On “strict” constitutionalism and “patriots”

Leave a reply

One more thing…

Some people have high reverence for the Constitution and cast themselves as merely interpreting it strictly on the basis of the text only and/or what the original intent of the writers was.

It occurs to me that those are the same folks who really would like to rewind the clock back to a simpler time when only white men had the vote, and the elected representatives only had to answer to those voters.

Also, to a time when we stood alone as a country and didn’t have to deal with other countries or cultures (except to the extent of sinking pirates off the Barbary Coast).

The Cult of the Constitution / Students should not expect to be shot at

Leave a reply

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/ywc/episodes/2018-04-12T12_12_10-07_00

Was thinking about this podcast today in the context of today’s school shooting, and remembered that I intended to recommend it.  At some point, we decided the “ability” to take on the military with civilian small arms was more important than the lives of the tens of thousands people killed with small arms (mostly handguns) every year and this was somehow what the Founding Fathers intended when they wrote The Holy Constitution.  Pretty sure that comes down to a Scalia-led decision in the 1980s that the 2nd Amendment specified an individual right to own firearms, as opposed to the right of a militia (whatever that would be in today’s terms, but not those rabid anti-government extremists that call themselves “Patriots”).

https://twitter.com/SethGoodtime/status/997486373853679616

«“Reporter: Was there any part of you that that thought this can’t be happening in your school?

Student: No, it’s happening everywhere. Figured it was a matter of time before it happened here too.”

Students shouldn’t expect to be shot at. 😡

Santa Fe High School»

Binghamton University historian Anne Bailey explores largest slave auction in U.S. history | Binghamton News

Leave a reply

https://www.binghamton.edu/news/story/1075/names-in-a-ledger

«Bailey believes that “linked fates” is a theme that extends from the book to the present day.

“What happens to one part of the American public happens to the other,” she says. “We can’t afford to see ourselves as ‘us vs. them,’ which is the way it was seen in slavery.

“What was done to the Butler slaves was the dislocation and dismantling of families. The same dislocation and dismantling happened to the Butlers as a couple and a family. … What happens to one part of the human family is happening to another part, even if they don’t think it is and even if it doesn’t happen right away.”»

Trump, Immigration, and the GOP’s Midterms Strategy – The Atlantic

Leave a reply

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/05/the-gop-is-betting-its-majority-on-older-white-voters/560537/

«

The Republican bet is that the party can mobilize elevated turnout among their older and blue-collar white base without provoking the young and racially diverse voters who personify the emerging next America to show up on Election Day to defend it. Few things are likely to shape November’s outcome more than whether that bet pays off.

Right now, Republicans have reason for optimism. Historically, turnout among young voters—by far the electorate’s most racially diverse generation—has plummeted in midterm elections compared with the presidential contests that have immediately preceded them. Turnout from presidential to midterm elections has also fallen more modestly among African Americans, and has slipped substantially among Hispanics as well.

Recent polling offers ominous signs for Democrats that this pattern of demobilization could persist in 2018—particularly among young people…. Stanley Greenberg, the veteran Democratic pollster, told me there’s a “very real risk” that Millennial turnout could lag again in 2018.

»