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'Just as bad' By Adrian Apollo Fresno (Published Sunday, January 19, 2003, 6:25 AM)
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia criticized judicial liberals in his recent Religious Freedom Day speech in Fredericksburg, Va., by saying that they believe in a "Constitution that morphs while you look at it like Plasticman." However, Justice Scalia's concept of the Constitution is just as bad. Justice Scalia's judicial philosophy is just as plastic-like. He believes that ultimately, if a majority of people favor a certain form of government, then it is OK for them to establish that kind of government. Nothing could be further from our Founding Fathers' beliefs. The framers of our Constitution believed that liberty meant the liberty of the individual, not the group, and that individuals derived their right to be free from nature, not from their fellow man. The fact that the people then ratified the Constitution does not mean that the group gave individuals their freedom. The only philosophy that Justice Scalia propounds is that the Constitution contains no philosophy -- that it is just a list of concrete practices and detailed rules to be followed without reference to any overarching philosophy within which it could be interpreted. This is really just a sophisticated form of judicial anti-intellectualism, the intellectual equivalent of a wolf in sheep's clothing, or rather, a wolf in a justice's judicial robes. Justice Scalia's philosophy, "originalism" came about as a reaction to the liberal Supreme Court rulings of the 1960s and their belief in a "living Constitution." Unfortunately, this philosophy, or more accurately, this "anti-philosophy," throws the baby out with the bath water.
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