Monday, February 15, 2016
On Antonin Scalia
I often joke that I can rattle off the backstory of 95 percent of Sonic the Hedgehog games, remember who led the Eagles in interceptions in 2011 (Kurt Coleman - and that was before he was "good") and tell you where CKY recorded Carver City (Mars), but somehow can't name more than like five Supreme Court justices - at least since they disbarred Judge Joe Brown.
One of the names I always remembered was Antonin Scalia, in large part because damn, was he there a long time. For the past 30 years, no matter what you did, Scalia was straight up there, man.
On Saturday, Scalia passed away, which is either cause for mourning, cause for celebration, cause for hunkering down for extended social media battles with your friends or some combination of the three. (The fact that he died in his hotel during a quail-hunting trip - by far the stodgiest, old white man-iest way to go - certainly doesn't help the perception of him amongst his detractors)
Justices' reactions ranged from polite condolences to Ruth Bader Ginsburg's heartfelt goodbye. Republicans naturally fawned over the conservative Scalia. Democrats' statements were unsurprisingly more mixed - Obama has seemingly done all the right things, while Hilary Clinton has been...well, a lot like Hilary Clinton. As someone of generally libertarian ideology, there are some Scalia positions on business and free speech to which I can give a hearty "Hell yeah," and others on the drug war and the Defense of Marriage Act that I can't (though this itty-bitty dissent he whipped up about DOMA and last June's dissent on Obamacare did lead to things like this)
I'm not here to absolve Scalia's positions on civil rights, even though just writing that sentence is a dog-whistle for people who think I'm about to absolve Scalia's position on civil rights. Instead, I'd like to point to two really good pieces on Scalia that I believe, as a whole, portray him - and the aftermath of his passing - fairly and comprehensively.
The first is an extended conversation he had with New York Magazine shortly after his (in)famous dissent on the Court striking down the Defense of Marriage Act, which reminds you that there was a human being behind the decisions and the verbose opinions. It's really well done, in large part because Scalia is incredibly candid and makes for a great interview. It seems almost all of Scalia's decisions were rooted in a well-considered interpretation of the Constitution, which a. is his job, and b. doesn't necessarily jive with the critique that Scalia stuck with his conservative standpoint because he's a dick (even if, from a utilitarian perspective, the end result was the same)
The second is this Esquire column written shortly after his death on Saturday. Charlie Pierce is the man, and even when I disagree with his politics, I love his no-punches-pulled, historically-grounded writing. While conceding that anyone who spends 30 years in public service as Scalia did deserves some level of respect, Pierce firmly believes the country would have been better off without him on the Court; he also laments the inevitable rumble that has already begun between Dems and the GOP about who will fill his vacant seat, and when. (It's certainly telling that even the Republicans who intended to honor Scalia's legacy waited less than five hours to join Democrats in politicizing it - although, to be fair, what else are you supposed to do when one of the 15-20 most powerful public servants in the country dies?)
Scalia was probably more bad than good, but I'd rather have nine justices of any political persuasion who take their job as seriously as he did than replace any of them with Clarence Thomas, who hasn't woken up since about 2003. Nevertheless, when you stand so staunchly against civil rights issues that the public has turned in favor of, and act as bombastic and haughty as Scalia did whether he was on the winning or losing end of things, you don't leave a lot of room for nuanced opinions about your integrity. And in all likelihood, he'd be just fine with that.
Labels:
antonin scalia,
deaths
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