May 30th 2012, 1:59:15
http://troyrecord.com/...fc2d8e90d409125951874.txt
Jim Franco columnist:
I know I took a shot at RPI President Shirley Ann Jackson’s annual Colloquy a couple weeks ago by calling it “boring as all get out.” But I attended last Friday and I have to say I was dead wrong. It was a fantastic event and what made it so were her guests who came to Troy to accept honorary degrees.
Honestly, it was like a real life episode of “The Big Bang Theory.”
There was Jackson, of course, a physicist used to head up the country’s Nuclear Regulatory Commission. She was joined by two Nobel Prize winners – Steven Chu, the U.S. Secretary of Energy, and Edward Feigenbaum, a pioneer in artificial intelligence. As well as one of the men behind inventing digital photography, Steven Sasson, and a former congressman, Bart J. Gordon, who headed up the Committee on Science and Technology. And there was one of only nine U.S. Supreme Court justices, Antonin Scalia, a self-proclaimed Constitutional originalist.
Rather than pretend to be smarter than I am by giving a commentary on what Scalia said, I’ll just give you some of what he said verbatim. I’m going that route for two reasons: One, I’m just not that smart and two, because as a self-described orignialist Scalia basis his decisions on the actual text of the Constitution. Plus, it’s a holiday weekend and I’d rather not have to think too hard about how to fill this space.
- To Jackson asking if he liked being an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court?
“No, I’m doing it for the money. I could have retired eight or 10 years ago at full pay. I’m probably too stupid to have this job.”
- To Jackson’s statement about how the world is so much different today thanks to the technological and scientific advances and how it applies to the orignialist philosophy.
“The Constitution is not for evolving. All you need to evolve is a Legislature and a ballot box. The Constitution is an impediment of change not a motor of change. … There are unalienable rights in the Constitution the people by their legislation cannot change. … It’s not really evolution. It’s an evolution into an inability to evolve.”
- To Jackson’s questions about the case of Massachusetts versus EPA that forced the federal government to regulated carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases and why Scalia dissented.
“I don’t do science I do law. …It’s not the atmospheric protection agency it’s the Environmental Protection Agency and whether or not they have the authority to control the environment or outer space. That was the basis for my dissent, it wasn’t a scientific basis.
- Jackson then asked about the challenges the court faces when dealing with complex scientific issues like global warming.
“They are not put in a scientific framework. There is always a text that is adopted by Congress. … Whether we are preserving endangered species and all of that stuff, I don’t get into the policy of it. I look at the text of the statute and does it allow the agency to allow what the agency now doing. It’s a very hum-drum, textual exercise. It’s not at all imaginative. I’m sorry to tell you that. It’s pretty dull stuff.”
“The Bill of Rights is great but every dictator in the world today has a Bill of Rights. ... The key to our freedom has not been the Bill of Rights, I’m glad we have it, but what makes it live, what makes it something more than words on a paper is the real Constitution. …The structure our government.
If you have a structure that permits the centralization of power you can kiss the Bill of Rights goodbye. It doesn’t matter what they say. You wouldn’t want to live in most of the countries in the world that have a Bill of Rights. …There are very few parliamentary countries in the world where the executive isn’t a tool of the Legislature. If they aren’t a tool they hold a new election and get another executive.
One of those features that disburses power is federalism. Most of the laws you live under are not federal laws, as big as the federal government is. You can murder someone anywhere in the county and if you do it right you don’t break a federal law. Don’t use a machine gun and don’t shoot me.”
Jim Franco columnist:
I know I took a shot at RPI President Shirley Ann Jackson’s annual Colloquy a couple weeks ago by calling it “boring as all get out.” But I attended last Friday and I have to say I was dead wrong. It was a fantastic event and what made it so were her guests who came to Troy to accept honorary degrees.
Honestly, it was like a real life episode of “The Big Bang Theory.”
There was Jackson, of course, a physicist used to head up the country’s Nuclear Regulatory Commission. She was joined by two Nobel Prize winners – Steven Chu, the U.S. Secretary of Energy, and Edward Feigenbaum, a pioneer in artificial intelligence. As well as one of the men behind inventing digital photography, Steven Sasson, and a former congressman, Bart J. Gordon, who headed up the Committee on Science and Technology. And there was one of only nine U.S. Supreme Court justices, Antonin Scalia, a self-proclaimed Constitutional originalist.
Rather than pretend to be smarter than I am by giving a commentary on what Scalia said, I’ll just give you some of what he said verbatim. I’m going that route for two reasons: One, I’m just not that smart and two, because as a self-described orignialist Scalia basis his decisions on the actual text of the Constitution. Plus, it’s a holiday weekend and I’d rather not have to think too hard about how to fill this space.
- To Jackson asking if he liked being an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court?
“No, I’m doing it for the money. I could have retired eight or 10 years ago at full pay. I’m probably too stupid to have this job.”
- To Jackson’s statement about how the world is so much different today thanks to the technological and scientific advances and how it applies to the orignialist philosophy.
“The Constitution is not for evolving. All you need to evolve is a Legislature and a ballot box. The Constitution is an impediment of change not a motor of change. … There are unalienable rights in the Constitution the people by their legislation cannot change. … It’s not really evolution. It’s an evolution into an inability to evolve.”
- To Jackson’s questions about the case of Massachusetts versus EPA that forced the federal government to regulated carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases and why Scalia dissented.
“I don’t do science I do law. …It’s not the atmospheric protection agency it’s the Environmental Protection Agency and whether or not they have the authority to control the environment or outer space. That was the basis for my dissent, it wasn’t a scientific basis.
- Jackson then asked about the challenges the court faces when dealing with complex scientific issues like global warming.
“They are not put in a scientific framework. There is always a text that is adopted by Congress. … Whether we are preserving endangered species and all of that stuff, I don’t get into the policy of it. I look at the text of the statute and does it allow the agency to allow what the agency now doing. It’s a very hum-drum, textual exercise. It’s not at all imaginative. I’m sorry to tell you that. It’s pretty dull stuff.”
“The Bill of Rights is great but every dictator in the world today has a Bill of Rights. ... The key to our freedom has not been the Bill of Rights, I’m glad we have it, but what makes it live, what makes it something more than words on a paper is the real Constitution. …The structure our government.
If you have a structure that permits the centralization of power you can kiss the Bill of Rights goodbye. It doesn’t matter what they say. You wouldn’t want to live in most of the countries in the world that have a Bill of Rights. …There are very few parliamentary countries in the world where the executive isn’t a tool of the Legislature. If they aren’t a tool they hold a new election and get another executive.
One of those features that disburses power is federalism. Most of the laws you live under are not federal laws, as big as the federal government is. You can murder someone anywhere in the county and if you do it right you don’t break a federal law. Don’t use a machine gun and don’t shoot me.”
