Paul BoudreauWhat's the deal with the Right and the Constitution?
January 6th 2011 16:56
:
An Excercise in Futility... and Ignorance
G'day Ladies and Gents. Hope Thursday morning is treating you better than me (Head colds are awful things).
Later today, on the floor of the House of Representatives, there will occur a much reported reading of a sacred, long, vague and misunderstood document which, throughout its history has been the cause of war, supported intolerance, while also fomenting and supporting the kind of ideals and beliefs which most people in a Western society hold dear. No, not the Bible. I am, of course, talking about the Michele Bachmann, leader of the GOP's Tea Party Caucus and Congresswoman from Minnesota, inspired reading of the Constitution of the United States of America, along with all of it's many amendments, aloud for the third time in the history of the House. This landmark event, and the new house rule requiring that all new bills have an attached statement detailing the specific constitutional authority which allows Congress to make law in the area area addressed by the bill, are major sops to the Tea Party and the constitutionally basic philosophy they represent. The whole idea here springs from some grave misconceptions about the purpose and content of the constitution.
Let's start with basic political science 101. A constitution is a document which delineates the boundaries of the relationship between the state and the individual. It lays out the rights and freedoms enjoyed by all citizens, the protections of these rights, the powers and duties of various branches of government, and serves as a framework that is the basis of a nation's laws. After recognizing the rights of citizens to be free from tyranny and harm, it then sets out the limits of those rights, which hare traded to some extent with the state in order for the state to have the ability to provide the security and other services necessary to protect the majority of the rights of the citizenry. It is this balance or series of trade-offs that protects society from the perils of anarchy and insecurity, provides stability, and forms the foundation of civil society.
It is also here that the problems begin to arise. Any constitution, including that of the United States, makes amply clear that the citizen is responsible to his/her fellow citizens as a member of society enjoying its benefits, and the first responsibility is that, in order to respect the rights of others, absolute freedom must be curtailed to a limited extent to prevent anarchy and the abuse of the weak and vulnerable by the strong. This is one of the fundamental points in a democracy. In the view of the libertarian types who populate the Tea Party, however, this is an inconvenient truth. Subscribing to the idea that personal freedoms prevail over all other concerns, they refuse to acknowledge the many clauses (most specifically Article I § 8 cl. 18) which gives Congress the power (and the duty) to legislate and create laws for the good of the nation. Contrary to the claims of numerous constitutional originalists, this clause (the Necessary and Proper Clause) does not impose a strict limitation on the role of Congress. It merely illustrates the immediate duties of the first post revolutionary congresses. The narrow scope of the specific duties laid out here has been expanded constantly over time by the application of the belief that, through it's duty to fund, support and legislate the national government, and the duty of the government to adapt and take on further responsibilities over time, the Congress is required to constantly expand and reprise its role within society.
As I noted in a previous post, a fundamental element of the psyche of the Tea Party (and the traditional libertarian viewpoint) is an individual-first view of the way the world should be run. With that in mind they are inclined towards rejecting any ceding of their personal control over their own lives to government, whether it be to regulation, security or criminal law, or taxation. That being the case, it is natural that they focus their attention on the constitution's aforementioned affirmation of individual liberties while ignoring the requisite trade-offs necessary to have a functioning civil society.
So where does that leave us? Well the answer, my friends, is likely going nowhere fast. Though other writers have expressed the view that by reading the constitution in Congress, requiring more focus on it while legislating, and attending seminars on the subject taught by such progressive legal minds as Antonin Scalia (please check out that last link. Justice Scalia's views on minority rights are a great exemplar of how regressive constitutional originality can make you) may either educate the right on the true nature of the Constitution or at least expose their ignorance to the rest of the nation, I take a somewhat dimmer view. The Constitution is a complex, difficult to read, and even more difficult to apply document (the main reason why interpreting it and applying its standards to legislation are the duty of full time professional judges, not legislators trying to make political points.) and, much like the bible, easily open to fundamentalist misinterpretation. And one of the many things we've learned about the Tea Party over the last year and a bit is that they are averse to changing their mind, and they tend to dismiss anything that does not work with their (rather narrow) viewpoint (see Birthers, the ). So I would anticipate a brand new round of kicking and fussing about the same old freedoms and wrongs, with a whole new self righteous air to them, coming from the Right. More of the same, with a new theme, and maybe a little more intellectual tone. Oh, and a whole lot of late eighteenth century prose. Entertaining and educational, if nothing else.
Have a Good One,
PSRB
*My apologies to constitutional scholars for my rather simplistic laymen's interpretation of the complex legal issues mentioned above. I don't claim to be an expert or even overly knowledgeable about the Constitution myself. The point of this article was not to serve as a primer on the document or the framers or anything else, it was as a commentary on those who are attempting to act in its name. Sorry to anyone who gets an F in Poli-sci by using any of my phrasing. Get better sources.
Later today, on the floor of the House of Representatives, there will occur a much reported reading of a sacred, long, vague and misunderstood document which, throughout its history has been the cause of war, supported intolerance, while also fomenting and supporting the kind of ideals and beliefs which most people in a Western society hold dear. No, not the Bible. I am, of course, talking about the Michele Bachmann, leader of the GOP's Tea Party Caucus and Congresswoman from Minnesota, inspired reading of the Constitution of the United States of America, along with all of it's many amendments, aloud for the third time in the history of the House. This landmark event, and the new house rule requiring that all new bills have an attached statement detailing the specific constitutional authority which allows Congress to make law in the area area addressed by the bill, are major sops to the Tea Party and the constitutionally basic philosophy they represent. The whole idea here springs from some grave misconceptions about the purpose and content of the constitution.
Let's start with basic political science 101. A constitution is a document which delineates the boundaries of the relationship between the state and the individual. It lays out the rights and freedoms enjoyed by all citizens, the protections of these rights, the powers and duties of various branches of government, and serves as a framework that is the basis of a nation's laws. After recognizing the rights of citizens to be free from tyranny and harm, it then sets out the limits of those rights, which hare traded to some extent with the state in order for the state to have the ability to provide the security and other services necessary to protect the majority of the rights of the citizenry. It is this balance or series of trade-offs that protects society from the perils of anarchy and insecurity, provides stability, and forms the foundation of civil society.
It is also here that the problems begin to arise. Any constitution, including that of the United States, makes amply clear that the citizen is responsible to his/her fellow citizens as a member of society enjoying its benefits, and the first responsibility is that, in order to respect the rights of others, absolute freedom must be curtailed to a limited extent to prevent anarchy and the abuse of the weak and vulnerable by the strong. This is one of the fundamental points in a democracy. In the view of the libertarian types who populate the Tea Party, however, this is an inconvenient truth. Subscribing to the idea that personal freedoms prevail over all other concerns, they refuse to acknowledge the many clauses (most specifically Article I § 8 cl. 18) which gives Congress the power (and the duty) to legislate and create laws for the good of the nation. Contrary to the claims of numerous constitutional originalists, this clause (the Necessary and Proper Clause) does not impose a strict limitation on the role of Congress. It merely illustrates the immediate duties of the first post revolutionary congresses. The narrow scope of the specific duties laid out here has been expanded constantly over time by the application of the belief that, through it's duty to fund, support and legislate the national government, and the duty of the government to adapt and take on further responsibilities over time, the Congress is required to constantly expand and reprise its role within society.
As I noted in a previous post, a fundamental element of the psyche of the Tea Party (and the traditional libertarian viewpoint) is an individual-first view of the way the world should be run. With that in mind they are inclined towards rejecting any ceding of their personal control over their own lives to government, whether it be to regulation, security or criminal law, or taxation. That being the case, it is natural that they focus their attention on the constitution's aforementioned affirmation of individual liberties while ignoring the requisite trade-offs necessary to have a functioning civil society.
So where does that leave us? Well the answer, my friends, is likely going nowhere fast. Though other writers have expressed the view that by reading the constitution in Congress, requiring more focus on it while legislating, and attending seminars on the subject taught by such progressive legal minds as Antonin Scalia (please check out that last link. Justice Scalia's views on minority rights are a great exemplar of how regressive constitutional originality can make you) may either educate the right on the true nature of the Constitution or at least expose their ignorance to the rest of the nation, I take a somewhat dimmer view. The Constitution is a complex, difficult to read, and even more difficult to apply document (the main reason why interpreting it and applying its standards to legislation are the duty of full time professional judges, not legislators trying to make political points.) and, much like the bible, easily open to fundamentalist misinterpretation. And one of the many things we've learned about the Tea Party over the last year and a bit is that they are averse to changing their mind, and they tend to dismiss anything that does not work with their (rather narrow) viewpoint (see Birthers, the ). So I would anticipate a brand new round of kicking and fussing about the same old freedoms and wrongs, with a whole new self righteous air to them, coming from the Right. More of the same, with a new theme, and maybe a little more intellectual tone. Oh, and a whole lot of late eighteenth century prose. Entertaining and educational, if nothing else.
Have a Good One,
PSRB
*My apologies to constitutional scholars for my rather simplistic laymen's interpretation of the complex legal issues mentioned above. I don't claim to be an expert or even overly knowledgeable about the Constitution myself. The point of this article was not to serve as a primer on the document or the framers or anything else, it was as a commentary on those who are attempting to act in its name. Sorry to anyone who gets an F in Poli-sci by using any of my phrasing. Get better sources.
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