The Incoherence Of Antonin Scalia

Joan Biskupic’s novel In American Original: The Life and Constitution of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, describes Scalia’s success as an influential conservative force in the Supreme Court, which conservative lawyer, Alfred S. Regnery, bolsters, expanding on William Rehnquist’s role in establishing the groundwork allowed for a major a shift towards right in courts, in The American Spectator article, “The Good Old Days”. Regnery begins by establishing he agrees with Biskupic’s assertions that Scalia has been the “most influential member”: “changing the terms of the debate at the Court” and influencing many. Regnery, however, submits that although the degree of Scalia’s achievements hadn’t been accomplished before, Rehnquist, in fact
Posner bashes Antonin Scalia and Bryan Garner’s then-newly released book Reading Law, as well as condemning the practice of original textualism. To begin, Posner criticizes the Scalia’s clam that original textualism is neutral; offering the interpretation that because Scalia says that it is an “objective interpretive methodology” thus the practice is a kind of ideology. Posner continues, suggesting that because judges are not historians, judgment based on original historical context is flawed and can lead to omittance of pertinent information. In fact Posner shows that omittance of information is also not an uncommon practice throughout the book, for, many cases presented and quotes are lacking important information that, if included, wouldn’t support original textualism like Scalia and Garner present them as. Proceeding to call out the authors, Posner draws attention to the fact that dictionary definitions don’t necessary define words in the fullest respect that the writer meant the words as, by citing case information that was omitted from the book. Posner elaborates by explaining that in laws, words are often used to explain a larger concept/idea vaguely, which makes it illogical to determine the definition of a word without referencing a definition from the original author, and in the case that no original definition is provided, its only logical to take the law in context with the