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Tea Party will never understand the Constitution: What the right misses about its favorite document
Salon ^ | April 21, 2015 | Elias Isquith

Posted on 04/21/2015 1:28:33 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet

GOP candidates constantly invoke the Constitution. A Yale Law professor reveals what they all fail to understand.

With the 2016 election cycle having kicked into first-gear already, any American who hasn’t inured themselves to the monotonous (and often ultimately meaningless) repetition of the word “Constitution” is advised to get to self-desensitizing — and quick.

Sens. Rand Paul and Ted Cruz have already made a fetishized version of the U.S.’s supreme governing document central to their campaign rhetoric; and even politicians less beloved by the supposedly Constitution-crazy Tea Party, like Jeb Bush or Hillary Clinton, are likely to soon follow suit. That’s how American politics functions now, in the era of the NSA, Guantanamo Bay, lethal drone strikes and endless war.

But as that list of questionable policies suggests, there’s an unanswered question lurking behind so much of our happy talk about the Constitution — namely, do we even understand it? As dozens of polls and public surveys will attest, the answer is, not really. And that’s one of the reasons that Yale Law School professor Akhil Reed Amar has decided to write a multi-book series about the Constitution so many Americans claim to love, but so few seem to understand. “The Law of the Land: A Grand Tour of our Constitutional Republic,” released earlier this month, is that project’s latest addition.

Recently, Salon spoke over the phone with Amar about the Constitution, his books, and why he sees Abraham Lincoln as perhaps the United States’s real founding father....

(Excerpt) Read more at salon.com ...


TOPICS: Government; Politics; Weird Stuff
KEYWORDS: 2016election; abortion; conservatives; constitution; deathpanels; demagogicparty; election2016; eliasisquith; homosexualagenda; indiana; memebuilding; mikepence; obamacare; partisanmediashill; partisanmediashills; rfra; salon; teaparty; tedcruz; texas; zerocare
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To: demshateGod

One of the things we apparently fail to understand is the fact that “the nation created the states”.

And I’m glad I fail to understand this “fact”, because it is 100% bullsh1t.


21 posted on 04/21/2015 1:42:54 PM PDT by WayneS (Barack Obama makes Neville Chamberlin look like George Patton.)
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To: the OlLine Rebel

...and, as you no doubt know, he didn’t even love blacks.


22 posted on 04/21/2015 1:44:44 PM PDT by WayneS (Barack Obama makes Neville Chamberlin look like George Patton.)
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To: the OlLine Rebel

Loved blacks? Hahahahahaha!

There is a natural disgust in the minds of nearly all white people to the idea of indiscriminate amalgamation of the white and black races ... A separation of the races is the only perfect preventive of amalgamation, but as an immediate separation is impossible, the next best thing is to keep them apart where they are not already together. If white and black people never get together in Kansas, they will never mix blood in Kansas ...

I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races. There is physical difference between the two which, in my judgment, will probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality, and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong having the superior position.

Our republican system was meant for a homogeneous people. As long as blacks continue to live with the whites they constitute a threat to the national life. Family life may also collapse and the increase of mixed breed bastards may some day challenge the supremacy of the white man.


23 posted on 04/21/2015 1:44:50 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet (You can help: https://donate.tedcruz.org/c/FBTX0095/)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Akhil Reed Amar

Oddly, I don't think I'll find his family name on the 1790 census.

Or the 1960 census for that matter.

But Hey, he's a New American! Even though he arrived just yesterday on a jet plane, he's the One! The guy with The Knowledge.

The Real American.

The One Who Understands All of Our History...even though he wasn't here.

PS....

I am completely convinced that sometime after 1990, I was transported to a different dimension where the world was exactly the opposite of what logic would dictate. Otherwise, there's no credible explanation for the surreal nature of what we are living now.

24 posted on 04/21/2015 1:45:06 PM PDT by Regulator
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To: miss marmelstein
Parts of the Constitution were inspired by the Iroquois Confederacy.

And part of it was inspired by the Magna Carta, part of it was inspired by the Torah, part of it was inspired by the Icelandic Althing, some of it was inspired by the writings of John Locke and Sir Francis Bacon and some of it they made up as they went along.

25 posted on 04/21/2015 1:45:36 PM PDT by Harmless Teddy Bear (Proud Infidel, Gun Nut, Religious Fanatic and Freedom Fiend)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Don’t confuse them with facts like...what Lincoln really thought


26 posted on 04/21/2015 1:46:13 PM PDT by Regulator
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Was going to read it to see how this “professor” tried to reason around the plain meaning of the text of the Constitution...

but couldn’t stand being on Salon.


27 posted on 04/21/2015 1:46:40 PM PDT by MrB (The difference between a Humanist and a Satanist - the latter admits whom he's working for)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
Is Elias Isquith the famous Pajama Boi?


28 posted on 04/21/2015 1:47:33 PM PDT by TexasCajun
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To: WayneS

Just like the left today. They don’t give two shakes about “the poor” or blacks or gays.

They just use them as cannon fodder on their war on Western civilization and Christianity.


29 posted on 04/21/2015 1:48:30 PM PDT by MrB (The difference between a Humanist and a Satanist - the latter admits whom he's working for)
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To: WayneS; Parmenio; 2ndDivisionVet

The left makes up a world where up is down. The they call me stupid because I keep the opening in my glass of sweet tea pointed at the sky.


30 posted on 04/21/2015 1:48:42 PM PDT by demshateGod (The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet; rockrr
Lincoln is really, really good. Southerners BAD.

Actually, he doesn't have much to say about the South. He doesn't actually call Lincoln the country's real founder, either.

He says that the Constitution broke apart because of slavery and after the Civil War it was rebuilt on a firmer anti-slavery foundation. Is that wrong?

Also, what Amar says and the things that the journalist attributes to him may not be the same thing. Amar doesn't say anything about the right wing or the Tea Party in the interview. There may be something about that in his book, but it doesn't appear to be the main focus there either.

31 posted on 04/21/2015 1:49:13 PM PDT by x
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

The dynamic between people and government dates back to the beginning of civilization.


32 posted on 04/21/2015 1:49:46 PM PDT by reasonisfaith ("...because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved." (2 Thessalonians))
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To: TexasCajun

Could be...it’s a good thing Marie Harf is married already, I think they would be a match made in heaven, LOL.


33 posted on 04/21/2015 1:49:47 PM PDT by nascarnation (Impeach, convict, deport)
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To: reasonisfaith

It the world of politics it’s the most problematic dynamic of all time.


34 posted on 04/21/2015 1:50:55 PM PDT by reasonisfaith ("...because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved." (2 Thessalonians))
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Whenever I want an explanation of our constitution, I turn to Salon (not.)


35 posted on 04/21/2015 1:51:51 PM PDT by Eric in the Ozarks ("If he were working for the other side, what would he be doing differently ?")
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Any proof he’s Muslim? Not everyone with an Arabic or Indian name is Muslim.


36 posted on 04/21/2015 1:52:16 PM PDT by Darren McCarty (We need a conservative electable candidate in 2016)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Ted Cruz has argued 9 cases before the Supreme Court, including six landmark victories.

•U.S. sovereignty against the United Nations and the World Court in Medellin v. Texas;
•The Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms;
•The constitutionality of the Texas Ten Commandments monument;
•The constitutionality of the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance;
•The constitutionality of the Texas Sexually Violent Predator Civil Commitment law; and
•The Texas congressional redistricting plan.

What’s professor Amar’s record?


37 posted on 04/21/2015 1:52:30 PM PDT by Hugin ("Do yourself a favor--first thing, get a firearm!")
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To: reasonisfaith

The US Constitution fixed the problem.

You leftists need to sprout some cortex and then try to understand what this means.


38 posted on 04/21/2015 1:52:59 PM PDT by reasonisfaith ("...because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved." (2 Thessalonians))
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To: Harmless Teddy Bear

And your point?


39 posted on 04/21/2015 1:53:32 PM PDT by miss marmelstein (Richard the Third: "I should like to drive away not only the Turks (moslims) but all my foes.")
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To: Regulator

He’s from Ann Arbor, granted it’s a stretch calling Ann Arbor American, and that’s from someone who lives right by there.


40 posted on 04/21/2015 1:53:40 PM PDT by Darren McCarty (We need a conservative electable candidate in 2016)
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