Democrats and that pesky old Constitution (plus a Neo audio)
I just wrote a post about the Democrats’ cavalier attitude towards the 2nd Amendment, but that post was more about politics. Now I want to emphasize the anti-Constitutional aspects of the move. As John Hinderaker of Powerline writes:
…[W]hy should we be surprised? Democrats regard the Constitution as an illegitimate product of white supremacy, written by a bunch of dead white males who were racists. Why should it command any respect? In their eyes, it doesn’t. Once they achieve power, it will be a dead letter.
Democrats have adopted the Erdogan philosophy: democracy is a streetcar. When you get to your stop, you get off. Let them win one more election, and the Constitution will protect no one. Bernie Sanders has made this explicit. Power is an opportunity to jail your opponents. For a crime? No. Who needs a crime?
One might think that the push from Democrats to delegitimize the Founders as old dead white racist men is about racism and the fight against it. But that would be wrong, IMHO. It’s the other way around. Calling them old dead white racist men is a way to attack the Constitution, because they are its authors and if you discredit the authors the left thinks it helps to discredit the document itself.
That is the target, and the approach is multi-faceted and long pre-dated Donald Trump’s presidency.
Just to show you what I’m talking about, I’m going to put up an audio file of an interview I did in early 2013 with Michael Savage on his show. Yeah, that Michael Savage, who had seen this post of mine about Michael Seidman, a constitutional law professor at Georgetown who wrote an op-ed in the NY Times about how outdated the Constitution is.
The audio is now gone from the internet, but I had saved it at the time, and here it is. It demonstrates that almost seven years ago this anti-Constitutional movement was picking up quite a bit of steam by coming out into the open. The audio quality isn’t all that good, and there’s some weird phone-ringing going on for a moment or two, but I think it’s pretty easy to understand what I’m saying and I think the points still hold up today, only more so:
1. It’s Georgetown, neo. Not Creighton.
2. Can you imagine this guy grading exams?
Actually, liberals ceased to have much respect for the Constitution 80-odd years ago, because respecting its provisions stood in the way of various corporotist-mercantilist and social-democratic projects they had. On policy grounds, some were better than others, but they were not exercises in delegated powers, whether they were good ideas or not.
Around about 1954, liberals came to the conclusion that ‘unconstitutional’ was a magic word to be uttered to rid themselves of public policies they didn’t care for but which elected officials had left in place. The excuses usually had something to do with a few phrases in the 14th Amendment.
Seidman’s work is indubitably an exercise in political theory, in that it consists of making specious arguments in favor of lawyers attempting to seize discretion from ordinary people, whether those people are operating in markets or elected conciliar bodies. It rests on the confidence that these weapons won’t be turned against him or anything he values.
Condign punishment for Seidman would be for him to suffer under the weight of discretion exercised by people he despises.
Again, when 1/2 the political class has no procedural principles, and when their constituency is content with that, we’ve lost any means to reliably regulate conflict and competition. Seidman fancies articulate people like himself will con the rest of us into continuing to sit still for lawyer’s games and professor’s games. (And, yes, Andrew McCabe and Peter Sztrok have law degrees).
Neo, I wish I could say that your voice reminds me of some relative or a dear former teacher or someone like that, but alas, I can’t come up with any such connection. Maybe it’s just as well, actually – you remain unique in that way. I suppose some qualities of it approach those heard in one or two of my choir members at church, but that’s the nearest that I get.
Neo: ……. But that would be wrong, IMHO. It’s the other way around. Calling them old dead white racist men is a way to attack the Constitution………
no… no.. its BOTH… a desert topping AND a floor wax!!
and you use “Shimmer” to put the shine on..
https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/shimmer-floor-wax/n8625
put a shine on
Pretending to be happy when you’re really not.
To make the best of a bad situation.
Art Deco on September 14, 2019 at 3:48 pm said:
Actually, liberals ceased to have much respect for the Constitution 80-odd years ago,
* * *
Some of those years have been very odd indeed.
There is, indeed an attack on the Constitution. And consider this… If you delegitimize the Constitution, you delegitimize SCOTUS. The left knows that the Court will be conservative for a long time to come. Therefore they need to set the stage for the eventual overthrow of constitutional order.
IMO, the “Constitution is Racist !” argument is a red herring. The Left wants to expand the power of the government. The whole point of the Constitution is to limit the power of government; that’s what it’s FOR.
Therefore the Left isn’t just opposed to the content of the Constitution; they’re opposed to the whole idea of a Constitution.
BTW Michael Savage is another conservative who came out of the Beat/Hippie scene. He was with Timothy Leary at Millbrook and later lived in North Beach (San Francisco) and was friends with Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
There are a fair number of us.
This is not to say that we should disobey all constitutional commands. Freedom of speech and religion, equal protection of the laws and protections against governmental deprivation of life, liberty or property are important, whether or not they are in the Constitution. We should continue to follow those requirements out of respect, not obligation.
–Michael Seidman
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/31/opinion/lets-give-up-on-the-constitution.html
Seidman’s interview is less than seven years old and already reverence for freedom of speech and religion have acquired sizeable asterisks on his side of the aisle.
It’s a curious piece. He argues we shouldn’t slavishly follow the Constitution, but then what happens? Who decides what happens and how? He seems to assume that 21st Century Americans will all reach the same conclusions, like a school of fish wheeling around, and say, decide to ignore the Electoral College because it’s the perfectly obvious thing to do, so why not?
But what if we aren’t united — and we certainly aren’t on the EC — do we just let the right people like Seidman make the decision? And if we were that united we could just amend the Constitution.
I can only understand it as battlespace prep for future conflicts in which Democrats want to do something unconstitutional and Republicans say, “But that’s unconstitutional…” and Democrats end the discussion by saying, “What difference does that make?”
Democrats have been ending discussions with “What difference (at this point?) does that make?” for a long time already.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08uk99L8oqQ
Not too oddly, considering the flexibility of Democrats, the results from my search for that clip turned up numerous current appeals by Pelosi to restrain Trump from acting unConstitutionally.
Maybe she didn’t think he following the requirments with enough respect.
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/08/08/pelosi-trump-senate-guns-1453347
https://www.speaker.gov/newsroom/9419-1
Democrats have been ending discussions with “What difference (at this point?) does that make?” for a long time already.
AesopFan: That’s true. And I was intentionally echoing Hillary with that question.
I’m still curious how deligitimizing the Constitution would work, if, for the sake of argument, Americans decided to go that way. How do you decide some laws apply and some laws don’t without following the laws about laws? In fact, going against some laws about laws.
I have a friend who made a summer project of rethinking the Electoral College. He concluded the EC should be abolished. But he’s frustrated that the EC can’t be abolished without the enormously difficult lift of amending the Constitution. So maybe we should make the Constitution easier to amend. Which presents the same problem as getting rid of the EC — too many Americans must be convinced it’s a good idea.
It just doesn’t seem fair!
How do you decide some laws apply and some laws don’t without following the laws about laws?
This is exactly what PC selectivity allows. If it’s a law, like obstruction of justice or mishandling confidential info, and it’s Dems who violate it — those are the laws not enforced. If its Reps who violate, THEN it’s enforced.
Quite like Khordokovsky, almost certainly guilty of bribing tax officials and failing to pay taxes. Like all the rich in Russia. But also, stupidly?, going against Putin. Guilty of the charges, but only tried because of opposition to Putin.
HR Clinton was guilty of the crimes, but NOT tried because she’s a PC Dem.
Tom Grey: You are right, of course, about the practical reality. I’m just wondering how a constitutional lawyer would explain how we get around the Constitution.
Is it just a matter of appointing enough critical legal lawyers to the courts, as high up as possible, so they can make stuff up … nod, nod, wink, wink … to push the leftist agenda?