Posted on 07/26/2014 7:34:52 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
We rely on the Supreme Court to defend the Constitution from the endless assaults on it that chip away our liberty. Too bad Supreme Court Justices don’t have a higher opinion of the document. Ruth Bader Ginsberg has denounced it, recommending instead the socialist constitution of South Africa. The odious Stephen Breyer appears to attack it at every opportunity (e.g., here, here, and here). Now we hear this from swing vote Anthony Kennedy:
Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, speaking at the annual conference of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Monterey, waxed eloquent on the deficiencies of the Constitution and implied that those who believe in the original intent of the Constitution by swearing fealty to the original, literal meaning are misguided.
Most of Kennedy’s nearly hour-long speech focused on the Magna Carta, originally signed in 1215 and due for its 800th anniversary next year. But he couldn’t resist taking a swipe at the Constitution, noting, “The Constitution of the United States is a flawed document,” its “thinly veiled language… basically reaffirmed the legality of slavery.” Kennedy was referencing the section of the Constitution in which each slave was defined as three-fifths of a person in the estimation of how many congressional delegates each state was allotted. He added that the soldiers who died in the Civil War were “one of the things it cost for having a Constitution that was flawed.”
At the time the Constitution was written, the economy of the southern states was totally reliant on slave labor. A constitution forbidding slavery would never have held the nation together, because no southern state would have agreed to it.
As liberals tend to forget, slavery was a nearly ubiquitous feature of civilization throughout the world until it was largely ended by Anglo-Saxons in the 19th century, the British navy playing a major role.
Presenting a constitution forbidding slavery in 18th century America would have been a waste of everyone’s time.
That doesn’t mean the Constitution is flawed. It means that it sometimes needs to be amended to keep pace with changing times — as it has been. This is a relatively superficial process, very different from proclaiming the whole thing to be flawed and rejecting it in favor of a “living constitution” that says whatever the prevailing majority wants it to say at any given moment.
Unsurprisingly, the main person the Supremes need to defend the Constitution against also regards it as “deeply flawed.”
Don’t count on Kennedy to stop him.
Whoops, Reagan.
He’s a Monday Morning Constitutional Quarterback who has over 238 years of evidence before him and he calls the wrong plays despite all that. There are too many constitutional law scholars who don’t get the Constitution.
If he feels the document to which he swore allegiance is flawed then he should resign immediately.
While most farmers in the south did not own slaves, the statement "the economy of the southern states was... reliant on slave labor" is a statement of fact.
Most of the farms in the south wwere engaged in something approaching subsistence agriculture, their surplus production constituting only a small proportion of the entire market for a given commodity.
It was the larger estates and plantations -- who were reliant upon slaves -- who produced the bulk of the trade goods and export commodities. Ergo, they were the linchpins of the "economy".
He’s a big fan of queer marriage, though our Founders believed homosex to be a vice. That’s why Kennedy hates the Constitution and wants to remold America in his own image.
It’s getting scary out there
Do you mean ‘Only term limits will save this country’ or ?
Clearly it does deserve these scumbags.
Given that impeachment is the way to indict a sitting President, conviction in the Senate was the removal with the expectation that the jurors were the representatives of the States.
Remember that the President was supposed to preside over inter-state issues, the common defense, and foreign affairs on behalf of all the states. The parties to the federal government were the states, the federal government to which the states delegated limited powers, and the People who ordained and established the Constitution. Day-to-day governing was to be left to the states.
Prior to the 17th amendment, Senators were beholden to their state legislatures that sent them to Congress. If a state wanted a President removed, it was likely that the Senator would vote for the state's interest.
After the 17th amendment, the Senate became party-based, not state-based. Today, the Senate votes along strict party lines, and a Senator will not vote to remove a President of their own party no matter what their home state wants.
-PJ
The founders set up, in article 5 of the Constitution, a means to ‘fix mistakes’, and make necessary changes. Slavery was a flaw in the hearts and minds of those who supported it and practiced it, but the founders left us with a document that provided for righting those wrongs.
Kennedy would evidently have preferred that TWO nations be established. The Northern United States without slavery and the Southern United States with slavery.
Just how that would have advanced the cause of liberating the slaves is not obvious to me.
One test of the validity of a liberal argument attacking some detail of life is to examine just how liberals would respond to the alternatives.
If the Constitution had granted representation based on a full count of slaves, rather than three-fifths, the liberals would still attack the Founders for having allowed representation for people who had no civil rights.
Had the Founders granted NO representation for slaves, they would be attacked for failing to recognize the humanity of the slaves; ignoring for the moment that the southern states would not have ratified the Constitution.
Evidently the right solution was to start the Civil War to eliminate slavery immediately after cessation of hostilities with Great Britain, thus almost insuring loss of the nation's independence due to renewed hostilities with Great Britain in the War of 1812.
As with many objections raised by liberals, there is simply no way to satisfy them.
Flawed as compared to what? Maoism?
Nitwits always think they are smarter.
“It is incredible the number of justices Republicans have gotten wrong. The Dems never miss on their SCOTUS nominees. Ever.”
When both parties rely exclusively on lawyers educated in elite Ivy League law schools, primarily Harvard and Yale, for the Supreme Court, why wouldn’t we expect them to have the same view of the Constitution and the law? Kennedy received his undergraduate degree in political science from the elite private Stanford University and his law degree from Harvard.
Of the current Supreme Court, five went to Harvard for their law degree and three went to Yale. Ginsberg started her law degree at Harvard but transferred to Columbia (another Ivy League School) to finish her legal education because her husband took a job in New York.
Given where they are all educated it is surprising anyone on the Court has any respect for the Constitution or the founders.
But the US Constitution is by far superior to any of the garbage which the rest of the world has produced.
Compared to the US Constitution, all other charters of government are slimy, oozing, shapeless masses of putrid excrement.
So, yeah, Kennedy, you're technically correct, in the same way that Noam Chomsky was technically correct when he said "It's clear that the Constitution doesn't grant the right to own guns."
Chomsky was right on the totally trivial basis that the Constitution doesn't grant such Unalienable rights, but rather merely recognizes such rights. Obviously that wasn't the propaganda he was actually trying to spread.
In other words, the degree to which Kennedy is correct has absolutely no relevance to any serious discussion of the Constitution; his assertion merely betrays a transparent and clumsy attempt to smear what was and is a sacred and near-perfect charter of government.
It's just sheer, petty jealousy on Kennedy's part. Slavery is wrong? Brilliant, Justice Kennedy! The nation is so fortunate to have you around to illustrate such profound and subtle philosophical truths. What ever would we do without your boundless, breathtakingly perceptive analysis?
I'd love to see what "improvements" slimeball Kennedy would make to this "flawed" original document. Now that would be fodder for some hilarious comedy!
Mr. Kennedy, and the other justices, are WELCOME to change the Constitution if they desire. In fact, so is any American.
The nice thing about the Constitution is that there is a way to change it, if something isn’t right. So, go ahead Mr. Kennedy, get to work on it - you have a LOT of lobbying to do.
(p.s., the idea of writing “Kennedy” and “Constitution” in the same sentence makes me nauseous)
Yeah save
Yes it’s late for me to I’m 72 (a rhyme) yeah save.
Still nonsense. And, you conveniently left out the word totally. Here is the sentence I commented about:
At the time the Constitution was written, the economy of the southern states was totally reliant on slave labor.
The word totally makes the writer's contention a ridiculous statement. And this was in relation to the ratification of the US Constitution. Cotton was not yet king in the 1790s; tobacco was probably king. The cotton gin was invented in 1793 and cotton became king in the decades after that.
The statement was out of context and mostly hyperbole.
And if twenty smaller farms produce a thousand bales of cotton and one plantation produces a thousand bales, which produced what was needed domestically and who produced a surplus? Cotton was and is a commodity and all producers small and large contributed to whatever surplus was produced.
Not that I agree, nor disagree, but I think you mean to say:
"Only term limits will save this country" or
"Term limits only will save this country"
?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.