Showing posts with label u.s. constitution. Show all posts
Showing posts with label u.s. constitution. Show all posts

Friday, September 17, 2010

one person's america-hating radical is another person's patriotic good ol' boy

Recently I was thinking about how odd it is that some folks on the right wing (e.g. Tea Partiers and the usual suspect of Fox News pundits) are so willing to show contempt and suspicion for the President, the Speaker of the House, Congress in general, various provisions of the US Constitution, basic principles of American democracy, the current policies of the government and then turn around and criticize others (usually liberals, Blacks, Latinos or Muslims) for being unAmerican. Among the most extreme we even have people like Sharron Angle suggesting the possibility of "Second Amendment remedies" to government "tyranny".

On the more apocalyptic side, during the US Presidential election we were endlessly confronted with the loop of Jeremiah Wright saying "God damn America" but most white evangelicals are willing to accept (or even celebrate as a cautionary tale) Ruth Graham's statement "if God doesn't soon bring judgment upon America, He'll have to go back and apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah!” source

As a more entertaining and contemporary way to highlight this kind of right-wing hypocrisy as it relates to how we speak about 9/11, the Center for American Progress put together a Blaming-America-for-9/11-Quiz where you can try to match a set of "controversial" statements about 9/11 with the person who said them. Enjoy.

h/t to Islamicate

Wednesday, August 04, 2010

sarah palin, the fourteenth amendment and alaska

I plan to say something in another blogpost about the recent mean-spirited talk about repealing the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution (or specifically its provisions which grant citizenship to all those born "in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof", even the children of undocumented aliens). But for now I want to focus on a different part of the Fourteenth Amendment:
Section. 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

The above was written in the wake of the Civil War but now it certainly makes me think of Sarah and Todd Palin's involvement in the openly secessionist Alaskan Independence Party.

From one perspective my objection is moot since a long time ago the Congress voted to indefinitely remove the restriction in order to help heal the wounds created by the Civil War. But even so, I would argue that the principle is a serious one and should be given more attention than it seems to have gotten. I mean, I can understand what it means to be a Muslim patriot or a Christian patriot or a Buddhist patriot or even an atheist patriot. And I can understand what it means to be a left-wing patriot or a right-wing patriot or a liberal patriot or a conservative patriot. But I don't believe one can be a secessionist and a patriot. Instead of seeking what is best for the United States, the Palins and the AIP seem the political equivalent of South Park's Eric Cartman ("Screw you guys, I'm going home".)

Alaska Sounds like Aztlan -- Secessionists Go Mainstream
The Constitution Party: Delusional Religious Fanatics Pushing for Christian Tyranny
Wikipedia: Alaskan Independence Party
Alaskan Independence Party: The Last Refuge of a Scoundrel

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

dropping out of electoral college

From In These Times: Dropping Out of Electoral College by Martha Biondi summarizes a rather clever plan devised by a Stanford University computer scientist named John Koza to do an end run around the electoral college without having to overhaul the U.S. Constitution. It’s called National Popular Vote (NPV), and in April, Maryland became the first state to pass it into law. It works as follows: according to the Constitution, states have the right to determine how to cast their electoral votes. So instead of awarding its electoral votes to the top vote getter among that state's voters, under NPV a state would award their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote. As soon as the measure passed in enough states, the electoral college would technically still exist, but for all practical purposes we would be able to directly elect the president. Pretty sneaky sis.

For another interesting idea on tweaking the election system in the interests of greater democracy check out Common Dreams: The Glories of the ‘Single Transferable Vote’ by Ari Savitzky and David Segal