Posted on 12/31/2012 11:25:05 AM PST by Timber Rattler
AS the nation teeters at the edge of fiscal chaos, observers are reaching the conclusion that the American system of government is broken. But almost no one blames the culprit: our insistence on obedience to the Constitution, with all its archaic, idiosyncratic and downright evil provisions.
Consider, for example, the assertion by the Senate minority leader last week that the House could not take up a plan by Senate Democrats to extend tax cuts on households making $250,000 or less because the Constitution requires that revenue measures originate in the lower chamber. Why should anyone care? Why should a lame-duck House, 27 members of which were defeated for re-election, have a stranglehold on our economy? Why does a grotesquely malapportioned Senate get to decide the nation’s fate?
Our obsession with the Constitution has saddled us with a dysfunctional political system, kept us from debating the merits of divisive issues and inflamed our public discourse. Instead of arguing about what is to be done, we argue about what James Madison might have wanted done 225 years ago.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Seidman....
I am fully convinced American Jews are socialists.
No first amendment - professor cant speak out against the government.
Also, no amendment preventing him from being searched at an time by the people I’m sure he called “pigs” when he was in school, being taken away in the night without cause, jailed without trail, and then shot just because.
Nevermind that the females he is “teaching” (<— those quotation marks were shrunk down from the size of the solar system) wont be able to vote, and any of the black students could just as easily be taken off and forced to work in the fields. No matter anyway, because none of the freshmen will even be able to vote to stop such a thing, and there will be no legal structure to prevent a dictatorship to make it “legal” or even having a court system to rule it unconstitutional.
How unusual for a leftist Jew to criticize America and her Constitution!! Oh wait! It’s standard operating procedure. I forgot!
You can stick your preferred Soviet/NK/Chinese/Communist "constitution" where the sun don't shine you blithering idjit.
This piece is just reacting to the fact that the GOP controls enough state legislatures who have gerrymandered enough safe Congressional districts that the lower chamber is unlikely to originate any “revenue enhancements” to the Times’ liking anytime soon.
The author is a founder of “Critical Legal Theory” that grew out of the hippies’ belief in the 60’s that the rights of individuals as enumerated in the Constitution get in the way of collectivist “progress”.
He’s been talking about it since 1977.
It’s hard to know where to start, but it is interesting that there is no way for the reader to comment about the article on the Times website.
Why don’t jackasses like this moron just leave the country? We really don’t need his type here.
Not that this piece of drivel needs much response, but there are two I feel compelled to make.
1) Who is to choose which Constitutional restrictions to toss and which to keep? You? Democrats? Perhaps a convoluted process where both houses and a majority of state legislatures need to agree on the change? Oh, wait...
I'm sure you would be just as happy to hear Republican proposals on what to keep and what to toss as your own, eh? Free speech being what it is and all.
2) I don't suppose it occurred to you that we wouldn't be in a position for 27 Republicans who weren't re-elected to be controlling the discussion if the Democrat controlled Senate and the Democrat President had just done their jobs for the past 4 years rather than kicking these difficult decisions into this lame-duck period.
I'm sure if the situation had left 27 lame-duck Democrats as the only people standing against a repeal of Roe v. Wade you'd be just as upset with the protections of the Constitution in this period, right?
It's too bad you don't have to be intelligent to teach Constitutional Law at a U.S. university.
Imagine that after careful study a government official — say, the president or one of the party leaders in Congress — reaches a considered judgment that a particular course of action is best for the country. Suddenly, someone bursts into the room with new information: a group of white propertied men who have been dead for two centuries, knew nothing of our present situation, acted illegally under existing law and thought it was fine to own slaves might have disagreed with this course of action. Is it even remotely rational that the official should change his or her mind because of this divination?
So people that aren't of his approved skin color, rich and "know nothing of our situation" shouldn't be listened to. Yeah, those no-nothings didn't understand how government is always good and never threatens our freedom.
I want to re-write the constitution and the first article says that all professors and journalists must be lined up against a wall and shot.
.........
Germany gave up on their Constituion and the Jews got the camps.
“If we acknowledged what should be obvious — that much constitutional language is broad enough to encompass an almost infinitely wide range of positions — we might have a very different attitude about the obligation to obey.”
Translation: Hitler didn’t need a constitution, so why should we?
Some are.
But a work colleague who is Jewish is a gun owning survivalist. He, and others like him, provide security for their synagogue. I'm not talking clubs here either, they all have CHLs. His wife owns several NFA items, including both machine guns and sound suppressors. They, not sure which technically, own a .50 BMG rifle.
They have a "ranch" near Kerrville/Fredricksberg Texas, where he has the fields of fire for that .50 all figured out. He wanted something that would disable the drug cartels "armored vehicles", which they have, and it would. :)
Good luck getting it ratified.
In the meantime, he is yet one more Domestic Enemy of the Constitution, which I, and millions of others, are sworn to defend it against.
Of course these things must be done "deeelicately"
There are a few of us in San Antonio that do the same thing. We know whether libs are and who the Conservatives are.
Wow. I am surprised he stopped short of endorsing the Communist Manifesto.
It used to be apropos to call the Pen mightier than the sword. The Left has turned the pen into a sword and they are using it to hack away at our freedoms...
Well, at least this Constitution-hating Jew is a putz.
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