I was born under Communism. I know what it's like to live in a system where you can't speak, you have to whisper. Where the state is so pervasive and so intrusive.

Overprotecting intellectual property is as harmful as underprotecting it. Creativity is impossible without a rich public domain. Nothing today, likely nothing since we tamed fire, is genuinely new: Culture, like science and technology, grows by accretion, each new creator building on the works of those who came before. Overprotection stifles the very creative forces it's supposed to nurture.

The death penalty is barbaric. And I think we as a society need to come face-to-face with that. If we're not willing to face up to the cruelty, we ought not to be doing it.

Millions of people toil in the shadow of the law we make, and much of their livelihood is made possible by the existence of intellectual property rights.

[Y]ou wonder why anyone would make the mistake of calling it the Commerce Clause instead of the 'Hey, you -can-do-whatever-you-feel-like Clause?

I was born under Communism. I know what it's like to live in a system where you can't speak, you have to whisper. Where the state is so pervasive and so intrusive.

Appellate review is not a magic wand and we undermine public confidence in the judicial process when we make it look like it is.