Scalia Scales
Lady Justice is blindfolded and holds up scales of justice.
Antonin Scalia hauled his hefty hiney on one side of those scales and tilted them in favor of arrogant absurdity.
He writes ….
… whatever disappearing trail of its legalistic argle-bargle one chooses to follow …
I do not know what argle-bargle is but I think Scalia has a real bad case of it.
I have been married for 42 years and I love Bubba more every day but I do not love him more than Phillip loves Hank or Mary loves Beverly. Marriage is a contract. Every adult should have the right to enter into a contract.
Y’all, Scalia totally creeps me out. Completely. I would never want to be alone in the same room with him. He’s just creepy.
I know what argle-bargle is. It’s what Scalia falls back on when he can’t came up with an intellectually honest argument to support his position.
1A contract, exactly. Marriage is first and foremost a legal civil contract that has nothing to do with religion. If you think it is “instituted by God”, fine. Get married in a church. But your marriage won’t be legal without the license issued by your state A CIVIL AUTHORITY. The end. A great day for civil rights. I look forward to the rolling tide of marriage equality that will soon engulf even the most backward states.
2Scalia sounds like he’s losing what few marbles he had.
3Actually, “argle barge” is a British term for bickering… quite apt in its usage in the quoted passage.
As for Scalia, an incredibly brilliant mind, whether one agrees with him or not.
What ever happened to respecting one’s loyal opposition?
4The government validates marriages. The churches validate weddings.
I wish we could just go to civil unions for all (more easily recognized as contractual than the emotional baggage connected to the term :marraige”). You would have to have a civil union, but you would have the option of adding a religious wedding ceremony afterwards.
5Sooo, when it comes to denying gay rights, we leave it to Congress, but when it comes to denying minority voting rights, we DON’T leave it to Congress? When it comes to protections for insurers we leave it to Congress, but wehn it comes to protections for patients we DON’T leave it to Congress? When it comes for rigging elections for Republicans we leave it to the states, but when it comes to recounting votes accurately in a Presidential election we DON’T leave it to states?
Tony Skeeve-lia is spinning so fast he’s creating his own weather pattern.
6Great photo! Is he channeling Jabba the Hut? Becoming Jabba the Justice?
7I can’t imagine saying “argle-bargle” to a judge – shoot, the memory of the sneer I got for “the whole banana” won’t go away after even a couple decades (granted, he was a very starchy man on a State bench who always thought he deserved a lifetime job at 515 Rusk, but still).
8ks sunflower:
9In France it’s just as you have said. A church “wedding” is not legally binding. You can have one but you’re not married until the local version of a JP announces you married. Doesn’t seem to have made a lot of difference to their society. They have true separation of Church and State.
Andy Borowitz has a great take on Scalia on The New Yorker:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2013/06/scalia-arrested-trying-to-burn-down-supreme-court.html?mbid=nl_Borowitz%20(146)
10Isn’t argle-bargle part of the secret initiation ceremony for the Flat Earth Society? Or maybe it was the Enemies of Copernicus Alliance.
11Kinda sounds a little bit bi-polar maybe?
Maybe he’s off his meds.
12Argle-bargle, also argy-bargy, is old(e) English for contentious speech, backbiting or scrapping. Mr. Webster tells us it is a vigorous or noisy discussion or dispute. According to Ed Brayton (un-cited) this is the first use of the phrase by any Justice since 1824’s Gibbons v. Ogden.
It seems Justice Scalia’s mind contains a wealth of truly worthless trivia.
13Actually, that picture makes Scalia look likes he’s trying to contain a horrible, stinky fart!! But then he opened his mouth and you see what exuded from that orifice!
14This guy is also corrupt. He greased the skids for his oldest son, a lawyer, to get a very well paid job in the government. The kid had no experience, just a JD to his name. The late Strom Thurmond did the same for his son but that didn’t even cause a ripple in the time/space continuum. Hell, he was Strom Thurmond and he was a Senator and the guy who created the Dixiecrats, now known as Republicans when LBJ got his civil rights law. But a judge? A justice on the Supreme Court? And he thinks he’s entitled to do that and still sit on the bench? Gimme a break!
15UTJD, yesterday the Justice said of the VRA that it was perfectly okay to ignore a large House Majority, a unanimous Senate, and a very willing president who reauthorized the Act in 2006. The judiciary was perfectly right to tell all of them they were flat wrong. But the very next day, WOE bbetide the Constitution!! The judiciary MUST respect the legislative and executive branches that (not as) overwhelmingly approved DOMA.
When he presents a consistent philosophy, I’ll respect him. Right now he’s a hypocrite, every bit the activist judge he rises up on his hind legs to howl about.
16History won’t be kind to J. Scalia nor to J. Thomas. Neither has distinguished himself on the Court in the same manner as J. Cardozo or J. Brandeis did, or other justices for that matter. History of Supreme Court Justices is much like the history of Catholic Popes – they were physically there, but did nothing to be memorable. Just give Scalia & Thomas what they deserve – the Nancy Pelosi treatment – a “who cares” with a shrug.
17UTJD: Fat Tony suffers from the “Mensa” Syndrome; i.e., he thinks he’s smarter than everybody else–an idea that is always, always a mistake. He thinks everybody else (including his colleagues on the Court) are lesser beings to his exalted self. I’d give me left one (ovary, that is) to know what he really thinks of Uncle Thomas.
18From Scalia’s comment on the invalidation of DOMA:
We have no power to decide this case. And even if we did, we have no power under the constitution to invalidate this democratically adopted legislation. The court’s errors on both points spring forth from the same diseased root: an exalted conception of the role of this institution in America.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/26/doma-highlights-supreme-court
Funny how it’s OK to bugger with the Voting Rights Act, though. Seems to me that one was overwhelmingly “democratically adopted” just a few years ago, to extend through 2031.
Scalia is so [word omitted] bent he has to screw his hat on.
19Paul Krugman’s description of Newtie Gingrich could also be applied to Scalia:
‘A stupid man’s idea of what a smart person sounds like.’
20I read someone today describe him as an evil Lou Costello. I’ve been smiling ever since.
21I am just very grateful that Scalia is not on our side and that he is so very repulsive about it.
22If Scalia had been on the Court during Lincoln’s term in office he would have argued in favor of states rights. Had he been on the Court during the Civil Rights movement he would have argued in favor of segregation and the rights of the states to enforce Jim Crow laws. Antonin Scalia is determined to be on the wrong side of history ON EVERY ISSUE… Gore v Bush, affirmative action, gay marriage, the Voting Rights Act, Citizens United, just name the case and you’ll find Justice McGrumpy rooted firmly in the road of progress.
He’d fit in well in the current House of Representatives, or as a state legislator from Texas or Tennessee… but he’s an unmitigated disaster on the Supreme Court. And we’re stuck with the hateful bastard until he passes on to that Great Good ol’ Boys Cigar Club in the sky.
heavy sigh…
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