{"id":2485,"date":"2010-08-07T02:17:35","date_gmt":"2010-08-07T09:17:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=2485"},"modified":"2010-08-07T02:24:40","modified_gmt":"2010-08-07T09:24:40","slug":"do-republicans-hate-the-constitution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2010\/08\/07\/do-republicans-hate-the-constitution\/","title":{"rendered":"Do Republicans Hate the Constitution?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In our recent Constitution series we covered many of the differences between the Constitution, which Republicans claim to honor, even waving little paper copies to prove how patriotic they are, and actual Republican policies.\u00a0 I have to wonder if they actually hate the Constitution, if they have even read it.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\"6burning-constitution\"<\/a> Think Progress’s Ian Millhiser details the <\/span>astounding number of issues<\/a> the Republican party has with the constitution, and the various<\/span><\/p>\n

REPEALING CITIZENSHIP:<\/span> Numerous GOP lawmakers, including their Senate leader and the most-recent Republican candidate for president, are lining up behind a \u201creview\u201d of the 14th Amendment\u2019s grant of citizenship to virtually all persons born within the United States….<\/p>\n

REPEALING CONGRESS\u2019 POWER TO REGULATE THE ECONOMY:<\/span> The Constitution\u2019s \u201cCommerce Clause\u201d gives national leaders broad authority to regulate the national economy, but much of the GOP has embraced \u201ctentherism,\u201d the belief that this power is small enough to be drowned in a bathtub….<\/p>\n

REPEALING CONGRESS\u2019 POWER TO SPEND MONEY:<\/span> The Constitution also gives Congress power to \u201cprovide for the common defense and general welfare,\u201d a broad grant of authority to create federal spending programs such as Social Security. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), however, recently called upon the Supreme Court to rewrite the Constitution\u2019s clear language and repeal parts of the budget he doesn\u2019t like….<\/p>\n

REPEALING CONGRESS\u2019 POWER TO RAISE MONEY:<\/span> The Constitution also gives Congress broad authority to decide how to distribute the tax burden. Thus, for example, Congress is allowed to create a tax incentive for people to buy houses by giving a tax break to people with mortgages, and it is allowed to create a similar incentive for people to buy health insurance by taxing people who have health insurance slightly less than people who do not. Nevertheless, the frivolous assaults on health reform would eliminate this Constitutional power….<\/p>\n

REPEALING EQUALITY:<\/span> The Constitution entitles all persons to \u201cequal protection of the laws,\u201d a provision that formed the basis of Judge Vaughn Walker\u2019s decision yesterday that California cannot treat gay couples as if they are somehow inferior. Immediately after this decision was announced, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) called upon Congress to \u201cact immediately\u201d to overturn it \u2014 something that it could only do through a constitutional amendment….<\/p>\n

REPEALING FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS:<\/span> As Judge Walker also held, marriage is a fundamental right protected by the Constitution\u2019s Due Process Clause. The GOP\u2019s anti-gay amendment would repeal this constitutional protection as well.<\/p>\n

REPEALING ELECTION OF SENATORS:<\/span> Finally, a number of GOP candidates have come out in favor of repealing the 17th Amendment, the provision of the Constitution which requires direct election of senators, although many of these candidates also backed off their \u201cSeventeenther\u201d stand after it proved embarrassing. It is simply baffling how anyone could take one look at the U.S. Senate, and decide that what it really needs is even less democracy.<\/p>\n

There’s one amendment to the constitution that they worship, however\u2026 [emphasis original<\/em>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <Daily Kos<\/a>><\/p>\n

Do you care to guess which amendment that is?\u00a0 The second, of course.\u00a0 Dangerous as it is to keeping our Republic, the Second Amendment is the Republican solution for everything.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In our recent Constitution series we covered many of the differences between the Constitution, which Republicans claim to honor, even waving little paper copies to prove how patriotic they are, and actual Republican policies.\u00a0 I have to wonder if they actually hate the Constitution, if they have even read it. Think Progress’s Ian Millhiser details […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2485\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}