Without having read Scalia's argument, I am not sure what nuances might have been lost in the report. However, Scalia is quite right, that the ordinary attitude enjoined upon Christians is one of respect and submission to authority. Obviously there are limits, or there would not have been so many Christians fed to the lions. I do not know what Scalia may have said about those limits. But acknowledging that government has a legitimate function in the providentially ordained scheme of things in not exactly the same as asserting a "divine right" of any particular government, nor is it inconsistent with rebellion against tyranny should the government become intolerably oppressive. It seems to me more like saying that the default position is respect for authority as ultimately deriving its legitimacy from God.
As for the 8th amendment, it is a rather good test of the principles of strict construction and "vitalism". The point is not that it is good to execute persons merely for shoplifting, but what branch of government is competent to determine the question. Under strict construction, it is not, in fact, the courts, but the legislature. Allowing the phrase "cruel and unusual punishment" to be a moving criterion, determined by the courts reading of social consensus at any given time, untethers judges from the requirement to interpret in line with the meaning of the text too much, and is a license to reinterpret amy legislative language according to judicial preferences...... |
