Posted on 12/20/2010 11:40:45 AM PST by NormsRevenge
These days, conservatives proudly proclaim their love for the Constitution. Yet many seem unsure whether to revere it or repeal it, plank by plank.
Such constitutional nihilism extends well beyond the drive to strike down the health care law, a jarring move by those long opposed to judicial activism. It reflects a deep discomfort with the country's growth toward a thriving, coast-to-coast democracy.
To be sure, these activists insist that they only want to show they revere our founding document. Earlier in the year, 80 groups issued the "Mount Vernon Statement."
"The federal government today ignores the limits of the Constitution, which is increasingly dismissed as obsolete and irrelevant," it said.
But as for the actual Constitution, as we have lived it for two centuries, some are itching to pull out their quill pens and start furiously crossing things out.
Some advocates want to rewrite the 14th Amendment, a landmark of the Constitution -- indeed, of human freedom.
The amendment guaranteed equal protection of the law and due process to former slaves. Under its provisions, if you were born in the United States you had the rights of a citizen. The amendment was enacted by the Radical Republicans, which meant something very different back in 1868.
Now Sens. John Kyl, R-Ariz., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., have suggested rewriting this core part of the national charter. Children born here are not, in fact, citizens, they argue, if their parents crossed the border illegally.
(Excerpt) Read more at mercurynews.com ...
More Commie shills that need jail cells, not visibility.
Never try to follow the bouncing ball with guys like this. It never lands on the truth.
People on the Left have been talking about the Constitution as a “living” document for decades. What they mean is they want to rewrite the Consitution by ignoring what it says and then just make **** up to cover what they want covered (today). Tomorrow it might mean something different.
Illegal parents never had the rights to bestow upon their “citizenship by birth” children.
Kyl and Grahamnesty are dead wrong.
No, Mike, it’s the unconstitutional parts of the federal government we’re going to dismantle.
In short: “The want to do the things we’ve always done that they complained about- That’s how bad they are”
Libralism is a mental desease
The Constitutional ignorance of this man is breathtaking.
More blah, blah, blah from the uber left. It never ends.
The writer should really learn to read.
At a real school.
Not public, obviously.
Oh, and when and if he gets into a real university, he might try pursuing an intellectual major, not marshmallow roasting.
“It reflects a deep discomfort with the country’s growth toward a thriving, coast-to-coast democracy.”
I think this was very carefully phrased to mean just that. “democracy” is not “republican-democracy”, which was designed to be a system of balanced and orderly limited government. Instead, the “democracy” he is thinking of, is poll-driven, fickle, mob rule democracy.
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy.”
In other words, true populist democracy —> socialism.
The Left is now uniting for Global Marxism and will use Muslims as their army.
This is a bald faced lie.
Well, exactly. Thats the point. We want to return to the text. We want people to stop re-writing it without actually re-writing it. If you want to change it, then ammend it. If you can't ammend it, because you can't get enough people to go along with you, then you have to follow it.
As for the 14th ammendment, that was intended to resolve questions having to do with newly freed slaves. Any newly freed slave who was born in the US was automatically a citizen. That doesn't and shouldn't apply to people who have come here illegally a hundred and fifty years after the end of the Civil War.
If you're here illegally, and we didn't kidnap you and drag you here against your will, then the 14th ammendment shouldn't apply to you.
"Now Sens. John Kyl, R-Ariz., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., have suggested rewriting this core part of the national charter. Children born here are not, in fact, citizens, they argue, if their parents crossed the border illegally."
The author has things backwards.
A "cote part" of the 14th amendment's clause relating to citizenship HAS BEEN "re-written" by judicial activism over the last century. As the author points out, and then proceeds to ignore "The amendment guaranteed equal protection of the law and due process to former slaves." It was to secure their rights that the citizenship clause was included. The original intent of the clause had nothing to do with wanting to secure citizenship rights for illegal immigrants.
Judicial activism as well as judicial inaction, NOT "the people" has re-written that understanding. It's time "we the people" informed the judiciary that the original intent of the 14th amendment must be the law; not their "living Constitution" revision of it.
Nobody was talking about just ignoring it, or dismantling it.
So some on the right have a problem with the (modern) interpretation of the 14th......
The left has a problem with the 1st (hate speech), the 2nd (the right of the people to keep and bear arms becomes the right of a State to keep and arm a militia), the electoral college (Article II), a view of the 10th that is the opposite of its intention (regulation of interstate commerce is now the regulation of all things under the Sun or Moon that may in any conceivable way influence commerce), and a view of the takings clause that allows the government to take the private property of a citizen and sell it or give it to another citizen based upon any conceivable public benefit - when the Constitution clearly says it will not be taken except for “public use”.
I could go on......
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