justice via justices

For a class, I have been reading some cases that have been sent to the U.S. Supreme Court. What is interesting to read are the dissenting opinions where the justices rip into the court's overall decision. Below is a part of Justice Scalia's dissenting opinion on the Supreme Court's decision to overturn the death sentence imposed on a (allegedly) retarded man convicted of murder.

But the Prize for the Court's Most Feeble Effort to fabricate "national consensus" must go to its appeal (deservedly relegated to a footnote) to the views of assorted professional and religious organizations, members of the so-called "world community," and respondents to opinion polls. Ante, at 11-12, n. 21. I agree with the Chief Jus-tice, ante, at 4-8 (dissenting opinion), that the views of professional and religious organizations and the results of opinion polls are irrelevant.6 Equally irrelevant are the practices of the "world community," whose notions of justice are (thankfully) not always those of our people. "We must never forget that it is a Constitution for the United States of America that we are expounding. ... [W]here there is not first a settled consensus among our own people, the views of other nations, however enlightened the Justices of this Court may think them to be, cannot be imposed upon Americans through the Constitution."

What an ass. Most of his dissent revolves around the development of the national consensus, which he admittedly tears down quite well, but this section and the complete lack of regard he holds for the world community is scary to be seen in a justice of the supreme court. Why throw in that "thankfully"?