Progressives and the Constitution

I know others have covered this in more depth and maybe better than I will here … but this is my blog, and I’ll do it my way.

In a welcomed gesture, John Boehner is opening the 112th Congress by reading the Constitution aloud. The whole thing, apparently.

One would think members of both parties and their supporters would be all about this, if they “love America”, as they say. “Here is the thing we just swore to protect and uphold”.

Even if they didn’t like it, one would think they’d be smart enough to keep that to themselves. But such is the boldness of the Constitution’s enemies in our time.




Yeah, she has a show on TV in America. And American Progressives love her.  Many progressives in the media, like her, seem to be having an allergic reaction to something all Americans should be able to get behind.

Last night that certain uber progressive family member was reading something in the paper about taking the “n” word out of the works of Mark Twain. And I said “well if a publisher wants to do that, it’s their prerogative, I suppose. As long as it’s not the government forcing it to happen. I can always buy the original from a publisher that WILL print it as written.”

She replied, “You’re against anything the government does. You sound like your father.”

Well he's not wrong about everything.  But for the record, he believes that 9/11 was an inside job and tunes in Alex Jones on the shortwave and won’t license his car or get a driver’s license.

Me, I was just applying the first amendment. Or so I thought.

What it really boils down to is a fundamental difference in point of view. She likes the Constitution as long as it serves the government, which is the ultimate authority.

Me, I believe the Constitution is the ultimate authority that restrains the government. It’s what made us different from most of what came before. The Constitution is the framework in which the government must operate.

Progressives like to tell us that the constitution is “old” or “out of date” and “confusing”. Obama decries the fact that it doesn’t tell us what the government must do on our behalf. You know, like the Soviet Constitution.

I ran across an NYT blog article which talked about the opening of the 112th Congress.  In the comments was the all too predictible snark:

"Who gets stuck reading out loud the slavery parts of the constitution?"

That shit used to work before I started doing my homework.   It doesn't anymore.  I had to counter-snark:

They should probably get a Democrat to read it as theirs was the party that voted against the amendments (which are, incidentally, a part of the Constitution) that reversed the earlier parts.

They should, of course, probably have a Republican read the 13th and 14th amendments, since theirs is the party that overwhelmingly got them passed.

We'll see if it gets published.