Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia taught a class recently at the University of Hawaii, and afterwards he dropped these pearls of wisdom:
Scalia was responding to a question about the court's 1944 decision in Korematsu v. United States, which upheld the convictions of Gordon Hirabayashi and Fred Korematsu for violating an order to report to an internment camp.
"Well of course Korematsu was wrong. And I think we have repudiated in a later case. But you are kidding yourself if you think the same thing will not happen again," Scalia told students and faculty during a lunchtime Q-and-A session.
Scalia cited a Latin expression meaning, "In times of war, the laws fall silent."
"That's what was going on — the panic about the war and the invasion of the Pacific and whatnot. That's what happens. It was wrong, but I would not be surprised to see it happen again, in time of war. It's no justification, but it is the reality," he said.
Earth to Scalialand! Come in please! Oh, never mind, I know you're not concerned with such little details as Guantanamo Bay, where we have over 100 people interned for nothing more than their ethnicity and religion. Most of those men have never even been charged with a crime, much less brought in front of a REAL court of law to be given a chance to defend themselves.
And that is directly the work of the Scalia faction of the Supreme Court, which has repeatedly refused to honor the spirit and letter of our Constitution, and perpetuates the concept that there is some group of people who are not to be afforded basic human rights. Little stuff like facing their accuser in a court of law, trial by a jury of their peers, etc.
On top of all those rights, there is one individual right - and only one - that was so important to the founders that they actually put it in the body of the Constitution as opposed to the Bill of Rights: the right of Habeas Corpus.
Yet here we are, almost 9 years after the seminal case - Hamdan vs. Rumsfeld - which granted the right of habeas corpus to Hamdan, the former driver of Osama bin Laden..... and even now, over 100 men languish in Gitmo without ever appearing before a REAL judge in a REAL court.
Gee, Antonin Scalia, even with your great legal mind, which has the demonstrated ability to tie itself into pretzel shapes in order to justify some of your unbelievable opinions, are you unable to see the parallels between the internment of Japanese in WWII and the internment of Muslim men in the 'Global War on Terror'?
[Insert your version of the anti-Scalia rant - I don't want to ruin my whole day by thinking about him]
OK, rant over.
Cheers.