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Antonin Scalia - On American Exceptionalism

AmericanRhetoric.com · 1M views · 2016-02-19 · 7:22

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Overview

Justice Antonin Scalia's opening statement at a 2011 Senate Judiciary hearing on the role of judges. He argues that the Constitution's separation of powers is what protects liberty, and that gridlock is by design.

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Recommended often as a clear explanation of why the US system is built to be slow and why gridlock protects minorities.

Recommended by 12 HN people across 11 months · HN mentions 2019–2025

Topics

Law, policing & justiceUS politics & elections
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scaliaseparation of powersgridlockconstitutionsenate hearing

What people said

emchammer · 2025-09 · Strong recommendation

It depends on where you draw the line for acting in good faith. Justice Antonin Scalia's opening statement before a 2011 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing is worth watching. [VIDEO] Even more worth reading are the Federalist Papers, cover-to-cover, as he suggested. The depth to which the Framers considered the kind of situations we are in today is amazing.

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splintercell · 2020-06 · Strong recommendation

I highly recommend watching this video [1] to understand why "progress has stalled". Believe it or not, it's by design. 1. [VIDEO]

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refurb · 2024-11 · Recommendation

This is basically the intent of the structure of the US government. High degree of separation of powers (unlike most other democracies, the executive is separate from the legislative and there are two independent legislative bodies). High level of agreement across multiple bodies before a law can be passed (House, Senate and President). I thought Scalia's explanation was a good one: [VIDEO]

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Sources

Video by AmericanRhetoric.com, played through YouTube.

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