Go to any site involving the Tea Party and you’ll find statements demanding our legislators “follow the Constitution,” a link to the Constitution and or calls for repeals to various amendments to the Constitution.
Yet their “leader” Jim Demit calls for banning gays and single women who are having sexual relations outside of marriage from teaching in our schools.
They call for the community center containing a Mosque in New York not to be built – although they have (finally) come to the conclusion that under our Constitution they can – because it would not be “sensitive” to Americans. Of course, they neglect to remember that 70 Muslims died in the twin towers or that many of the rescuers were also Muslims. They paint an entire religion as “terrorists.”
As Thomas Paine wrote in Common Sense, “in America the law is king.”
Apparently for Jim DeMint and his Tea Party cohorts – the law is king, only when THEY choose it to be so.
While DeMint calls the health care reform bill unconstitutional, he believes we should “keep the promise” of Medicare and Social Security.
In his own fund raising letter he wrote: “I believe the only way to take back our freedom is to return to the constitutional principles our founding fathers promised in 1776.”
Back to 1776? (Of course, the Constitution wasn’t actually written until 1787, and the first 10 Amendments weren’t ratified until 1791, but that’s another story). Let’s see what we would be missing, if we went back to the original Constitution and kept only it’s first 10 amendments.
- Eleventh Amendment (1795): Clarifies judicial power over foreign nationals, and limits ability of citizens to sue states in federal courts and under federal law. (Full text)
- Twelfth Amendment (1804): Changes the method of presidential elections so that members of the Electoral College cast separate ballots for president and vice president. (Full text)
- Thirteenth Amendment (1865): Abolishes slavery and authorizes Congress to enforce abolition. (Full text)
- Fourteenth Amendment (1868): Defines a set of guarantees for United States citizenship; prohibits states from abridging citizens’ privileges or immunities and rights to due process and the equal protection of the law; repeals the Three-fifths compromise; prohibits repudiation of the federal debt caused by the Civil War. (Full text)
- Fifteenth Amendment (1870): Prohibits the federal government and the states from using a citizen’s race, color, or previous status as a slave as a qualification for voting. (Full text)
- Sixteenth Amendment (1913): Authorizes unapportioned federal taxes on income. (Full text)
- Seventeenth Amendment (1913): Converts state election of senators to popular election. (Full text)
- Eighteenth Amendment (1919): Prohibited the manufacturing, importing, and exporting of alcoholic beverages (see Prohibition in the United States). Repealed by the Twenty-First Amendment. (Full text)
- Nineteenth Amendment (1920): Prohibits the federal government and the states from forbidding any citizen to vote due to their sex. (Full text)
- Twentieth Amendment (1933): Changes details of congressional and presidential terms and of presidential succession. (Full text)
- Twenty-first Amendment (1933): Repeals Eighteenth Amendment. Permits states to prohibit the importation of alcoholic beverages. (Full text)
- Twenty-second Amendment (1951): Limits president to two terms. (Full text)
- Twenty-third Amendment (1961): Grants presidential electors to the District of Columbia. (Full text)
- Twenty-fourth Amendment (1964): Prohibits the federal government and the states from requiring the payment of a tax as a qualification for voting for federal officials. (Full text)
- Twenty-fifth Amendment (1967): Changes details of presidential succession, provides for temporary removal of president, and provides for replacement of the vice president. (Full text)
- Twenty-sixth Amendment (1971): Prohibits the federal government and the states from forbidding any citizen of age 18 or greater to vote on account of their age. (Full text)
- Twenty-seventh Amendment (1992): Limits congressional pay raises. (Full text)
And then, of course, we have DeMint’s protégé, Christine O’Donnell, who has no concept, of how we get to separation of church and state beginning with the Constitution and the Supreme Court decisions confirming it.
It is beyond frightening these people are running for office and that some of them may even be elected when they haven’t even a rudimentary concept of the Constitution or how government works.
