Justice Scalia On Secession

[Playinghardball]

Ha, this is great! I would never expect that an old letter from Justice Antonin Scalia will be so handy...



http://bit.ly/Justice-Scalia-On-Secession

[GoneOffShore]

1. That old saying about a broken clock applies here.

[TrollBuster9090]

14. A broken clock is right twice a day.

Scalia, if he's lucky, is right once a decade, and always for the wrong reason.

I think the saying about "an infinite number of monkeys banging away on an infinite number of typewriters would eventually write all the great books by accident" is more appropriate.

[AngryAmish]

2. What if a state wanted out and the other states wanted them out also?

I'm thinking Florida...

[John2]

5. I agree

with Justice Scalia, that the Civil War decided the issue. Much of the Territory for U.S. expansion was sold or conquered by the U.S. Government. The United States did sell land to U.S. citizens for their use. People can always be replaced but not the land. Just see what the United States did to Native Americans.

[bvar22]

16. You would throw out Florida?

WOW.
I'm not anywhere close to wanting to throw away Florida.
Florida has some of the prettiest beaches and some of the best Gulf Seafood in The WORLD.
There are also millions of hard working Democrats living in Florida.

Florida is beautiful,
and belongs to us ALL.
If you have a problem with Florida,
them move there and help Fix It,
don't throw it away.

[GeorgeGist]

3. Wars resolve Constitutional issues?

Color me WTF?

[DavidDvorkin]

6. That seemed odd to me, too.

[NYC Liberal]

8. More like the aftermath. There was an actual

Supreme Court case after the war in the early 1870s that ruled on secession. That's what he is referring to.

[yellowcanine]

9. That and the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments.

But I guess one could say that the Constitutional question of the right to secede was resolved by the Civil War. And Texas was treated the same as any other Confederate state, regardless of their status as a free republic before they came into the Union.

[randr]

4. We should claim that floating mass of plastic out in the Pacific

as a new territory and open it up for homesteading.
Plasticstan would be a new home to all teabaggers that have a boat.

[MadrasT]

7. Horseshit.

The Civil War did not resolve the constitutional issue of secession.

The North had a superior war machine and won.

That is completely unrelated to the constitutional question of secession.

Jesus.

The only time the Supreme Court has ever considered secession was Texas v White in 1868. It ruled unilateral secession was unconstitutional, but allowed space for secession "through revolution, or through consent of the States".

[CTyankee]

13. As a practical matter, it did. I don't the our modern day "secessionists" are looking to a

violent revolution and I think a constitutional amendment would have too high a bar to achieve. But it's probably important that a right wing SCOTUS justice has this opinion. That has to count for something with these idiots...

[RomneyLies]

10. Yet he will still vote in favor of the Secesionists if it ever comes before him.

Scalia has proven with his stance on the ACA, precedent is meaningless even if he wrote the decision that set the precedent. All that matters to Scalia is the politics involved and since the Secessionists would be Seceding because Obama, he'd vote to allow it even though Texas V. White clearly ruled secession is unconstitutional.

[struggle4progress]

11. Why quote Scalia ever? Bush v Gore exposed him as a partisan hack, and Citizens United exposed him

as a corporate lackey. "Quack! Quack!" exposed his contempt for any appearance of unbiased propriety, and then his vaffunculo! once again exposed his contempt for most of us



He's a complete zero in my book

[dem4ward]

12. May I have my reality check please... I have to get back to my doomsday bunker...

[Caeser67]

15. Meanwhile, Clarence Thomas

Looks up the definition of Secession.

And nods slowly.

Forward. Together, or Without You.