The Economist’s Lexington makes a provocative case that the Tea Baggers obsession with the Constitution and its framers has become unhealthy:
Accept for argument’s sake that those who argue this way have identified the right problem. The constitution, on its own, does not provide the solution. Indeed, there is something infantile in the belief of the constitution-worshippers that the complex political arguments of today can be settled by simple fidelity to a document written in the 18th century. Michael Klarman of the Harvard Law School has a label for this urge to seek revealed truth in the sacred texts. He calls it “constitutional idolatry”.
The constitution is a thing of wonder, all the more miraculous for having been written when the rest of the world’s peoples were still under the boot of kings and emperors (with the magnificent exception of Britain’s constitutional monarchy, of course). But many of the tea-partiers have invented a strangely ahistorical version of it. For example, they say that the framers’ aim was to check the central government and protect the rights of the states. In fact the constitution of 1787 set out to do the opposite: to bolster the centre and weaken the power the states had briefly enjoyed under the new republic’s Articles of Confederation of 1777.
Americans don’t realize quite how old the Constitution is by world standards. (An advantage of never being invaded or having your government overthrown.) It’s by far the world’s oldest and the only one from the 18th century that’s still in use.
Unfortunately, for the Teabag nation-the founding fathers have to be judged on who they really were-not the myths that have been created about them. And they have to look at the whole Constitution, as amended, a point I have made before. I find it instructive that tea baggers love the Constitution and pronounce that it should be strictly adhered to, except when it comes to issues they disagree with, issues like the 14th Amendment, which suddenly is flawed and out of date.
Your last paragraph leaves alot up in the air. I am not sure how the Tea Partiers view the 14th Amendment differently than other people do.
The Economist displayed a sad lack of insight when he said –
For example, they say that the framers’ aim was to check the central government and protect the rights of the states. In fact the constitution of 1787 set out to do the opposite: to bolster the centre and weaken the power the states had briefly enjoyed under the new republic’s Articles of Confederation of 1777.
I guess they do not teach about Checks and Balances wherever he is from. One purpose of the Constitution is to avoid giving too much power to anyone – balance among the branches of Federal Government, and balance between Federal, State, and local. If too much power is held by one office, then you could end up with real problems.
In essence, all taxation is the government taking money from one group and giving to a more favored group. Both parties have been spending our kid’s money a little too vigorously for the Tea Parties to keep ignoring.
Um,you might remember the war of 1812? Washington burned? I guess by your standards, that doesn’t count. A dickhead like you can always pick and choose the “history” you like to remember. Are you an USNA grad? I don’t remember. If you were, shame on the history dept. If not, shame on whatever “schools” you attended.At any rate, I’m glad I never served with you.
Lexington’s sentiments about the Tea Party may be spot on, but his arguments are weak sauce.
This NYT column by Ron Chernow (who recently did a bio about Alexander Hamilton) adds more detail about why the Tea Party’s claim to the Founding Fathers is out to lunch:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/24/opinion/24chernow.html
Glenn,
Interesting your take on how one opinion defines a whole career. I served with plenty of narrow minded and politically ignorant people-but they were still decent people. You just learned not to talk politics with them because it required you to use small words and more effort than available to explain basic concepts that should have been self evident. That is why beer and sports were invented to give you something else to talk about.
As to your main point-yes I did remember the war of 1812-but I would submit that was more of an incursion than an invasion. The British did not intend to remove the USA-but to drive home a point. ( Plus we kind of allowed ourselves to be backed into the war in the first place). The United States though, has NEVER, been in danger of being occupied or overrun and its government replaced-save for the Civil War and even then it was never the intention of the Confederacy to do that.
FSKD,
Two points: 1) Taxation is not taking money-it is levying a duty upon all citizens, according to ability to pay, for the purposes of providing a society that works and protects its citizens from the worst excesses of the world they live in.
And 2) When people come out advocating non citizenship to people born in this country-then they are not supporting the 14th amendment-period.
As for your final statement-I might be more sympathetic to the claim about spending the “children’s” money too much, if they actually had been concerned before 20 January 2009. But they did not even exist before then-while George W. Bush was charging two wars, and Medicare part D and allowing rich people to get richer while the rest of us lost ground in terms of overall earnings. George Bush doubled the national debt in eight years-but there were no marches on the Lincoln Memorial then. Simply put the Tea partiers are not serious about debt reduction. If they were-they would be screaming for a VAT and a expiration to the Bush tax cuts. You can’t start surgery till you stop the bleeding-and in the short term that means restoring revenue.
Skip,
I guess we were reading different blogs back when GWB was driving fiscally sound people into apoplexy with some of his goofier actions.
Until the recent catastrophe, federal revenues were always climbing. My main gripe has been and will probably remain the amazing growth of spending. Bush stomped hard on his crank in many arenas, especially with Medicare part D. But under the current occupant, spending has been growing exponentially, not just linearly (is that even a word?). And we all know that once government spending is in place, it NEVER goes away.
The reason that people are not screaming for a VAT is the same reason they oppose any new taxes. The Feds won’t reduce the deficit, they will just grow the hydra bigger and spend more money.
An interesting debate in the US would be a proposed addition to the 14th Amendment that says “No US citizen can be born to a non-US citizen in the US illegally.”
Of course that issue would immediately fade to nothing if the government actually began to protect the border.
All in all, when I drive by the Tea Party types, I see that Fred and Mildred finally upset enough about spending (not taxation) to take to the streets. The more powerful the government is, the less free the people are. We have both spent our fair share of time in countries where freedom is not a high priority. I would always rather err on the side of too much freedom than not enough.
Skippy,
I think there’s a problem with this:
I agree with your distinction between taking and levying. One’s lawful, and one’s not (leaving the question of right and wrong to loom like a dark cloud in the background).
The debate to me seems to be one of purposes. The people empower the federal government in the preamble of the constitution to do the following things:
1) perfect the union
2) establish justice
3) ensure domestic tranquility
4) provide for the common defense
5) promote the general welfare, and
6) secure the blessings of liberty
It is the scope of #5 which is the source of the problems. The debate that’s raging is about the definition of the “American Dream” and how the constitution acts as a facilitator. To sum it up in a question, does the constitution merely guarantee an equality of treatment under the law, does it leave open the door for government to guarantee certain outcomes, or does it guarantee something inbetween?
Yankee Sage,
Provide for the common welfare is one that we don’t get right-period end of statement. And as FSD pointed out there are places in the world that do. What is particularly disturbing to me-is the use of the Constitution as a shield for Mildred and Fred to do nothing while their fellow citizens suffer-under the premise that they somehow “deserve it” or brought it on all themselves. For the most part-in today’s economy its not true.
There are things that government is uniquely suited to do-because it alone has the ability to provide requisite resources. Public transportation is one, access for ALL to health care is another. Preventing the continual funneling of wealth to fewer and fewer people is a third. It is not about guaranteeing outcomes as ensuring that there is equal access to try for those outcomes and a minimum standard of living for all it’s citizens. As I said before, I don’t think free markets are sustainable without a broad and sturdy welfare state to support them.
Which brings me to FSD’s point about the Tea Party. They are not serious about deficit reduction whatsoever. Sure, they make the right noises about those things, but they lack anything that be described as specificity. Worse, they exclude such wide swaths of the budget untouched – Social Security, Medicare and defense – that there’s little left to cut or reform. Furthermore-there were not that many deficit hawks around during the Bush administration-and those that were did not walk around wearing stupid costumes and stupid hats and signs. That they do shows two things-that this is more personal, a subjective hatred of the current occupant of the white house, and second, that their outrage has been manufactured by some really bad folks who care not a whit about Mildred and Fred-but want to use them for their own purposes.
Even their so called “facts” are mostly wrong. Spending has gone up “astronomically”? Not really. The budget in 2008 was 2.9 Trillion, the 2009 budget was 3.1 trillion. 2010 is 3.5. Of course the thing everyone forgets is that the economy was on the brink of disaster when Obama took office. TARP and the stimulus-while not perfect-at least set the economy on more of an even keel. And while there are things that could be argued about-the Tea Party goons don’t want to engage in even the most modest of discussions about that. They are too busy attacking their own party and everyone else. Taxed Enough Already? Hardly, the US has a very low tax rate when compared to other countries.
52% of the budget is on auto-pilot. Barack Obama did not create that-and neither did George Bush. But he did knowingly create the wars-which accelerated the spending and provided no good return on our investment.
I have a hard time taking seriously the fiscal discipline of anyone who would extend the Bush tax cuts – which will add $3.7 trillion to the debt over ten years – without proposing $3.7 trillion in cuts. Of course, no one is advocating that because there aren’t $3.7 trillion in politically acceptable cuts to be found.
So no one in America is serious about fiscal discipline. Not Obama, not the Republicans, and certainly not the Tea Party.
No, the Tea Party is pretty serious. They’ll saw off the spending in a heart beat if they were in charge.
As an exercise at the War College we sawed off the DoD budget to reach acceptable levels and none of us had any troubles sawing off the $ on what we regarded as useless profligate spending. Tea Party would do the same thing to the overall budget. Obama will veto it but it could be done in an instant.
Look at it….
Foreign aid zeroed.
All State Department assistance zeroed.
DoD budget cut in half
Welfare zeroed
Medicaire zeroed
Medicaid zeroed
All scientific research zeroed
Zero money to universities
see, we’re on our way to a balanced budget
We are also on our way to becoming a third world nation-and if you think you are going to cut medicare-well then guys like me and a whole lot of others will take to the steets with our guns.
And if you think the military industrial complex-or the Petreaus worshippers are going to make major cuts in defense, you are kidding yourself. In fact the douchebaggers have exempted defense from cuts. And Medicare. That is why those people are such scum.
There is a way to balance the budget though. Adjust revenue flows-and raise taxes the way they should be. Especially on those bastards earning over 250K
You’ll side with Gates then and say that defense spending must be cut. But what is the overwhelming share of the defense budget? And my parent who spent 27 years there is turned 65 what exactly is his medical plan????? yeah, medicare. It’s not much longer till the majority of the fed budget is spent on paying interest on the debt.
Odd how an entitled person charges into the street with guns when the largesse dries up. We could have us a revolution!
You’ve been hanging out at Tea Party Rallies in your spare time, haven’t you?
Ever watch the movie, ‘My Fair Lady’ where Eliza Dolittle’s dad explains to Rex Harrison that he is the more deserving poor and therefore needs that money of yours? I can still laugh.
I am sick of stupid people is all. One teabagger, one bullet.
Wow,
I can see again why Lex punted you. You just openly say that like Mao, Che, Hitler, Stalin or Pol Pot that you believe that you should use a bullet on anybody at all who disagrees with you.
What a complete scumbag!
Oh give me a break-I never said I would do it. I just getso frustrated at the willing self delusion that Lex AND the Tea Parties accept as gospel. Something-SOMETHING, has to put enough fear into them to break their narrow minded shell and make them understand the facts as they REALLY are-not the mirage that Lex and others think they are. I don’t know what it is going to take-but it cannot go on any longer where the rest of the country is held hostage by the whining of a group of overweight, spoiled, selfish children.
Lex did not punt me- I left because I have no more patience with his holier than thou attitude. He claims his place is a place of reasoned discussion. Its not true. Any one who disagrees with the prevailing logic is set upon by the herd. It is wrong- and if I applied that logic over here-you would have been sent to the outer darkness a long time ago.
I haven’t yet-but don’t push your luck. 😉
Ah but Skippy-san, I was the one over a year ago who decided that he was the dark cloud in your horizon and suggested a good strong punt and you declined. 🙂