Constitutional Fetishism
This reference to the Constitution in the Tea Party Contract from America is simplistic, but at least I understand why it’s there:
1. Protect the ConstitutionRequire each bill to identify the specific provision of the Constitution that gives Congress the power to do what the bill does. (82.03%)
This reference is crossing the line into the realm of Constitution-as-fetish:
4. Enact Fundamental Tax ReformAdopt a simple and fair single-rate tax system by scrapping the internal revenue code and replacing it with one that is no longer than 4,543 words—the length of the original Constitution. (64.90%)
What’s next?
“Legislation should be inscribed on vellum using a quill pen—the writing materials of the original Constitution.”
“Government-run health care should be replaced with leeches and bleeding—the medical care provided to the writers of the original Constitution.”
I’m sure you can think of others.
They are aware that federal laws always have this section in them already, right?
April 15th, 2010 at 8:23 am
Barack Obama, being a species of property, is now only 3/5s a President.
April 15th, 2010 at 8:24 am
Theodoric of York: Now, Mrs. Miller, you’re distraught, tired.. you may be suffering from nervous exhaustion. I think you’d feel better if I let some of your blood.
Joan: You charlatan! You killed my daughter, just like you killed most of my other children! Why don’t you admit it! You don’t know what you’re doing!
Theodoric of York: [ steps toward the camera ] Wait a minute. Perhaps she’s right. Perhaps I’ve been wrong to blindly folow the medical traditions and superstitions of past centuries. Maybe we barbers should test these assumptions analytically, through experimentation and a “scientific method”. Maybe this scientific method could be extended to other fields of learning: the natural sciences, art, architecture, navigation. Perhaps I could lead the way to a new age, an age of rebirth, a Renaissance! [ thinks for a minute ] Naaaaaahhh!
Announcer: Tune in next week for another episode of “Theodoric of York: Medieval Barber”, when you’ll hear Theodoric say:
Theodoric of York: A little bloodletting and some boar’s vomit, and he’ll be fine!
April 15th, 2010 at 8:24 am
What many of these people may not realize is that most of the complexity of the tax code lies in defining what income is. Unless you say that only wages and salary are taxable (which is completely unfair to those who work for a living as opposed to living off of estates,and even, then there are still lots of lines to be drawn as to what constitutes wages and salary), it’s unavoidable.
Fairness creates complexity. No way around it.
April 15th, 2010 at 8:25 am
Bring back witch trials.
@freeulysses:
That was the first thing I thought of, but of course to them the Commerce Clause will not count.
April 15th, 2010 at 8:26 am
@freeulysses:
Thank the Lord that someone beat me to writing this.
Stupid, stupid people.
April 15th, 2010 at 8:26 am
...is that lead paint is not for eating!
April 15th, 2010 at 8:28 am
Do they admit the validity of the various amendments, or do we have to stick with Original Intent of the Sainted Founders?
(the Second Amendment actually belongs in the Constitution, of course. The Founders just ran out of space on the page.)
dms
April 15th, 2010 at 8:29 am
I suspect that the 4,543 word quota is the upper limit of their attention span. They’ve had to force themselves to read the entire Constitution (or at least claim to have done so), and anything more than that is way too much for them.
Still shorter than th’ Bible, tho’.
April 15th, 2010 at 8:30 am
12. All Presidents must be named “Washington”. Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport is now Ronald Washington Washington National Airport.
April 15th, 2010 at 8:30 am
We can go back to generating electricity with kites! No more energy problems!
April 15th, 2010 at 8:31 am
@Meanderthal: Cute name! Heh.
April 15th, 2010 at 8:31 am
why is anyone taking the tea baggers seriously? I was talking to a died in the wool fiscal conservative republican last night whose position on the tea party was that they were just a fringe and that the reason why they get so much play in the media was because the liberal media wanted to show how crazy the republicans are. There is just no way of answering this because it is a narrative formed by one’s own prejudices albeit based on supposed facts.
He also complained about the 47% of people that allegedly pay no taxes basically implying that they were free loading. I pointed out the other taxes that those people do pay and then asked when federal income taxes kicked in. He gave me a figure – pretty low as you might imagine, and I said “well you look at that and see half the country freeloading, I look at that and see half the country too poor to pay taxes”. He was kind of stumped at that.
April 15th, 2010 at 8:32 am
Defense budgets shall be no more than they were in 1789, adjusted for current dollars in gold.
April 15th, 2010 at 8:33 am
Constitution as fetish:
When people need a fetish, logic and argument will not do.
April 15th, 2010 at 8:33 am
@freeulysses:
No, they aren’t aware of that. They don’t know anything about federal law.
They haven’t read the health care law, either, the liars.
There’s a whole section dedicated to constitutional authority.
I’m starting to get an inkling of what they’re actually buying into, although I don’t think they know it.
Natural law. Clarence Thomas. Remember the several instances where they seemed to be confusing the Declaration of Independence with the Constitution? That’s not an accident. It’s a whole elaborate crackpot theory.
Glenn Beck never had an original thought in his life. I knew something was amiss. He just lifted that dogma, whole.
April 15th, 2010 at 8:34 am
@dmsilev:
They have a lot of problems with the ‘teen amendments, specifically 13, 14 and 16.
April 15th, 2010 at 8:34 am
I don’t think aware is the way I’d describe them.
April 15th, 2010 at 8:34 am
They do realize that the brevity of the Constitution comes directly from its broad, open-ended language, right? Language that doesn’t exactly lend itself to a tax code?
April 15th, 2010 at 8:35 am
Are they aware that the Fair Tax idiocy is basically a Scientology over-complex way to avoid loosing their tax-exempt status?
The contract is almost as stupid as the Texas GOP platform. I’m surprised they didn’t want a return to the gold & silver currency. Or maybe deer skins and beaver pelts.
April 15th, 2010 at 8:37 am
“There shall be no more than 13 states, the number of states who ratified the constitution”
“All non-whites shall be valued as 3/5 of a citizen, the way the founders intended”
“Women shall have no rights except as property of their husbands, the way the Founding Father’s lived”
“All people shall be put to death at 67 years old because that is how old George Washington was when he died”
“No medicare or social security (except for “real americans”) because the Founding Father’s didn’t need it”
April 15th, 2010 at 8:37 am
while your at it, many diseases were treated by giving a patient large amounts of mercury. They could try to popularize that.
April 15th, 2010 at 8:37 am
I think African Americans should only hafta pay three fifths a that single tax rate…
just sayin’
April 15th, 2010 at 8:38 am
All members of congress shall dress in clothing from the time of the writting of the constitution, including powdered wigs.
Heating and air conditioning shall be removed from all congressional and executive branch buildings, modern plumbing shall be removed, also.
Government employees and elected officials shall only use modes of transportation available at the time of the writing of the constitution. In addition, no electronic communication will be allowed.
The armed forces will be issued only weapons, gear and transportation available at the writing of the constitution.
April 15th, 2010 at 8:38 am
On the plus side we could get rid of the whole notion of corporate ‘natutal personhood’.
April 15th, 2010 at 8:39 am
@homerhk: When confronted with this, it is helpful to point out that the Republican plan to keep wages low was a wild success as shown by the number of people who are too poor to pay federal income tax.
As the Republicans were mainly the ones who wanted to suppress wages in the name of corporate profit, they should not be the ones complaining about the consequences of their little plan. Can’t have it both ways, my friend.
April 15th, 2010 at 8:41 am
All government communications must henceforth travel via horseback or lantern shading! Your e-mail will not do, sir!
April 15th, 2010 at 8:44 am
Liquids for legislative sessions shall consist of rum, whiskey, brandy, wine and small beer only, as the water is unsafe to drink.
I think the Teabaggers have started this one already….
April 15th, 2010 at 8:45 am
America was founded on the general principle of providing for the general welfare of its people. And (imo) the leaders who have believed this have led us best.
Our government is also supposed to consist of representation of its people (as opposed to, say, the people of Israel). Over the years this has been especially perverted and twisted until it has become true representation of a very few: the connected, the rich, the powerful.
& that’s not all that’s become perverted. From “the freedom to bear arms” we get “the freedom to have an underground bunker draped with Gasden flags housing our arsenal of advanced semi- and automatic weaponry.”
The truth of the matter is that we have grown away from the original precepts of the Constitution—in some ways this is good, and others, not so much. But that’s what growth is about. We live in a far more complex world, in ways our Founders couldn’t have begun to imagine (not even Ben Franklin!). To try to wrench our country back to the halcyon days of the 18th century (or even the antebellum South of the mid-19th century, which is where I suspect these peoples’ daydreams lie) would be a regression from which we would never recover.
Thirty years of unending radical “conservatism” has done this country incalculable harm already. It’s time to look forward, not backward.
April 15th, 2010 at 8:45 am
@Linda Featheringill: Did you take a look at that photo last night?
April 15th, 2010 at 8:45 am
Gun ownership will be limited to flintlocks—the most advanced firearms available at the time of the original Constitution.
April 15th, 2010 at 8:47 am
I’m pretty sure the TeaTards think that the actual existence of a “legislature” which passes “laws”, instead of there simply being a court telling people over and over what the Constitution says, is un-Constitutional.
On the one hand the Founding Fathers were alien RevWar cosplay gods, and on the other hand they apparently f***ed up when they wrote Article 1 of the Constushun, because a legislature passin’ laws about shit what ain’t in the Constushun is un-Constushull.
April 15th, 2010 at 8:48 am
@Bobby Thomson:
That and the fact that evry politician knows that you get elected by cutting taxes. Of course, one can’t just cut all tax because there are bills to pay and cutting spending without cutting one of the holy trinity (defense, defense, and defense) is virtually impossible, the congress ends up enacting hundreds of little tax cuts. All of which add to the complexity.
The tax law isn’t that complicated unless you you’re worth more than a couple of hundred thousand and/or run a business.
April 15th, 2010 at 8:49 am
CONGRESS CAN’T PASS NO LAWS WHICH AIN’T ALREADY IN THE CONSTUSHUN.
ANY LAW WHAT AIN’T ALREADY IN THE CONSTUSHUN IS UNCONSTUSHULL.
April 15th, 2010 at 8:51 am
“Fair and Balanced” Dave
We have a civil war double barrel canon in front of city hall. Legend has it that the gunners loaded two balls connected by a chain and let her rip. Only one tube fired and you can guess.what happened
Yee haw.
April 15th, 2010 at 8:52 am
Soon they’ll want the original version of the Constitution, that is, without the amendments. They’ll have to make one exception for the 2nd amendment, to defend themselves against the slaves.
April 15th, 2010 at 8:52 am
Unfortunately, both these manifesto points have a good solid foundation in reality. While the tea partiers are crazy, these two exhortations make good sense.
America has progressively abandoned the constitution, applying torture (flagrant violation of the 8th amendment), Obama’s shameful and grossly unlawful “preventive detention” (flagrant violation of the 5th due process and 6th amendement, right to a trial by jury), warrantless wiretapping (flagrant violation of the 4th amendment), property forfeiture (gross violation of the 4th amendment), sending troops into war merely at the president’s say-so (violation of the constitution requirement that congress declares war, not the president, also a crass violation of the more recent War Powers Act), and creating the Department of Sicherheit Dienst, excuse me, the Department of Heimat Securitat, oh, fuck it, let’s just call it what it is, the American NKVD.
Now that we have a Democrat in the White House, former critics of the Republicans’ insanely unconstitutional behavior seem to have conveniently forgotten that Obama continues many grossly and outrageously unconstitutional and wholly illegal violations of the constitution. In point of fact, unless Obama stops these high crimes and misdemeanors pronto, he should be impeached. We need to restore the basic rights guaranteed in the constitution: the right to habeas corpus, the right to a trial by jury, the right to be secure in our persons and our property against unreasonable searches and seizures, and so on. These are basic rights. They are recognized everywhere in the civilized world...except in America.
The second point you quote from the tea lunatics bears on a crucial issue: the goddamn tax code is too complex. It’s riddled with insane loopholes. Obviously a “flat tax” is a con game designed to shift the tax off the rich and onto the poor, but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t simplify the tax code. Right now, professional tax accountants are unable to assure themselves that they have interpreted the current tax code correctly because it’s so complex. While increasing the tax on the wealthy to something more reasonable—say, back to 90%, where it was during the Eisenhower era—we should also drastically simplify the tax code.
It really bugs me when liberals get into convulsions ridiculing the political opposition when the opposition makes good points. These two issues are good solid points. Our current tax code is so unnecessarily complex that it covers up the gross inequity of our unfair anti-progressive tax system, and the degree of unconstitutional lawlessness that has crept into America’s so called “justice” system by means of outrages like property forfeiture (unconstitutional on its face), “preventive detention” (felony kidnapping by another name) and the like is unacceptable in a society that claims to operate by the rule of law.
April 15th, 2010 at 8:53 am
@ChrisS:
If you think about it, most of that complexity is defining what you don’t have to pay taxes on, thanks to lobbying efforts. Most other developed countries have much simpler tax structures, but people pay more income tax: it’s basically like the joke: “How much do you make? Send us half.”
April 15th, 2010 at 8:54 am
Doesn’t the fact that the Constitution can be amended—not easily of course, but changed nonetheless—make the first requirement even more worthless?
April 15th, 2010 at 8:54 am
Athens Double Barrel Cannon
April 15th, 2010 at 8:55 am
Each new bill shall be sung into the record by Ken Howard, William Daniels and Howard DaSilva, wearing authentic period clothing appropriate for members of the Continental Congress.
April 15th, 2010 at 8:57 am
The Federal government should have no power to build or maintain concrete roads are railroads. Instead, they can only build dirt paths suitable for horses which will now carry the mail.
Speaking of mail, the Framers obviously didn’t contemplate computers or the Internet (which started as a government program). Can we undo the Internet?
April 15th, 2010 at 8:57 am
@mclaren:
You made very good points, but the opposition is not making the points you made.
The TeaTards support the un/anti-Constitutional activities you and I oppose. And they denounce as “un-Constitutional” things like the income tax or health care mandates.
Sure, ‘liberals’ either appear to agree with or have no clue how to coherently oppose the wildly anti-Constitutional Executive power spree underway by both recent administrations, but it’s completely unjustified to suggest that the hired movement known as the ‘tea party’ are really the same as consistently principled libertarian Constitutionalists.
April 15th, 2010 at 8:57 am
@Bobby Thomson:
That’s true, but there’s also the fact that for the majority of taxpayers, the complexity of the tax code doesn’t affect them. To the extent that changes in it do, the numerous programs and services out there can make it easy to file.
April 15th, 2010 at 8:58 am
I realize that this would not qualify as Originalism, but I’d like to give a hat tip to the Glorious Era of Reconstruction and have most medical care be based on various concoctions of opium, heroin, cocaine, and morphine.
April 15th, 2010 at 8:59 am
@Brian J:
They haven’t given this a lot of thought. Please don’t carry anything out to any logical conclusions. No follow-up questions.
April 15th, 2010 at 9:02 am
Their abnormal focus on the constitution originates with their belief that President Obama does not fulfill the constitutional requirements for presidency, i.e. he isn’t a native born citizen. If you truly believed that, then the current situation would drive you a bit nuts. On the other hand, you have to be a bit nuts to believe that.
April 15th, 2010 at 9:09 am
@mclaren:
I have no disagreements with your substantive points; I might quibble over some of your subjective wording (e.g., “progressively,” “gross,” “flagrant,” “should be,” “pronto,” etc.), but find no significant fault with any of your declarations.
However, two observations on the specific provisions mistermix posted here:
First, the requirement to “identify the specific provision of the Constitution that gives Congress the power” would not protect against violations of the Constitution. Pretty much every violation you listed could be shame-facedly authorized by Art. II powers, without having to list potential prohibitions against them by the Amendments. Rather, this requirement is probably there just to object to Commerce Clause legislation; I highly doubt that the Tea Party Contract for America people are very concerned about indefinite detention of suspected Islamic terrorists. Just a guess.
Secondly, it’s the precision of the exact “4,543 words of the original Constitution” requirement that is so ridiculous. It’s the fetishism that mistermix is poking fun at. I don’t think that this post is defending the prolixity of the tax code (who could?), but is snarking on the numerological significance.
April 15th, 2010 at 9:12 am
@mclaren:
Yes. It’d be nice to see the Tea Party people actually make them.
April 15th, 2010 at 9:13 am
Perhaps the Teabaggers should henceforth be dealt with the way the founders dealt with Shays’ Rebellion.
April 15th, 2010 at 9:14 am
@SGEW:
Plus they already do that as SOP, but the teatards are too stupid to realize it.
April 15th, 2010 at 9:17 am
@homerhk:
That’s a good point, although I suspect that the taxes of a lot of people will have to rise in the coming years. For most of us, not by much, but they will more than they are now.
But yes, you are right. The reason most people haven’t been paying more in taxes is that they aren’t making more money. Of course, I imagine most people would gladly make the trade off—higher taxes for a higher salary.
April 15th, 2010 at 9:17 am
@Brian J:
Actually, it consistently amazes how many people who need things like the Earned Income Tax Credit to get by bear the compliance cost of taking it. They have to pay a return preparer to get everything in line because it isn’t quite 1040EZ stuff. It’s kind of a lousy system and I wonder if, at the margins, there is an intention to scare some qualifying persons off from claiming the benefit from the complexity. But this is what the idiots’ consensus landed on as a palatable alternative to welfare. Bigger can of worms than needs to be gotten into in this discussion, though.
It’s kind of typical, though. Almost all the complexity comes from excluding items from income, claiming deductions from income, or claiming credits. Even the Alternative Minimum Tax exists as a way to prevent revenue leakage from upper income (and now upper-middle-income) individuals claiming too many tax benefits. If you aren’t putting more than your income, your exemptions, your standard deduction, and your credit for withholding on your return, then it’s pretty damned simple to do your return. People just want more tax reduction than that.
And why do morons talk about simplifying the rates? People look at the rate table, or even if they’re off, it’s nothing you can’t do in under a minute with the instructions, a pencil, and a simple calculator. Rate simplification is the most moronically simplistic clarion cry of morons. Or of ideologues like Grover Norquist who think the working poor and the Rockefellers should be taxed at the same rates.
April 15th, 2010 at 9:29 am
@sal:
“On the plus side we could get rid of the whole notion of corporate ‘natutal personhood’.”
Thanks for reminding us that the Tea Party movement doesn’t have a moinopoly on stupidity.
April 15th, 2010 at 9:29 am
Tax code in less than 4500 words…mmmmm….
All income (business, personal, capital gains & interest) shall be taxed at X% without exception.
I’ve got a few words left over.
April 15th, 2010 at 9:38 am
@freeulysses: Where in the ACA act is this section (or sections)? It’s a huge file and I don’t want to have to pore over it to counter the inevitable claptrap I’m likely to hear in the near future.
April 15th, 2010 at 9:39 am
@Meanderthal: LOL… please pick up a shiny new internet before you sign off.
April 15th, 2010 at 9:42 am
@Huggy Bear.
Check the first few pages. Usually it is there. If not the first few paragraphs.
April 15th, 2010 at 9:44 am
@homerhk:
that’s pretty much what this (rambling, disjointed) thing at Newsweek says about Beck:
April 15th, 2010 at 9:44 am
Your tag, “Teabagger Stupidity” is redundant
April 15th, 2010 at 9:50 am
Vellum? I thought it was hemp paper. Hippies lied to me!
Dirty Fucking Hippies!
April 15th, 2010 at 9:50 am
they love to quote the Constitution but always seem to forget this one…
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
also.too.I’m all for bringing back tar and feathers if the the Teabaggers ever figure out how much they have been a tool for Glen Beck. And Sarah Palin should be soundly ‘hoo’d’ every time she appears in public.
April 15th, 2010 at 9:51 am
Does this number include all the amendments? Because we could just come up with some super long amendments, which would bump this number up. Then we could write laws with all sorts of crazy words!
April 15th, 2010 at 9:54 am
It’s as if the teabaggers believe that back in the late 1700s there were no other laws or ordinances aside from the Constitution, and everything flowed from it. Jesus. There are Home Owners Association agreements that are longer than the constitution. Hell, my credit card contract is probably longer than the Constitution.
April 15th, 2010 at 9:59 am
@Wilson Heath:
You can actually ask the IRS to calculate the EITC for you by writing EIC on your return. I figured out mine by myself, but I suspect I have more time and patience with my tax return than most EITC takers (I’m currently underemployed, hence the credit).
That being said, I may resort to paid preparers next year, but that’s because I will be dealing with regular income, self-employed income, a hefty grad student loan from Uncle Sam, and expenses related to moving for said grad school. Oh, and the need to pay taxes to two different states. I think that’s a little more than I can handle on my own.
April 15th, 2010 at 10:02 am
Because these yahoos read the Bible literally (except for the parts that they don’t), they take that “expertise” to the Constitution (which is also revealed Scripture, just the secular revealed Scripture) and expect it to be read literally. What they refuse to understand is that case law is also constitutional law, so what the courts have decided over the past 220+ years is also the Constitution.
April 15th, 2010 at 10:15 am
@RSA:
Then these too are UNCONSTUSHULL.
April 15th, 2010 at 10:37 am
Root canal, dental implants and other suspect techniques will be banned and tooth problems will be solved by extraction and wooden teeth, the dentistry of Our Glorious Founders.
April 15th, 2010 at 10:38 am
@stuckinred: Hahahahahahahahahah /wipes tears from eyes.
April 15th, 2010 at 10:40 am
@BC: Case law isn’t the Constitution because nimnoes can’t carry it in their pockets, pull it out in front of opponents, and say “Where is that in the Constitution?”
Of course, they never read the Ninth Amendment either. But that’s just a nit, according to the panty sniffer and slave-fetishist contingents among us.
April 15th, 2010 at 10:40 am
i’m pretty sure Atlas Shrugged is longer than the Constitution.
April 15th, 2010 at 10:45 am
Why, perchance, are we heareing about thif from ye Internetf inftead of from ye towne cryer?
April 15th, 2010 at 10:48 am
@cleek: So’s the Bible. What the hell’s the matter with God, anyway? Begat this, begat that, sheesh, we got it already.
April 15th, 2010 at 10:50 am
Well, since the primary view of pregnancy in the Founders’ time involved the notion of post-conception “quickening,” I can’t wait for this crowd to embrace an unlimited right to early-term abortion, and to stop referring to post-quickening fetal death as anything more than, to quote Blackstone, “a very heinous misdemeanor.” I’ll be over here, holding my breath.
I have a better idea:
—Article I, Section 8
—16th Amendment
In other words, I think we’ll stick with having Congress draft and pass laws pertaining to taxation as the Constitution explicitly empowers them to do without any dumbfuck word limits, you seditious illiterate asswipes.
April 15th, 2010 at 10:51 am
@dr. bloor:
Indeed:
Link fail. Hell, just go to youtube and look up “1776”. Watched that movie a ton back in the 80’s, when William Daniels was playing the crusty surgeon on St. Elsewhere.
April 15th, 2010 at 11:01 am
@artem1s: Robert Bork actually argued that the ninth amendment meant absolutely nothing. So I’m pretty sure that’s the teabagger’s stance on it as well.
April 15th, 2010 at 11:04 am
Yeah, I could do my taxes in 3 minutes, including licking the envelope, if I kept it simple like that.
Of course, two of my three Schedule C’s would be pointless to file and I’d have to close those businesses because without tax breaks for renewable energy I couldn’t afford to give those people work, so overall tax revenues would drop…You know, it’s almost as if the tax code were a complex tool used by the government to influence free market actions. Someone ought to write a book about that and go on Fox News to explain it. Real slow.
April 15th, 2010 at 11:07 am
The NRA on strict construction really is insistent;
So here is my proposal, it is thoroughly consistent
With how things were in olden days : each soul may have a gun
So long as it’s the type they used in 1791.
April 15th, 2010 at 11:37 am
It wouldn’t be that hard to write a short tax code.
You just abandon the whole voluntary compliance, detailed rules based system & give the IRS total access & power.
April 15th, 2010 at 11:40 am
Require that the Second Amendment right to Keep and Bear Arms only applies to weapons available in the 18th Century at the time the Bill of Rights passed.
Muskets, single-shot muzzleloaders, duelling pistols, rifles, rifled muskets, blunderbusses, arquebuses, and the like.
No modern rifles, shotguns, revolvers, semi-automatics, automatics, assault weapons or anything else of the sort.
Just slow loading, slow firing, low powered weapons that use lead balls or shot.
Do you think they’ll like that strict interpretation?
Oh and, in order to ensure a well-ordered militia, all persons who own a rifle, handgun or arquebus have to join the National Guard or another branch of the military. Gotta make sure we have those home defense forces.
April 15th, 2010 at 12:01 pm
Pavlov. Dog. All that, all that.
April 15th, 2010 at 12:54 pm
I am curious, do these guys believe in Constitutional Amendments?
What is their stance on slavery, universal sufferage, etc?
April 15th, 2010 at 1:06 pm
The Second Amendment only grants citizens the right to own muzzle-loading flintlock muskets – the weapons of the Continental Army.
Bayonets may be used with a permit.
April 15th, 2010 at 1:53 pm
Hey, I’ve got one that absolutely no one else in the comment thread has come up with yet: “The Second Amendment applies only to Eighteenth Century firearms.”
April 15th, 2010 at 3:06 pm
@Jamie:
I suspect they already have.
Now I know why conservatives oppose lead abatement statutes: it shrinks their base.
April 15th, 2010 at 4:24 pm
My contribution is that the font of all bills ſhould follow the long s (ſ) rules that were in vogue when the founding fathers wrote the conſtitution. It’s easy. Long s in initial or medial poſitions, or before a hyphen. Short s at the end of words. Capital s rule stays the same as it is now. This poſt only has four long Ss, and it’s not hard at all to read. Good enough for George and Thomas, good enough for me!
April 16th, 2010 at 12:44 pm