First, and maybe finally, the Patriots who wrote the document included seven articles in the original text. Seven, not six! So one must assume that the "original intent" of the august body that penned our Constitution was to include everything therein. Take a look at Article V. The Framers spent an entire article on the concept of revision. With all due respect to the numbskulls screaming about intent, the wise men who wrote the document understood that from time to time revisions would have to be made if the Constitution was going to be relevant far into the future. Thus, the very authors of the Constitution were themselves revisionists. . . uh, liberals. The silly idea that there was ever a constitutionally pristine period where the true essence of the sacred text was in full flower is absurd.
From the beginning our Constitution has been a work in progress. After all, these very same Framers radically changed the original document in 1791 by adding the first ten amendments, you know, the Bill of Rights. Further, if any of these zealots actually took the time to read the Constitution, they would find that it is riddled with generalities and vague language. All the way back to the summer of 1787, the attendees at the Philadelphia Convention understood that much of the detail of the new government they were creating would have to be worked out by the people themselves. So, when it says in Article One Section One, "All legislative power herein granted. . . " we discover that they never precisely define what they mean by the term "legislative power." Again, their goal was to allow each generation to define and apply the text to a new set of issues and problems facing the country, rather than demanding that it always be seen within the context of a fixed place and time. Think not Tea Partiers? Then the creation of the United States Air Force is unconstitutional. Following your logic of strict construction, Congress was given the specific powers, in Article One Section Eight, to "raise and support armies," and to "provide and maintain a Navy." Nothing there about an air force, let alone Space vehicles!
Then there are some specific political positions that Tea Party enthusiasts have been supporting over the past few weeks and months. These folks become apoplectic when talking about the native born children of aliens being true American citizens and the establishment of Islamic mosques in New York City and other places around the country. The cry of protest heard most often about these issues is that they are "un-American." Oh really? Let's examine these claims in reverse order. Again, let me quote from the Constitution, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." It does not say, "excepting Islam." Thus, in order to carry forth an exclusion of a particular religion from Constitutional protection, the Tea Party is arguing for revision and radical reinterpretation. Which is exactly what they accuse their opponents of doing. One would think that if they were actually sincere in their desire to preserve the original intent of the Constitution, this Sarah Palin led crowd would be taking to the streets to insist that all Mosque construction proceed uninhibited.
And as to the citizenship argument, the Fourteenth Amendment is quite clear too. "All persons born or naturalized in the United States. . . are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside." There does not seem to be any exceptions here either. So what is really going on here. Once we debunk this absurd argument that the Tea Party movement is about preserving the US Constitution, the real objectives of these people become pretty clear. The Tea Party is little more than a reinvention of a long standing American political tradition, nativism. The founders of this movement know that there has always been a segment of our population that fears and mistrusts anyone who does not look and speak like them.
They have been with us since before the Constitution was written and they are still with us today. In the 1850s, they called themselves the Know Nothings. At the turn of the 20th century they were alive and well within the Populist Party as well as in the Progressive movement. President Woodrow Wilson sung the praises of Nathan Bedford Forest and the racist organization he founded, the Ku Klux Klan, as depicted in the 1914 Hollywood blockbuster, "Birth of a Nation." In the early 1920s, the Republican Party and our most repressive attorney general ever, A. Mitchell Palmer, fanned the fires of nativism by tagging Southern and Eastern European immigrants as Bolsheviks. In 1948, Strom Thurmond and his fellow southern white delegates stormed out of the Democratic National Convention because it opened its doors to African Americans. Many of these very same white Southerners finally abandoned the Democratic Party when President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In 1968, the infamous segregationist governor of Alabama, George Wallace formed the American Independent party and ran for the presidency. Wallace openly condemned the "pointy-headed liberal elite and their mongrel supporters" for ruining the United States. Now what do you suppose he meant by the term "mongrel?"
In closing, I guess my real problem with the Tea Party is that it is openly opposed to the US Constitution, rather than its most ardent supporters. I just wish they would have the courage of their convictions and stand up for what they truly believe in. But then, these people never do.
That's a history lesson they don't want taught.
ReplyDelete