Category Archives: Constitution

Constitution Day! I Got Yer Constitution Right Here

Posted on by
Reply

http://twitpic.com/i1m02

No, really. You can get a FREE pocket sized copy of the US Constitution to carry around just like Dennis Kucinich for only $3.00 shipping. Right Here.

Today is Constitution Day: The day in 1787, after being sequestered for four months, 55 delegates from 13 independent States emerged with a unifying document that would serve as a blueprint for Chairman Max Baucus’s Senate Finance Committee’s exhaustive effort to similarly work behind closed doors for months on end, eventually coming up with a pig of a health care bill no one on either side of the aisle will vote for.  (The Constitutional Convention delegates took an August recess just like our current Congress, but only for 10 days – slackers.)

You might find it interesting that our founding liberal, church-hating, civil rights guaranteeing, African-American loving, philandering third President – Thomas Jefferson – the man who headed the longest-lived freely elected political party, the Democratic-Republicans (now the Democratic Party) was in FRANCE during the signing ceremony.  John Adams, the original Massachusetts Liberal and brother of the original Teabagger, Sam, was away in the UK at the time.

More fun facts surrounding the signing of the Constitution include which State was misspelled and the name of the Clerk responsible for the typo (pen-o?) and how much he was paid to insult those God and Gun Clinging folks where they wrote the damn thing.

Money fact:

The national government spent $4.3 million during the first session of Congress from 1789-1791. During the last year that George Washington was President of the United States (1796-1797), the entire cost of running the federal government was $5,727,000. [Thus the tradition of growing government was born, Washington increased the cost of Federal Government by 33% in eight years. That would be like George W. Bush going from the $1.9 Trillion 2001 budget to $2.6 Trillion in 2008 - instead of the $2.9 Trillion budget he actually submitted. Oops.]

Scary fact:

The word “democracy” does not appear once in the Constitution.

The Bible on Marriage

Posted on by
Reply

This is not to suggest that what the Bible says (or doesn’t say) about cultural norms is how we decide issues like gay marriage — it isn’t. We live in a constitutionally limited republic and the Bible runs on a separate  parallel — track. The Constitution should never converge with it, let alone allow the Bible to take precedence in our system of governance. But I’ve always put a lot of stock in the idea that you should be able to think like the other person. If you can do that, almost anything is possible.

So…

Last night on The Daily Show, Jon Stewart and Mike Huckabee mixed it up in a remarkably civil discourse about marriage. They both made some fair points as in this exchange:

STEWART: Segregation used to be the law until the courts intervened.

HUCK: There’s a big difference between a person being black and a person practicing a lifestyle and engaging in a marital relationship.

STEWART: Okay, actually this is helpful because it gets to the crux of it. … And I’ll tell you this: Religion is far more of a choice than homosexuality. And the protections that we have for religion — we protect religion. And talk about a lifestyle choice — that is absolutely a choice. Gay people don’t choose to be gay. At what age did you choose to not be gay?

Here’s the video:


[Note: if you haven't already done so, check out Huckabee's TV show. I think this guy has a real future in politics.]

Also in the news this morning, is a related comment from Dkos reader gladkov about how our notions of marriage have changed over the centuries from what the Bible teaches:

A. Marriage in the United States shall consist of a union between one man and one or more women. (Gen 29:17-28; II Sam 3:2-5)

B. Marriage shall not impede a man’s right to take concubines in
addition to his wife or wives. (II Sam 5:13; I Kings 11:3; II Chron 11:21)

C. A marriage shall be considered valid only if the wife is a
virgin. If the wife is not a virgin, she shall be executed. (Deut 22:13-21)

D. Marriage of a believer and a non-believer shall be forbidden.
(Gen 24:3; Num 25:1-9; Ezra 9:12; Neh 10:30)

E. Since marriage is for life, neither this Constitution nor the constitution of any State, nor any state or federal law, shall be construed to permit divorce. (Deut 22:19; Mark 10:9)

F. If a married man dies without children, his brother shall marry the widow. If he refuses to marry his brother’s widow or deliberately does not give her children, he shall pay a fine of one shoe and be otherwise punished in a manner to be determined by law. (Gen 38:6-10; Deut 25:5-10)

G. In lieu of marriage, if there are no acceptable men in your town, it is required that you get your dad drunk and have sex with him (even if he had previously offered you up as a sex toy to men young and old), tag-teaming with any sisters you may have. Of course, this rule applies only if you are female. (Gen 19:31-36)

This week, Newsweek’s Lisa Miller also writes about the Biblical view of homosexuality:

If the bible doesn’t give abundant examples of traditional marriage, then what are the gay-marriage opponents really exercised about? Well, homosexuality, of course—specifically sex between men…The Bible does condemn gay male sex in a handful of passages. Twice Leviticus refers to sex between men as “an abomination” (King James version), but these are throwaway lines in a peculiar text given over to codes for living in the ancient Jewish world, a text that devotes verse after verse to treatments for leprosy, cleanliness rituals for menstruating women and the correct way to sacrifice a goat—or a lamb or a turtle dove. Most of us no longer heed Leviticus on haircuts or blood sacrifices; our modern understanding of the world has surpassed its prescriptions. Why would we regard its condemnation of homosexuality with more seriousness than we regard its advice, which is far lengthier, on the best price to pay for a slave?

Anyway, like I said, you have to be able to think like the other person before you can turn them around.

Gone to the Dogs

Posted on by
Reply

by shep

Fantastic! Minnesota Public Radio decides to cover the political protests in Minneapolis but in their long description of low protester turnout doesn’t see fit to mention that:

” Homes of college-aid protesters were raided by rifle-wielding police forces. Journalists were forcibly detained at gun point. Lawyers on the scene to represent the detainees were handcuffed. Computers, laptops, journals, diaries, and political pamphlets were seized from people’s homes. And all of this occurred against U.S. citizens, without a single act of violence having taken place, and nothing more serious than traffic blockage even alleged by authorities to have been planned.”

or:

”This is Eileen Clancy . . . The house where I-Witness Video is staying in St. Paul has been surrounded by police. We have locked all the doors. We have been told that if we leave we will be detained. One of our people who was caught outside is being detained in handcuffs in front of the house. The police say that they are waiting to get a search warrant. More than a dozen police are wielding firearms, including one St. Paul officer with a long gun, which someone told me is an M-16.

We are suffering a preemptive video arrest. For those that don’t know, I-Witness Video was remarkably successful in exposing police misconduct and outright perjury by police during the 2004 RNC. Out of 1800 arrests, at least 400 were overturned based solely on video evidence which contradicted sworn statements which were fabricated by police officers. It seems that the house arrest we are now under and the possible threat of the seizure of our computers and video cameras is a result of the 2004 success.

We are asking the public to contact the office of St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman at 651-266-8510 to stop this house arrest, this gross intimidation by police officers, and the detention of media activists and reporters.”

There was a day when a journalist (or at least his or her editor) knew the difference between dog-bites-man – a few violent protesters at a political convention – and man-bites-dog – government surveillance and harassment of political opponents, illegal searches and seizures of private homes, arresting reporters and defense attorneys without probable cause, etc. The fact that the establishment press has decided to forgo that simple analysis when observing government conduct is, perhaps, the biggest man-bites-dog story of early 21st Century America.

Thank goodness for our ever-vigilant police state and our “liberal media” . You must be so glad to not be one of those dirty effing hippies…

“In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;

And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;

And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;

And then . . . they came for me . . . And by that time there was no one left to speak up.”

[Cross-posted at Dispassionate Liberal]