[caption id=”attachment_148779″ align=”aligncenter” width=”1024″]U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia delivers a speech about constitutional issues at Rhodes College on Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2015 in Memphis, Tenn. (AP Photo/Adrian Sainz)
[/caption]
Recommended Stories
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia spoke at Rhodes College in Tennessee on Tuesday to reaffirm his commitment to an originalist interpretation of the Constitution.
“Don’t mess with the Constitution,” Scalia said.
Scalia interprets the Constitution with an eye to the original intent and meaning. His approach is a conservative approach, whereas other justices, such as Stephen Breyer, advocate a more active approach that takes context and developments in American and foreign law into account for their decisions.
The Memphis Commercial Appeal reported that Scalia said the current justices are “terribly unrepresentative of our country.”
He emphasized his goal to balance freedom and order, and declared that he saw no constitutional issue with drone strikes in foreign countries that kill Americans.
“I think, if that person has taken up arms against the United States, what’s the difference between allowing our soldiers to shoot him dead and allowing a drone to kill him?” Scalia said.
His perspective disregarded that past drone strikes that killed Americans overseas had no evidence that those killed were taking up arms against the United States.
Scalia has been a Supreme Court justice since 1986 when Ronald Reagan appointed him.
