Tag Archives: Constitution

May 7, 2013 · 5:03 AM

The Greatest Failure Conservatives Make When it Comes to our Constitution

constitution

Forward Progressives

Perspective—it’s something I always encourage people to use.  Unfortunately many people are reluctant, or incapable, of doing so.

This is especially true when it comes to our Constitution.  How dare anyone say an unkind word about the “infallible Constitution.”

But let’s take a look at just a little bit of what the original interpretation of our Constitution allowed.

Our Constitution, when it was written, allowed for very young women (13-14 in many cases) to be married off by families in arranged marriages to much older men.  Well it didn’t “allow” for it as much as it didn’t prevent it from happening.

This probably had to do with the fact that the average life expectancy in the late-1700′s was around 35 years of age.  Probably another reason why our right to health care wasn’t that big of a deal back then.

However, now days if a 13 year old girl was married off to a 30 year old man we would call that child trafficking, statutory rape, child molestation—or all three.  The man would be labeled as a sex offender, then be required to register as one for the rest of his life.  By the rest of his life I mean as soon as he was freed after serving a very lengthy prison sentence.

Then we have the almighty Second Amendment and the words “shall not be infringed.”  Many believe this amendment is one of the foundations of our rights as Americans.  It’s meant to empower people against a tyrannical government.  When people use this argument, based upon words written over 200 years ago (during a time very different from our own), they completely ignore the glaring fact that our society has changed drastically.

The Second Amendment was written during a time where militias were our primary means of defense against enemies, Native American conflict was frequent and “going out to dinner” meant a family hunting trip in the woods.

Oh, and when guns were single-shot muskets.  (Ed. Emphasis are mine)

Do you really think that if the Founding Fathers knew what our society would become, and what weapons would evolve into, they would have been so general with the wording of our Second Amendment?  After all, couldn’t some argue that “right to bear arms” means all arms?  Things like plastic explosives or military style rocket launchers and missiles.  I mean, if weapons are meant to “keep our government fearful of its citizens,” why is it that the federal government gets to have all of the really kick-ass weapons?

Shouldn’t we, as American citizens who celebrate our Second Amendment, be allowed to own F-22 Raptors loaded to capacity with however many missiles or bombs it can carry?  What could possibly go wrong with selling RPG’s at Walmart—without a background check?

Just imagine if someone could travel back in time and tell a father in 1780, “No, you cannot marry off your daughter to that much older man, that’s illegal.  Oh, and so is owning slaves.”  That father would have scoffed at your attempt to “infringe upon his rights as an American” and you would be deemed unconstitutional by many—if you were lucky enough not to be shot, or hung as “treasonous” for even suggesting something so preposterous.

Yet, in 2013, if someone advocated for the rights of families to sell off their young daughters to older men and for people to be allowed to own slaves, sane people would call them disgusting monsters.

Perspective is not a dirty word.  In fact, it should always be used when referencing the “core of our Constitution” (something written over 200 years ago) and how it translates into a modern society. Refusing to acknowledge proper perspective is the greatest failure conservatives make when discussing our Constitution, and how it should be applied today.

Because I hate to break it to conservatives, but progressive liberal ideas are an American tradition.  They’re what freed the slaves, gave women the right to vote, ended child labor, created Social Security and Medicare, built public schools and our Interstate Highways, integrated schools, brought groundbreaking technologies, discovered life changing health advancements and pushed our country forward.

Those were all done by “radical liberals” bucking tradition, not conservative Americans sticking to it.

Related articles

4 Comments

Filed under 2nd Amendment

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , ,

April 10, 2013 · 5:12 PM

‘Tea Party’ is over: Ex-activist says racism, hypocrisy killed the movement

teaparty-main.jpg

Tea Party protest…

That’s one man’s opinion and I respect that.  I’m taking a “wait and see” approach.  The 2014 mid-term elections will tell us for sure…

The Griot - Opinion by Phil Russo

I always defended the Tea Party against charges of racism. And then last week, someone with whom I am Facebook “friends” posted something extremely racist and I called her out on it. Immediately, her friends jumped down my throat, calling me a liberal and saying I wasn’t a real tea partier, despite the fact that I was one of 10 people on the first Tea Party conference calls back in January of 2009.

That was just one of many wake-up calls.

Sadly, what began as a genuine opportunity to make this country more free has deteriorated to racist name calling, fear of anyone with brown skin, and an irrational focus on Sharia law.

A chance for Libertarians to reform the GOP

Nobody has been a bigger supporter of the Tea Party than I have been.

In Orlando, I think we had one of the best organized groups.  Along with Cincinnati and Houston, Orlando was one of the cities that saw the biggest rallies, the most active tea partiers, and attracted the biggest names to speak at our events.  When the left would point to the one nut-job in a crowd of 6,000 with a racist sign and call all 6,000 people racists, the more Libertarian tea partiers like me, would always use ourselves and our groups as examples of of the real, average tea partier.

At our events here in Orlando I met people who said they had never come to a political rally.  Even when the left insisted that the Tea Party was just a bunch of GOP activists, I knew better. The people I talked to at our rallies were usually more independent.  Of course there were lots of Republicans and some even more conservative members of the Whig Party and Conservative Party, but there were also lots of Libertarians, independents, and Constitution Party members.

I always felt like the Tea Party was going to be the chance for Libertarians to do two things:

First, I thought it was a golden opportunity to show Republicans the hypocrisy of their platform.

Secondly, I thought it was a great chance for us to talk to apolitical, independent folks who were genuinely angry about the bank bailouts: folks who work for a living or own a small business and felt like, “hey, I employ 25 people and no one is going to bail me out.  To hell with GM and Lehman Brothers!”

These are people who vote for president every four years but don’t vote in midterm elections. They don’t really care if gays get married or if college kids smoke pot.  They also do not want to have their paychecks confiscated to pay for Obamacare.  They voted for the GOP in 2010 and made John Boehner Speaker of the House.

Continue reading here…

Related articles

 

4 Comments

Filed under Tea Party

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

January 29, 2013 · 1:01 AM

Seen On The Internet

H/t: The Pragmatic Progressive Page

New Rule: You can’t say you LOVE something and only recognize SOME of it, be it a holy book, a constitution or a marriage vow.

If you want to scream ANYTHING involving the Second Amendment and how you will fight to the death to protect it, and you are unable to recognize the FIRST FOUR WORDS as being an important part of that Amendment, your opinion holds no value to the rest of us. And you and I know, walking into a Walmart and buying an assault rifle, is not well-regulated by any stretch of the imagination.

Pick-n-Choose Patriotism, really isn’t Patriotism. – vince

Wiki:

As passed by the Congress:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Related articles

2 Comments

Filed under U.S. Politics

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , ,

January 11, 2013 · 12:30 AM

Judge Napolitano: Second Amendment ‘protects your right to shoot tyrants’

Andrew Napolitano screenshot

Judge Napolitano is right about one thing: it is a dirty little secret that pro-assault weapon advocates have been pushing the notion that they use their weapons for protection and for hunting when in fact there is a more sinister reason.

Assault weapon advocates have been backed in a corner about using their “weapons for hunting”, so it appears the consensus is that they may as well expose their “dirty little secret” as Napolitano calls it, and tell the world the truth:

The reason for the second amendment, which protect the right of American citizens to bear arms, is among other things, a protection of a citizen’s right to shoot government “tyrants”.

Here’s my problem with that scenario, who is defining the term “government tyrants”.  Limbaugh, Hannity, O’Reilly?  Drudge, Newsmax, WND?  The gun bearer?

How many government tyrants are there?  Or perhaps, there is one “head enchilada” tyrant that needs to be taken out.  How many gun toting Americans will decide who that person is?

Will there be a new revolution as Alex what-his-name stated on The Piers Morgan Show a few days ago?  Or will it be some lone gunman who has determined (with the help of right-wing talk radio and websites) that a particular target or more is the reason for the country’s ills or it’s anti-gun stance, as perceived by the future “shooter”?

The Judge seems to have opened up more questions than answers…

The Raw Story

In a video published Thursday on the Gretawire blog, Andrew Napolitano, the senior judicial analyst for Fox News, said the Second Amendment allowed Americans to kill “tyrants.”

“You know with all the debate about guns, I’ve been doing some writing and doing a lot of thinking, and Greta and the rest of us at Fox want to know what you think about it,” the former New Jersey Superior Court Judge said. “The Constitution specifically and directly insulates the right to keep and bear arms from interference from the government. It could not be more clear: ‘…the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.’”

“So since the Congress can’t change the Constitution, how could they possibly take away your right to keep and bear arms?” Napolitano continued. “Here’s the dirty little secret about the Second Amendment, the Second Amendment was not written in order to protect your right to shoot deer, it was written to protect your right to shoot tyrants if they take over the government. How about chewing on that one.”

Watch video, uploaded to YouTube, below:

Related articles

1 Comment

Filed under U.S. Politics

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

June 14, 2011 · 12:05 AM

Herman Cain Says He’s Only Afraid Of ‘Violent’ Muslims

It appears Herman Cain has the GOP talking points down to a science by showing total disregard for the Constitutional amendments that they don’t like, such as  the 14th Amendment which states:

  • State and federal citizenship for all persons regardless of race both born or naturalized in the United States was reaffirmed.
  • No state would be allowed to abridge the “privileges and immunities” of citizens.
  • No person was allowed to be deprived of life, liberty,or property without “due process of law.”
  • No person could be denied “equal protection of the laws.”

TPMDC

Clarifying his earlier claim that Muslims do not belong in government, Herman Cain said in the New Hampshire Republican debate Monday night that he only meant the bad ones.

“You have peaceful Muslims, then you have militant Muslims, those that are trying to kill us,” Cain said. “I was thinking about the ones that were trying to kill us.”

Cain raised eyebrows in March when he said he would not appoint Muslims to his hypothetical White House cabinet out of fears they would “gradually ease Sharia law and the Muslim faith into our government.” He said he still would grill any potential Muslim candidates on whether they were properly pro-American.

“I would ask certain questions …” he said. “It’s not a litmus test. It’s making sure we have people committed to the constitution first in order for them to work effectively in the administration.”

His words drew a pointed rebuttal from Romney, who bluntly said the threat from “Sharia law” that Cain and other GOP candidates have played up is exaggerated. He added that he would freely appoint Americans of any religion.

“First of all, of course, we’re not going to have Sharia law,” Romney said. “That’s not going to happen. We have a constitution and we follow the law. No, I think we recognize that the people of all faiths are welcome in this country, our nation was founded on a principal of religious tolerance. That’s in fact why some of the early patriots came to this country and we treat people with respect…with their religious persuasion.”

Watch:

 

 

Related articles

1 Comment

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

January 25, 2011 · 1:20 AM

Justice Scalia Goes to Capitol Hill

President George W. Bush delivers his State of...

Image via Wikipedia

As Rachel Maddow pointed out on her show last night, the normal contingent of the nine Supreme Court Justices will not be attending the State of the Union address this evening.  Apparently, Justices Roberts and Alito claim that the event has become more like a political pep rally in recent years, thus choosing not to be there this year.

The problem most Progressives would have with the Justices conclusion is simply personified with Justice Antonin Scalia and Justice Clarence Thomas attending right-wing political events.  Justice Scalia has gone even further, by holding  a constitutional seminar for the freshman class of the 112th Congress, yesterday.

Now if that’s not “political”, what is?  I think the SOTU being “too political” excuse doesn’t hold water to the four afore-mentioned Justices attendance to various GOP political functions.

The New York Times

Representative Michele Bachmann played hostess Monday to Justice Antonin Scalia of the Supreme Court in the first of what she said would be several “constitutional seminars” for members of the House.

Monday’s seminar, which Ms. Bachmann’s office said was attended by 30 to 35 House members, including at 4 Democrats, focused on the separation of powers. The session was closed to the media, but afterward some members described Justice Scalia’s remarks as probing and funny, and said he told them to “pay attention to the Constitution.”

The Obama administration’s health care law did not come up in Mr. Scalia’s remarks or during the question-and-answer session, Ms. Bachmann said. Instead, she said, the session focused on other issues, like whether earmarks would be considered constitutional, though she declined to provide Mr. Scalia’s thoughts on the matter.

Ms. Bachmann declined to comment on other matters, like her flirtation with a 2012 run at the White House, or the fact that she is giving a response to President Obama’s State of the Union address on Tuesday, in addition to the official Republican response planned by Representative Paul Ryan. “It’s not a competition,” she said, as she headed off down the hall.

Ms. Bachmann said she would be inviting other members of the court to speak to members
of Congress, as well as law professors and other constitutional scholars.
“We will be extending an invitation to any of the justices who would like to speak with us,” she said. “We’d be honored to have any of them come that are there, and whether they are liberal or conservative we leave it for your judgment to determine.”

She added later, “The Constitution is not a partisan document.”

Related Articles

Comments Off

Filed under Politics, Politics News, President Barack Obama, State Of The Union, State of the Union Address

Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,

January 20, 2011 · 8:35 PM

Is Santorum right on slavery comparison?

Below are some great comments from Politco’s The Arena section about Santorum’s comments…

Politico   (Backstory)

Former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), who’s contemplating a run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, is questioning how President Barack Obama – as an African-American – can support abortion rights.

In an interview with CNS News, Santorum argued that a fetus is a person and said he considers it “almost remarkable for a black man to say ‘now we are going to decide who are people and who are not people.’”

Nancy KeenanPresident, NARAL Pro-Choice America :

Mr. Santorum’s comments are offensive and outrageous. Sadly, they echo the themes we see a growing number of anti-choice lawmakers and groups using to advance their agenda on a number of fronts. In Colorado, voters have twice rejected ballot measures that would have established legal status for fertilized eggs from the moment of conception. In Georgia and other states, anti-choice groups are using civil rights language, even equating abortion with our country’s painful history of slavery, in a cynical attempt to support additional restrictions on a woman’s right to choose.

 

Sherrilyn Ifill Professor of Law, U. Md. :

I hardly think that Sen. Rick Santorum – the man who suggested that penalties should be imposed on residents who didn’t leave New Orleans before Hurricane Katrina struck – can surprise anyone with an addition to his by now mile-long parade of insulting and offensive statements. This one is just the latest.

Of course he won’t be elected president, but he will see an increase in support from some factions within the far right of the Republican Party. And this is the problem: any offensive statement directed at President Obama seems to boost standing with the GOP base. This may explain why our civility project is doomed to failure.

 

Richard M. Skinner Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science, Rollins College :

Santorum’s comments actually help his presidential campaign. They fit nicely with the belief of many anti-abortion activists that their cause is the modern equivalent of abolitionism. I’m sure many African-Americans will find them offensive, but few vote in Republican primaries. By capturing media attention through engendering controversy, Santorum has reminded voters that he actually exists.

This will be irrelevant should either Sarah Palin or Mike Huckabee choose to run, since they would attract the bulk of socially conservative voters. But if neither seek the presidency, Santorum could become a contender for this bloc of support, if not a realistic prospect for the nomination.

 

Curt A. Levey Executive Dir., Committee for Justice :

The most remarkable thing about Rick Santorum’s comparison of abortion and slavery is the mainstream media’s initial reaction treating it as a gaffe. That reaction reflects the intellectual smugness that has made “mainstream media” a bad word in much of America.

The analogy between the slavery debate in the 19th century and the abortion debate in modern times is a solid one, given that both centered on 1) who to include in the definition of “human” and 2) whether the ultimate moral decision should be legislated or left to individuals. Despite the similarities, well-meaning people are free to reject the abortion-slavery analogy given that there is no longer any disagreement that slavery was a moral outrage.

However, to refuse to see the similarities and, instead, view the analogy as ignorant is to contemptuously dismiss the half of America that considers abortion to be the taking of a human life and a moral outrage. You don’t have to share the moral judgment of pro-life Americans, but to dismiss their values as unworthy of serious consideration is the very definition of smugness.

 

Christine Pelosi Attorney, author and Democratic activist :

As a woman, I find it almost remarkable that Rick Santorum can publicly intrude on a woman’s private decision to exercise reproductive freedom.

As an American, I find it offensive that Santorum engaged in racial profiling and believe he should apologize. As I just posted in explaining the double digit generation gap favoring Democrats, young people are tired of being divided along race, immigration and sexual orientation and will consider Santorum’s racial profiling unbecoming of a national figure.

Voters who believe there are many ways to support your values without telling others what they should think based upon their race will reject Santorum’s effort to invoke slaveholders in order to oppose reproductive freedom.

More…

Related Articles

1 Comment

Filed under GOP, GOP Cluelessness, Rick Santorum, Right Wing Myths and Falsehoods, Right-Wing Propaganda, Right-wing Race-baiting

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , ,

January 4, 2011 · 3:41 AM

Scalia: Women Don’t Have Constitutional Protection Against Discrimination

Once again, Justice Antonin Scalia appears incourrigible in his delusional view of American civil liberties…

Huffington Post

The equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution does not protect against discrimination on the basis of gender or sexual orientation, according to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

In a newly published interview in the legal magazine California Lawyer, Scalia said that while the Constitution does not disallow the passage of legislation outlawing such discrimination, it doesn’t itself outlaw that behavior:

In 1868, when the 39th Congress was debating and ultimately proposing the 14th Amendment, I don’t think anybody would have thought that equal protection applied to sex discrimination, or certainly not to sexual orientation. So does that mean that we’ve gone off in error by applying the 14th Amendment to both?Yes, yes. Sorry, to tell you that. … But, you know, if indeed the current society has come to different views, that’s fine. You do not need the Constitution to reflect the wishes of the current society. Certainly the Constitution does not require discrimination on the basis of sex. The only issue is whether it prohibits it. It doesn’t. Nobody ever thought that that’s what it meant. Nobody ever voted for that. If the current society wants to outlaw discrimination by sex, hey we have things called legislatures, and they enact things called laws. You don’t need a constitution to keep things up-to-date. All you need is a legislature and a ballot box. You don’t like the death penalty anymore, that’s fine. You want a right to abortion? There’s nothing in the Constitution about that. But that doesn’t mean you cannot prohibit it. Persuade your fellow citizens it’s a good idea and pass a law. That’s what democracy is all about. It’s not about nine superannuated judges who have been there too long, imposing these demands on society.

For the record, the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause states: “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” That would seem to include protection against exactly the kind of discrimination to which Scalia referred.    More…

Comments Off

Filed under Justice Antonin Scalia, Uncategorized, Women's Rights

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

November 25, 2010 · 4:13 PM

Rep. Todd Akin: The Pilgrims Came To America To Flee ‘Unbiblical’ Socialism In The 1620′s

Todd Akin

Image via Wikipedia

The attempt at “dumbing down” America continues…

Think Progress

Today, millions of Americans celebrate Thanksgiving with their families. To mark this holiday, Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) took to the floor of the House of Representatives on Tuesday to explain its history. At one point, he opined, “It might be helpful to think back and say there’s more to Thanksgiving than the Pilgrims.” He explained that they were “a group of people who were willing to change the system, to think of different ideas.” Akin continued, “They came here with the idea that after trying socialism that it wasn’t going to work. They realized that it was unbiblical, that it was a form of theft, so they pitched socialism out. They learned that in the 1620s”:

AKIN: It might be helpful to think back and say, there’s more to Thanksgiving than the Pilgrims. They were a group of people who were willing to change the system, to think of different ideas. They came here and separated civil and church governments. They came here and created the model of a written constitution, the idea that the government should be the servant of the people. […] They came here with the idea that after trying socialism that it wasn’t going to work. They realized that it was unbiblical, that it was a form of theft, so they pitched socialism out. They learned that in the early 1620’s.

Watch:

Comments Off

Filed under Right Wing Myths and Falsehoods, Right-wing disinformation campaign, Right-Wing Propaganda, The "Dumbing Down" of America, Todd Akin

Tagged as , , , , , ,

November 16, 2010 · 12:11 AM

Scalia Jumps On The Anti-Seventeenth Amendment Bandwagon

As I’ve mentioned in an earlier post, we have a real problem with Supreme Court Justices who have ignored the canons of Judicial “decor” and have become totally political while sitting on the Supreme Court Of The United States…

Think Progress

One of the most bizarre developments of the last several months is the growing right-wing calls to repeal the Seventeenth Amendment, the provision of the Constitution that empowers voters — as opposed to state legislatures — to elect their senators. On Friday, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia joined Senator-elect Mike Lee (R-UT) and Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) in opposing the century-old amendment:

Scalia called the writing of the Constitution “providential,” and the birth of political science.

“There’s very little that I would change,” he said. “I would change it back to what they wrote, in some respects. The 17th Amendment has changed things enormously.”

That amendment allowed for U.S. Senators to be elected by the people, rather than by individual state legislatures.

“We changed that in a burst of progressivism in 1913, and you can trace the decline of so-called states’ rights throughout the rest of the 20th century. So, don’t mess with the Constitution.“

Justice Scalia’s use of extremist “states’ rights” rhetoric is an ominous sign. Although Scalia has a well-deserved reputation as an ultra-conservative, his record on federal/state power issues is surprisingly sensible. Indeed, his concurring opinion in Gonzales v. Raich could have been written as a blueprint for why President Obama’s Affordable Care Act is constitutional.

It’s puzzling why Scalia, or anyone else for that matter, would suddenly take a swipe at this entirely uncontroversial amendment — although the Wonk Room offers one possible explanation. Before the Seventeenth Amendment was enacted, corporate interest groups were able to lean on state lawmakers and thus effectively buy U.S. Senate seats. In other words, repealing the Seventeenth Amendment “would be like Citizens United on steroids.”

Related Articles

2 Comments

Filed under Judicial Activism, Justice Antonin Scalia, SCOTUS, SCOTUS Decisions

Tagged as , , , , , , ,