The only way to eliminate any government choice on what art is worthwhile, what art isn't worthwhile, is to get the government totally out of the business of funding.
Antonin ScaliaRead
Wringing your hands about states' rights, forget it. They're gone. Basically, the federal government can do whatever it wants. Who's going to protect the states? My court? Ha - we're feds!
Interpretation
What this quote means
States' rights are diminishing under federal power, and the federal government has significant control.
This quote by Antonin Scalia expresses the reality that states' rights have diminished in the face of federal authority. Scalia's remark suggests an acceptance of the federal government's expansive role and hints at the notion that states have little recourse to challenge this dominance, emphasizing the power dynamics in American governance.
Themes
States' RightsFederal GovernmentAuthorityPower DynamicsAmerican Governance
In practice
Example use cases
During a political debate about federalism, one could use this quote to illustrate the challenge of state influence in national policy.
More from Antonin Scalia
All quotes →If I have brought any message today, it is this: Have the courage to have your wisdom regarded as stupidity. Be fools for Christ. And have the courage to suffer the contempt of the sophisticated world.
Antonin ScaliaRead
To allow the policy question of same-sex marriage to be considered and resolved by a select, patrician, highly unrepresentative panel of nine is to violate a principle even more fundamental than no taxation without representation: no social transformation without representation.
Antonin ScaliaRead
Until the courts put a stop to it, public debate over same-sex marriage displayed American democracy at its best. Individuals on both sides of the issue passionately, but respectfully, attempted to persuade their fellow citizens to accept their views.
Antonin ScaliaRead
Being a good person begins with being a wise person. Then, when you follow your conscience, will you be headed in the right direction.
Antonin ScaliaRead
If you're going to be a good and faithful judge, you have to resign yourself to the fact that you're not always going to like the conclusions you reach. If you like them all the time, you're probably doing something wrong.
Antonin ScaliaRead
Similar quotes
Politics - I don't know why, but they seem to have a tendency to separate us, to keep us from one another, while nature is always and ever making efforts to bring us together.
Sean O'CaseyRead
I'm not naive. All politics is about identity, right? Neighborhood politics, cultural politics, issue politics. It's not as though I don't get that. It's just - it has to be, I think, tempered in a way that is for our overall advancement and not to our detriment or obliteration. When I say 'our,' I don't mean just communities of color.
Ayanna PressleyRead
In politics you must always keep running with the pack. The moment that you falter and they sense that you are injured, the rest will turn on you like wolves.
Rab ButlerRead
In primary school in south-eastern Nigeria, I was taught that Hosni Mubarak was the president of Egypt. I learned the same thing in secondary school. In university, Mubarak was still president of Egypt. I came to assume, subconsciously, that he - and others like Paul Biya in Cameroon and Muammar Gaddafi in Libya - would never leave.
Chimamanda Ngozi AdichieRead
A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.
H. L. MenckenRead
Concentrated power has always been the enemy of liberty. Democracy is worth dying for, because it's the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man.Entrepreneurs and their small enterprises are responsible for almost all the economic growth in the United States.
Ronald ReaganRead