The latest: the Iowa Republican Party has adopted a platform plank for the "reintroduction and ratification of the original 13th amendment" of the Constitution."
The 13th amendment that was ratified and is part of the Constitution today simply abolishes slavery. Sounds OK.
But that's not what the "original 13th amendment" would have done. It was not just an "original wording" of the anti-slavery amendment. The original amendment was introduced in 1810 and was ratified by 12 of the 13 states at the time -- one more, and it would have been the 13th amendment and our law today. But since it didn't pass that crucial final state, the number 13 was applied to the next amendment that was ratified, which was the one abolishing slavery.
So what was in it that the Obama haters want to bring back? Here is the relevant part:
"If any citizen of the United States shall accept, claim, receive or retain any title of nobility or honour, or shall, without the consent of Congress accept and retain any present, pension, office or emolument of any kind whatever, from any emperor, king, prince or foreign power, such person shall cease to be a citizen of the United States and shall be incapable of holding any office of trust or profit under them, or either of them."And why this? Because, since Obama accepted the Nobel Peace Prize from a foreign government (the Norwegian Parliament), he would be stripped of his citizenship and could no longer serve as our president.
Of course this is the kind of nutty thing some zealots dream up. But the Iowa Republican Party adopting it as a plank in their platform -- that all their state candidates will run on?
That's what's astonishing.
Ralph
If Iowa forms its own country, what will it do for a Navy? Actually, such stories should not be reported. People in other countries read our papers and it's not to our advantage for them to know how many lunatics are on the loose here...
ReplyDeleteYou know, I just don't think there was this much natural hatred for Obama before he took office. I think it is not totally, but partly, manufactured by the Republican, highly effective campaign to instill fear -- or to play on latent fears that are already there; and then they spread lies and distortions that feed those fears and turn it into hate.
ReplyDeleteAs wonderful as Obama's team was at campaigning, they really have not been very effective in controlling the message against this totally unprincipled and immoral onslaught.
If you get past the hysteria and ask people about whether they are for or against the actual things that Obama has done, rather than the distortions they are fed on a daily basis, a very different picture emerges.