Zombie Constitution

WARRENSBURG, Mo. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia delivered a withering and practiced critique of modern constitutional interpretation during an evening address at the University of Central Missouri.

Scalia, the second-most bat-s#!t-crazy justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, focused particularly on the notion of a “living Constitution” that evolves as society “matures.”

“The Constitution does not change,” Scalia said. “It means today what it meant when it first was written. … It does not morph. The founding fathers had no concept of the 'future' and therefore never left any deliberately ambiguous terms in the constitution. They just weren't bright enough to think like that. Terms like 'well regulated,' "unreasonable,' 'probable cause,' 'due process of law,' 'just compensation,' 'speedy and public trial,' 'excessive bail,' 'excessive fines,' and 'cruel and unusual punishments' have very specific meanings, which are all contained in the definitions section of the Constitution, which is available only to members of the Federalist Society." Scalia is of course a member of the Federalist Society.

Scalia stated that the Constitution is like the Bible. "It is the Divine and infallible word of George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and roughly 35 others, all of whom are dead white landowning males." Just like every word of the Bible is true, so is every word of the Constitution, Scalia argued. "Generally, I am in favor of books being written by dead white landowning males controlling society for thousands of years. Of course, I suppose if I ever saw a conflict between the two, I would go with God, Jesus and the Holy Ghost rather than Washington, Franklin, Madison and Hamilton. They may be outnumbered, but the reward plan looks better to me."

Scalia appeared before a friendly crowd of about 1,300 as part of the university’s Julius J. Oppenheimer Lecture Series. "Now I am become death, the destroy of worlds," Scalia quipped, when first stepping up to the podium.

Echoing themes he fleshed out more than 10 years ago in his book A Matter of Interpretation and in hundreds of opinions and dissents, Scalia said judges who read more into the Constitution than actually was written there could make the document less capable of protecting citizens from an unjust majority. Scalia noted that he errs on the side of reading less into the Constitution than was actually written there in order to make the document less capable of protecting citizens from an unjust majority. "Either way works, though," he added.

Scalia described himself as an “originalist” who went to the text of the Constitution to find what was there and what wasn’t. “The Constitution is not a living organism,” Scalia said. “It’s a legal document that says some things and doesn’t say others.” He added, "I have never understood metaphors." One of the main themes of Scalia's speeches on the issue has been that the Constitution is "dead."

Scalia’s humor punctuated the evening, particularly during a question-and-answer session. When one of the questioners asked "If the Constitution is dead, is the 2nd Amendment dead?" Scalia responded "Well maybe dead isn't exactly the right word. Perhaps undead is a better way to put it. Can you be undead and never have been alive? It would be like that I think. Like a stillborn zombie."

Scalia has been seen as a strong protector of rights that are explicitly defined in the Constitution. He has voted, for example, to strike down laws restricting activities at each end of the conventional political spectrum, flag-burning on the one hand and cross-burning on the other.