Letters: The devil and Scalia

Re “Scalia the ‘originalist’ holds court on his views,” Oct. 13

Oh, wow: Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is even more scary than I realized.

He implied that a reporter who was apparently surprised that Scalia believes in the devil is “out of touch with most of America” yet admits to getting his news largely from conservative talk radio. He said he ignores mainstream print media.

I do wish, though, that courts would actually follow his “originalist” philosophy when it comes to gun laws. I’m OK with people owning a musket, since it only fires one shot per loading.

Brenda Guertin

San Pedro

Scalia defends some of his views as “standard Catholic doctrine.” If said doctrine (or any other) were to claim that 2 plus 2 equals 5, it is a pity that anyone would care.

Scalia also says that not believing in the devil makes one “out of touch with most of America.” I am smart enough to know that the argumentum ad populum (the appeal to popularity) is fallacious.

Jim Johnson

Whittier

Scalia is, by far, the best argument for term limits for Supreme Court justices.

First of all, he is largely unconcerned about the influence of money in politics; he says $3.5 million given to a campaign is “not a heck of a lot of money.” He admits he gets his news from talk radio, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Times but won’t read the Washington Post or the New York Times because they are “so shrilly, shrilly liberal.”

Scalia certainly doesn’t get the fact that Thomas Jefferson’s idea of separation of church and state — the necessary ingredient for democracy — is a distinctly liberal idea that conservatives are still not wiling to accept. And that the original “originalist” who wrote the the Constitution, James Madison, kept all mention of God out of the document.

Madison never mentioned the devil either.

Richard Parr

Santa Monica

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