The Tea Party Constitution
The News Journal committed actual acts of journalism this weekend and published a long article on the various interpretations of the Constitution. In the article, one professor describes the effect of what the Teapublicans want when they say they want to return to the “original” Constitution.
While a strict reading of the Constitution might accomplish the goal of eliminating health care reform and cap and trade, it would also have other consequences.
“First, we would have to abolish the United States Air Force,” Powe said. “We would be down to an Army and a Navy.”
After that, he said, a free press would be limited to newspapers. Free speech would cover treason and perjury, and illegal search and seizure would apply only to buildings.
The literal Constitution also doesn’t take into account technology, Garfield said, so the federal government would have to eliminate NASA and the Federal Aviation Administration. He added it would also mean the elimination of the Department of Education, the Environmental Protection Agency and a host of other agencies.
“It would be very disruptive to ignore those practices,” Tushnet said. “I don’t mean to say that disruption is a bad thing, but it would unsettle things a lot to go back.”
Teapublicans like Christine O’Donnell believe they are the only people qualified to tell us what the Constitution means. In the Widener debate, O’Donnell got herself in trouble by trying to go for a kill over literal words in the Constitution – it doesn’t actually say “separation of church and state.” Separation of church and state is how the courts (all the way back to very early days) have interpreted the meaning of the establishment clause. There are many words that aren’t literally in the Constitution like “freedom of religion.” There’s actually nothing in the Constitution about keeping a handgun in your home – that comes from court interpretation of the meaning of the 2nd Amendment.
The most vocal Constitutional “originalist” is Antonin Scalia (and his silent pal, Clarence Thomas). Allan Loudell actually asked a great question of Christine O’Donnell in the Widener debate. The question was about Scalia’s words that the 14th Amendment was not intended to apply to women (the intention in his view was that it only applied to African Americans) so women therefore aren’t protected Constitutionally from discrimination. Loudell asked O’Donnell how she reconciled her admiration for people like Scalia with her own lawsuit for sex discrimination against a former employer. O’Donnell pleaded ignorance.
The heart of the matter is that most people don’t want to return to the originalist Constitution if it means that it will roll back a lot of the protections that we have gained in the last 250 years. There’s not only the Air Force but also things like Social Security and Medicare that are some people’s only source of income. I dread the thought of 70 new Antonin Scalias joining the next Congress. It will be a huge fight to keep the benefits we’ve already gained through many years of fights.
Tags: Chris Coons, Christine O'Donnell, DE-Sen
we don’t need any regulation of the atomic energy industry (this certainly was not mentioned by the founding fathers).
hey, chernobyl, what could happen?
” In the article, one professor…” smack of establishment elitism.
Obviously the only people qualified to tell us what the Constitution means are people like O’Donnell, who took an 8-day class at a wingnut welfare think tank.
Who the heck do O’Donnell and the Tea Party think they are, to say that we can’t say that the Constitution always changes and is what we say it is today, and may be different tomorrow in a different time.
If you have heard Chris Coons on this topic, as I am sure you have, he makes many of the same points: that the Constitution is the words of the document and the amendments and the decisional law over two centuries that interprets it. Coons does a very good job of explaining it and also has a list of things we wouldn’t have if we went to a “strict originalist” reading of it. He has to do a good job since that is the only thing his opponents seem to ask him at candidate forums.
When Christine O’Donnell says she wants a strict reading of the Constitution and only what is written there is what the government can do it is very similar to the evangelical protestant way of reading and interpreting the bible, sola scriptura, by scripture alone. It makes perfect sense that she thinks that way because of her religious background. Now I know it may be unpleasant to get inside the heads of evangelical christian religious conservatives to understand their motives, but there is a consistency to their actions and understanding that might perhaps be used to prevent them from enacting their agenda. Know your enemy, so to speak.
Jack,
The Constitution can’t be a static document since it is amendable.
Yes, HH, the Teapublicans seems to be treating the Constitution like the Bible these days but these are the same people who just a few years ago wanted to add more amendments – to prevent flag-burning & to define marriage. I think they’re just using convenience to try to get rid of things they don’t like.
Decisional changes by courts can change and modernize the Constitution and it doesn’t need amendments for those changes. The Constitution is a living and breathing document which certainly changes and modernizes, daily if need be, depending on what the courts say, and properly Coons recognizes this. Delusional O’Connell wants the Consitution to say what the founding fathers intended it to say, over 200 years ago. How silly!
“O’Donnell pleaded ignorance.” Understatement of the year. Stupid is as stupid does.
O’Donnell is going to interpret the Constitution how the founders wanted, except for that whole separation of church and state thing because it’s inconvenient for her.
So if she’s going founder’s intention is she going to bring back slavery and deny women the vote?
In actual practice, the Federal Government doesn’t pay much attention to the Constitution, due process, or the concept of equal justice under law anymore. We’re living in an Orwellian police state, whether or not you care to acknowledge it.
We can have this discussion when our civil liberties are restored. Until then, the Teabaggerz ideas about the Constitution are as irrelevant as any others’.
you mean like how we arent allowed to express any opinion we want about the government or the administration in a public forum?
yeah i hate not being able to do that.
a1, please define “orwellian police state” and DONT say “what we are currently suffering”
I think he may mean by “orwellian police state” that since Obama’s dad was a Kenyan/British citizen on baby Obama’s birth, Obama can not be a “natural born citizen” under the original meaning and application of Article 2, Section 1 of the Constitution (although he certainly may be a “citizen” as under the 14th Amendment, which is different from the unique Presidential required “natural born citizen”).
btw, this is not a “birther” point since it doesn’t involve the lack of a birth certificate issue
…and therefore right now we are ruled outside of the Constitution.
btw, this is not a “birther” point since it doesn’t involve the lack of a birth certificate issue
LOL!!!!
Why the “LOL”? It doesn’t matter whether or not Obama were born in Hawaii. He could have been born in the Lincoln Bedroom of the Whitehouse, but his father was NOT a US Citizen (naturalized or otherwise) when Baby Obama was born.
“lol” means. Laugh out loud. You’re welcome.
a.price, you are not allowed to express yourself freely in public government forums – government agents can kick you out if they don’t like what is written on your tee-shirt or the bumper of your car, for example, or you can be relegated to an obscure free-speech zone.
In America today, secret imprisonment, torture and killing by the government without judicial review are all allowed. Warrantless spying on citizens is done without a second thought. Banks are confiscating people’s property routinely without following laws. “Elections” are conducted with no audit trails, despite the fact that voting machine hacking has been easily demonstrated.
Read George Orwells “Animal Farm” or “1984” and decide for yourself how far we have come to his vision.
Discussions of the “Constitution” are rapidly becoming little more than quaint.
Chernobyl was a government project not a private enterprise.
Um, all of the founding fathers were British citizens by birth. Because you couldn’t be born in the United States of America until we went through a lengthy and messy process (war, constitutional conventions, etc.) to create a country. John Tyler was the first ‘native born” president, wasn’t he?