Upholding the Constitution #2

Wow !! The Constitution came in for bashing today in S.C.'s Palmetto Forum.

All except Romney said they would challenge the constitutionality of Roe v. Wade and defy the Supreme Court's decision by invoking Section 5 of Amendment 14, which says that "no state shall deprive any person of life . . . without due process."

They claim that this gives Congress the right to defy the Court to protect the life of those unborn people. Of course, this depends on defining an immature fetus as a person. They invoke this sweeping right for Congress to carve out certain areas that the Supreme Court cannot overrule the "will of the people" which is, supposedly, wielded purely by their elected representatives in Congress.

I thought that was the whole purpose of our checks and balances -- to give the Court jurisdiction over interpreting the Constitution. Now, it seems, they can only interpret those sections that Congress decides they can. Which really means that they are not co-equal branches.

Romney showed himself to be the only moderate in the crowd (Huntsman didn't take part in the Forum) by saying he would not provoke such a confrontation. He explained that this would then open the possibility of Democrats defying the Court on decisions they didn't like.

Even Newt jumped on the bandwagon of pandering to the anti-abortion crowd. Duh . . . what did I expect? This was South Carolina, Tea Party Country.

Ralph

Upholding the Constitution

Those who shout the loudest about "upholding the Constitution" seem to know the least about what it actually says. The same ignorance exists about the actual history of its writing and ratification.

The latest example: Conservative columnist Matthew Vadum wrote an op-ed in The American Thinker, which he titled "Registering the Poor to Vote is Un-American":

"It is profoundly antisocial and un-American to empower the nonproductive segments of the population to destroy the country -- which is precisely why Barack Obama zealously supports registering welfare recipients to vote. . . .

"Encouraging those who burden society to participate in elections isn't about helping the poor. It's about helping the poor to help themselves to others' money. It's about raw so-called social justice. It's about moving America ever farther away from the small-government ideals of the Founding Fathers."

Vadum hasn't quite gotten over his hatred and contempt for ACORN and its effectiveness in registering people to vote. He helped destroy ACORN. The spate of state voter ID laws are cut from the same cloth -- contempt for poor people and the wish to discourage their voting.

This is more evidence that we have a profound schism about the basic principles upon which this country was founded, the principles upon which this "experiment in democracy" was crafted.

These are the same people, usually, who insist that the country was founded on Christian principles. In fact, it was more the principles of the Enlightenment that shaped the Constitution. It's true that many of the Founders were Christian, some of them specifically identified themselves as Deists, not Theists, however. But they were careful to write the Constitution to be a secular document.

These conservatives just don't want to believe that is true. It doesn't fit with their preferred myth.

Later, when Rick Hanson, who writes the Election Law Review blog, called Vadum to task for wanting to deny poor people the right to vote, he squealed that he had been misquoted.

Admittedly it's a fine point. I suspect most people missed the difference, as I did. Vadum doesn't say that it's un-American for them to vote; just un-American "to empower them" by helping them register to vote.

Here's a question for him: Is he opposed to any kind of social justice or just the "raw" kind?

He says helping them register to vote is "raw, so-called social justice." What's the difference in "raw social justice" and ordinary social justice? If the "raw" kind is bad, is the cooked variety also bad? Or is that all right?

Do you eat sushi, Mr. Vadum, or is raw fish also bad?

These are scary times.

Ralph