The smartest thinkers at Vox strike again, this time explaining why Justice Scalia has no idea what he’s saying in his dissent on today’s ruling upholding Obamacare:
https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/614093217122906112
Huh? Let Yglesias ‘splain things for you:
Dissenting in the King v. Burwell case, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia complained that “words no longer have meaning if an Exchange that is not established by a State is ‘established by the state.'” This is an amusing piece of trolling, but the reality is that words have never “had meaning” in the kind of way Scalia thinks.
Individual stringz of letterz r efforts to express meaningful propositions in an intelligible way. To succeed at this mission does not require the youse of any particular rite series of words and, in fact, a sntnce fll of gibberish cn B prfctly comprehensible and meaningful 2 an intelligent reader. To understand a phrse or paragraf or an entire txt rekwires the use of human understanding and contextual infrmation not just a dctionry.
[…]
The letters “paragraf” in my paragraph above do not form a proper sentence of the English language. But the meaning of the sentence to understand a phrse or paragraf or an entire txt rekwires the use of human understanding and contextual infrmation not just a dctionry is clear despite the inclusion of many non-words. This is because meaning isn’t built from the ground up by assembling individual word-bits. It’s constructed holistically.
https://twitter.com/Mattfobrien/status/614093866627694592
No, we’re not sure that he does get it.
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Related:
‘America’s been Grubered’: John Roberts’ explanation for O-care subsidy ruling sparks disbelief
‘Pure applesauce’: Scalia’s dissent in ‘SCOTUScare’ decision is deliciously ‘blistering’
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