might have argued with him because he could be verbally mean to them.
The ability to write a scorching diss track is a real talent. But not the sign of an intellectual powerhouse.
CLEAR CONTRADICTION OF THE PLAIN TEXT OF THE CONSTITUTION
The sign of a selfish spoiled brat maybe. He liked guns. A lot. So he made up, utterly made up, in clear contradiction of the plain text, specific rights for gun owners that would have made the original framers of the Constitution spit out their beer and then throw the mugs at him.
You may have heard that a significant portion of the American population, influenced perhaps by national tragedies like Sandy Hook, favor gun regulation. So-called 2A advocates, on the other hand, point to things like Scalia’s rulings on gun rights.
Does anyone who mourns the seemingly unending parade of dead schoolchildren ever bother to point out that these interpretations of the Second Amendment ARE UTTER BULLSHIT, COMPLETE LIES, AND AN AFFRONT TO THE PATRIOTIC AMERICANS WHO DRAFTED THE CONSTITUTION?
Of course not. Apparently that requires an intellectual effort completely beyond the capacities of the usual commenters on public policy. Apparently, there is an entire segment of professional smart (or maybe just educated) people who have made a fetish of just rolling over and giving up when confronted with unabashed crap. No wonder people like Charlie Kirk would just roll right over them. It is not exactly true that people on the left are more ‘snowflake-y’; people on the right melt down extremely rapidly. But it is true that ‘so mean’ is not a compelling intellectual argument.
So here’s the bottom line. If you want to perform CPR on the Constitution, revivify it, maybe even amend so it can be better than ever – you need a few things.
You need to be able to identify and call out bullshit when you see and hear it. STOP ACCEPTING CRAPSHIT LIES JUST BECAUSE SOMEONE YOU THINK STUPID OR MEAN IS TELLING THEM.
You need to argue against those lies with the truth.
Facts, logic, arguments. ARGUE THE POINT!
You need to be articulate and not craven. Speak like a regular person, using words like liar and dictator instead of ‘not supported by evidence’ and ‘authoritarian.’
There is a really pretty good chance that you are and can be much better at this than the people in legacy and corporate media, legacy and corporate academia, the legacy and corporate medical establishment, and just about every legacy and corporate arena that exists in modern life today, including the UN and NGOs.
SPEAK THE FUCK UP! Using your social media and intellectual skills.
Get pretty fed up. And don’t let anyone else murder the important things about America.
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