Is Scalia exhibiting the disinhibition of dementia?

Although Scalia has always taken the most conservative side of every issue, he at least maintained a facade of collegiality in his opinions and dissents. Well, on the SSM decision he became downright abusive of his fellow justices. One symptom of senile dementia is this sort of disinhibition. What do dopers think. Especially ones with experience of people with dementia (which I lack, fortunately).

When my great-grandmother had dementia she thought that there were people in the room who were not and conversed with them, believed that people were stealing things she’d misplaced, thought that her neighbors were living in her garage, and that there were aliens in the swimming pool.

So… no. Being a crotchety old man is not the same thing as being senile.

Once again, people who don’t read Scalia’s actual writing and get their news from Jon Stweart and other bastions of leftism make absurd claims. If only this board would call out factually incorrect claims even when they support the reader’s ideological viewpoint.

In short, you are incorrect and have been presumably deceived by your progressive news sources. Scalia’s jurisprudence displays a clear sign of intellect, and his abrasive, humorous, and accessible style of writing is unchanged from previous decisions (such as his dissent in PGA Tour, Inc. v. Martin.)

As an addendum, it is certainly possible that Scalia is senile or insane and his opinions are being ghostwritten by a conspiracy of his clerks who are predicting and continuing his jurisprudence. Similar things have happened before, in the case of Woodrow Wilson, and justices generally don’t write the majority of their opinions anyway. But Scalia is also noted for displaying a sharp tongue in court, something that would be very hard to fake, and consequently he is arguably the least likely of any justice to be suffering from the effects of old age.

Well, you seem to be suffering from Occam’s razoritis. I pray for a steady recovery.

I’m not eager to rescue Scalia from his stated beliefs like that.

It is not his opinions that I am judging by but by its distemperate nature, the disdain for his colleagues’ opinions and the ridicule. That was not characteristic of his earlier opinions. I guess the earlier posters share his view that ridicule is the way to go, but I suggest they look up “disinhibition” in the dictionary.

I have been closely reading Scalia’s decisions and questions at oral argument for over a decade. There is a perceptible shift toward openly partisan argument and increasing hostility. I don’t think it’s a dramatic break at all, but a definite shift.

I would not attribute it to mental degradation. The court’s internal collegiality has unraveled a bit since Bush v. Gore, and the country as a whole has become increasingly partisan. He’s probably disappointed in Roberts and Kennedy, and it seems to have embittered him some. I think Scalia is just caught up in that.

From Scalia’s dissent in Lawrence v. Texas back in 2003 when the Court struck down laws against sodomy:

States have laws against masturbation? Scalia has always been somewhat of an old doddering lunatic when it comes to civil liberties for homosexuals. It’s not his mental health, it’s just his personality.

Agreed. It sounds more like he’s losing his patience, not his mind. Sharp words and hyperbolic language are tools he has used before and he does so consciously.

And I feel like you don’t understand what is meant by “disinhibition” in a description of dementia. It’s not as simple as being rude.

This is the same Scalia who said, in his dissent in 2000’s Hill vs Colorado (about laws restricting protests against abortion clinics)

And as far back in his dissent in 1987’s Edwards v Aguillard (mandating Creation Science teaching in Louisiana schools), he says:

I have long been of the opinion that for Supreme Court justices to approve rulings with which I disagree, they have to be crazy.

Scalia is not a conservative. He’s a Republican. And he gets 2 votes.

I feel compelled to point out the absurdity of complaining that this board doesn’t call out factually incorrect claims, in the course of calling out a factually incorrect claim. The absurdity is heightened by the fact that this was the third post in the thread, and the second post was also calling the OP out for being wrong.

I don’t think that progressives (“bastions of leftism”) such as Stephen Colbert are too shabby in the news department.

If you read further in your cite it says that the Daily Show which is what he mentioned is worse at educating the public than traditional news.

He’s not getting senile. He’s just doing what a lot of far-right political ideologues do when they don’t get their way: throw a temper tantrum worthy of a kindergartener, lash out at his opponents, and whine that the process isn’t fair.

I doubt it. More likely he’s just really pissed at the decision of his fellow Supremes. Honestly, do we really need to explain every passionate feeling as a form of pathology? He disagrees strongly,* that doesn’t make him insane or senile.

  • just for the record, I disagree with his disagreement, being strongly in favor of the recent decision.

Ha ha ha! Oh, my you’re so witty! You mean Clarence Thomas just blindly votes the way Scalia tells him to! That’s funny.

No wait… you’re thinking of the lazy, inept Thurgood Marshall, the guy who sat around in his bathrobe watching TV, and asking clerks to find out how William Brennan wanted him to vote.

Thomas disagrees with Scalia FAR more often that Marshall disagreed with Brennan.