Posted on 02/09/2011 7:22:42 AM PST by SoFloFreeper
Garrett Epps, a professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law, has an essay in the Nation that attacks the overarching view of the U.S. Constitution held by members of the Tea Party, a view that could be characterized as embracing original intent, states rights, and a highly individualistic interpretation of the Second Amendment. Epps concludes with the following peroration:
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.wsj.com ...
Just a heads up: an attack on the Tea Party is coming, and it'll be from pseudo-intellectuals who pretend they love the Constitution, too. Be ready, well-informed, and armed with KNOWLEDGE about their word-games.
SFF
(MD ping)
Another leftist fool who pretends to care about the Constitution - only when some right-winger brings it up.
Otherwise, it’s not even part of their vocabulary; not on their radar. They really don’t care.
The Constitution is right up there with Rush and Palin in leftist hatred and fear circles.
And those “pseudo-intellectuals” will be from both parties. And I beleive the gop will be just as harsh as the dems. Lugar is already on record with his attack.
These people in D.C. are elitists and have been for decades. And I’m afraid to say we’re probably goiong to begin learning some of those “tea party” candidates are as phony as three dollar bills the government is probably going to start printing before too long.
As for "original intent", that's another straw man set up by these types. This is frequently substituted for the much more logical, defensible, and level-headed "originalism". Who can objectively determine what the founders' intent was, with respect to our current administration of laws. That would be impossible to determine (although we could deduce some things fairly effectively). If the law is to rule, the law needs to mean something. The only way to effect that is to read the plain language of the document.
No emanations, no penumbras.
And if he aches so much about the difficulty of amending the thing, that in itself is justification for the status quo.
Will it matter to ‘progressives’ that they tread into dangerous territory?
Once the Constitution is discredited or destroyed, there’s not much else that holds this country together.
‘Progressives’ drive toward collectivism. Shared wealth.
Conservatives hold fast to individual liberties and economic freedom. Wealth creation to the best of your ability.
Like oil and water these two will not mix.
A day of reckoning is coming. I always thought I wouldn’t be here to see it.
It is clear the professor wants us to live under rules he likes, and he doesn’t like the rules laid out in the Constitution.
So he complains that the Constitution is too difficult to ammend.
I am thankful that the Constitution is difficult to ammend or we would have something that looks and reads like the 2,000 page Obama-Kare bill.
Consider the wisdom, clear thinking and honesty of the Founders, as evidenced by the Constition itself. Then look at the ignorance, muddy intellects, the underhandedness and political double-speak typical of our current batch of legislators.
We can thank our maker and the Founding Fathers for our Constitution and our Constitutional Republic. For over 200 years, patriots have protected both from attacks by those who would destroy them.
Hopefully, we will now be able to protect our Constitution and nation against the onslaught from Obama and others, like professors Epps and Levinson, who think they are smarter than the Founders.
A perfect example of 10 pounda of sh-t in a 3 pound bag.
More proof that the “iron cage” of the Constitution is all that keeps us from tyranny.
“Ordinary Americans love the Constitution at least as much as far-right ideologues. Its our Constitution too.
Its time to take it back.”
How do you “take back” something you plan to ignore?
“No emanations, no penumbras.”
The thing that always bothered me about “emanations” and “penumbras” is not that they’re anti-originalist, although of course they are. It’s that they’re a lie. No sane person honestly finds the right to abortion in the first two trimesters of pregnancy within the 4th amendment. Neither do they find it suggested by, hinted at in, or alluded to anywhere in the Constitution.
What’s actually is that they’re baldly and obviously inventing a new legal right out of thin air. Which is wrong, in my opinion, as the people themselves and the normal local and state legislative processes can decide which and how many extra rights the people possess, as explained by the 10th amendment. But it wouldn’t be anathema to the concept of law, as at least there is the 9th amendment, that most radical and unruly of amendments.
SCOTUS ought to have invoked it to justify their adventures in lawgiving. But no, they had to pretend, as is their wont (see: the interstate commerce clause, the general welfare cluase, the ex post facto clause, due process, equal protection, etc.) that words don’t mean what they mean, and, by implication, that there is no law. As there wouldn’t be, if we could make it up as we went. People probably wouldn’t like it, though, so they had to write a History of Privacy, proving that John Marshall and James Madison would’ve personally driven your daughter to the clinic to protect her sacred prerogatives. Also, a clear line descending through Napoleon, English common law, Charlemagne, Muhammad, Justinian, Theodocius, Jesus, Augustus, Confucius, Solon, Lycurgus, Draco, and Moses, all the way to Hammurabi, made Roe v. Wade inevitable.
Yes; my statement was rhetorically lazy....thanks for the correction.
Barack Obama was NEVER a professor of anything.
During the presidential campaign, Obama would consistently and falsely claims that he was a law professor. The Sun-Times reported that, ‘Several direct-mail pieces issued for Obama’s primary [Senate] campaign said he was a law professor at the University of Chicago. He was not. He was a senior lecturer (now on leave) at the school. In academia, there is a vast difference between the two titles. Details matter.’ In academia, there’s a significant difference: professors have tenure while lecturers do not.
The University of Chicago Law School has now posted a statement declaring his claims semantically sound: “The Law School has received many media requests about Barack Obama, especially about his status as ‘Senior Lecturer.’
From 1992 until his election to the U.S. Senate in 2004, Barack Obama served as a instructor in the Law School. He was a Lecturer from 1992 to 1996. He was a Senior Lecturer from 1996 to 2004, during which time he taught three courses per year. Senior Lecturers are considered to be members of the Law School faculty and are regarded as professors, although not full-time or tenure-track. The title of Senior Lecturer is distinct from the title of Lecturer, which signifies adjunct status. Like Obama, each of the Law School’s Senior Lecturers have high-demand careers in politics or public service, which prevent full-time teaching. Several times during his 12 years as an instructor in the Law School, Obama was invited to join the faculty in a full-time tenure-track position, but he declined.”
I thought this was going to be about Sanford Levinson.
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.