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