In the wake of the Newtown, Connecticut schoolhouse massacre, there has been a renewed attack upon Second Amendment rights to bear arms as well. Once again, in their desperate effort to harvest votes from political quadrants that would sooner give birth to a porcupine backwards than ever vote Republican, the GOP is actively promoting restriction of Second Amendment rights.
There are few better examples of this frontal assault upon the Constitution than a recent New York Times article titled, “Let’s Give Up on the Constitution”, by op-ed contributor, Louis Michael Seidman, the Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Constitutional Law at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, DC and author of, “On Constitutional Disobedience”. The author recently made this statement on the CBS television network.
You Tube participant, Scott Wilhelmsen, took umbrage at this hit piece and posted an instructive video that encapsulates several of the NYT article’s main points.
What follows are verbatim quotes from the NY Times article and the CBS appearance, respectively:
AS the nation teeters at the edge of fiscal chaos, observers are reaching the conclusion that the American system of government is broken. But almost no one blames the culprit: our insistence on obedience to the Constitution, with all its archaic, idiosyncratic and downright evil provisions.Taken in order, these astonishing declarations frequently contradict themselves and, just as often, ignore the political bedrock that makes them at all possible.
Our obsession with the Constitution has saddled us with a dysfunctional political system, kept us from debating the merits of divisive issues and inflamed our public discourse.
Suddenly, someone bursts into the room with new information: a group of white propertied men who have been dead for two centuries, knew nothing of our present situation, acted illegally under existing law and thought it was fine to own slaves might have disagreed with this course of action. Is it even remotely rational that the official should change his or her mind because of this divination?
Our sometimes flagrant disregard of the Constitution has not produced chaos or totalitarianism; on the contrary, it has helped us to grow and prosper.
Freedom of speech and religion, equal protection of the laws and protections against governmental deprivation of life, liberty or property are important, whether or not they are in the Constitution. We should continue to follow those requirements out of respect, not obligation.
The deep-seated fear that such disobedience would unravel our social fabric is mere superstition. As we have seen, the country has successfully survived numerous examples of constitutional infidelity.
But even if we can’t kick our constitutional-law addiction, we can soften the habit.
But before abandoning our heritage of self-government, we ought to try extricating ourselves from constitutional bondage so that we can give real freedom a chance.
Seidman claims that, “… at the edge of fiscal chaos, observers are reaching the conclusion that the American system of government is broken. But almost no one blames the culprit: our insistence on obedience to the Constitution, with all its archaic, idiosyncratic and downright evil provisions.”
Every word of which ignores how it is abrogation of the Constitution that is responsible for precipitating the vast majority of this nation’s current financial woes. Not least of which was abolition of the Gold Standard, which alone made possible unlimited printing of the fiat currency that now greases our skids as we hurtle towards the fiscal cliff.
Unable to withdraw the knife without first twisting the blade, Seidman smears the Constitution’s “archaic, idiosyncratic and downright evil provisions.” Having introduced the topic in these highly polarized terms, does the author then bother to go on and itemize exactly which provisions are so “archaic, idiosyncratic” or “downright evil”? Perish the thought that this “legal expert” might have to provide actual examples that support his claims instead of relying upon facts clearly not in evidence.
After making such unwarranted and unproven assertions, Seidman then goes on to note how, “Our obsession with the Constitution has saddled us with a dysfunctional political system, kept us from debating the merits of divisive issues and inflamed our public discourse.”
All the while he assiduously ignores how limitations upon free speech would be gigantic obstacles to “debating the merits of divisive issues”. Nor does this academic dullard seem to understand how seeking to dismantle the Constitution might, from the onset, have somehow “inflamed our public discourse.”
Just as obviously, the mask slips when Seidman makes reference to, “a group of white propertied men who have been dead for two centuries, knew nothing of our present situation, acted illegally under existing law and thought it was fine to own slaves might have disagreed with this course of action.”
Mentioning “white propertied men” is code-speak for neo-Communist “Social Justice” and its attempts to obtain reparations for institutionalized discrimination with total disregard for how, in an effort to address this issue, America’s government has enacted some of the most unconstitutional laws imaginable. Affirmative Action, minority hiring quotas, disparate impact legislation and small business loans restricted to minorities; the list is as lengthy as it is in direct opposition to Constitutional law.
Seidman is shameless in his attempt to resurrect that eternal bogeyman of slavery, even though all who participated in that abhorrent practice have been dead for nearly two centuries. Nor would such a political snake oil salesman bother to note how slavery was utterly reliant upon Black chieftains to provide the hapless victims; much less admit that Islamic slave traders returned to Muslim lands more slaves than were ever held in Europe and America combined. Only 5% of the 11 million Transatlantic slaves were destined for North America, whereas of the 140 million Islamic-held African slaves, estimates are that some 112 million of them perished before even reaching the auction block.
While the dirty business of slavery required bad actors of all races, Black, White and Arab; one metric shows who were the most humane. Transatlantic slave ships saw some 10% mortality in transit. Slaves sent to Muslim lands via the Trans Saharan routes experienced mortality rates of 80% to 90%. Beyond that, most African males were immediately castrated upon arrival and the vast majority of females were subjected to sexual slavery. For some obscure reason, academic poseurs like Seidman never mention these astonishing facts. Perhaps this data is too exculpatory of those “white propertied men” that he is so fond of denigrating.
One is obliged to speculate just how he might react when informed that the first American citizen to be granted permanent ownership of a slave was, Anthony Johnson, a Black man. Or, that by the year 1860, Black households in the city of New Orleans alone owned some 3,000 slaves.
Such inconvenient truths cannot dog a mind so closed as that of Seidman’s. Even as he makes the outlandish declaration that, “Our sometimes flagrant disregard of the Constitution has not produced chaos or totalitarianism; on the contrary, it has helped us to grow and prosper.”
At no time in recent history or, possibly, in its entire past—save, perhaps, the Civil War—has America ever been so close to such dire financial and social chaos. The current administration has made more than clear its admiration for totalitarian governments abroad and has passed more legislation than any other that could support the emergence of real tyranny in America.
To state, as Seidman does, that “Freedom of speech and religion, equal protection of the laws and protections against governmental deprivation of life, liberty or property are important, whether or not they are in the Constitution”; utterly ignores how—as a body of law—those fundamental freedoms found their first true enshrinement in the American Constitution. One may as well say that, “The Ten Commandments are all well and fine but whether or not they appear in the Bible is irrelevant.”
This flagrant disregard is only amplified by how Seidman closes that paragraph with, “We should continue to follow those requirements out of respect, not obligation.” I wonder how he would reconcile that with Abraham Lincoln’s statement—from his January 1838 "Address Before the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois"—that:
… We, when mounting the stage of existence, found ourselves the legal inheritors of these fundamental blessings. We toiled not in the acquirement or establishment of them--they are a legacy bequeathed us, by a once hardy, brave, and patriotic, but now lamented and departed race of ancestors. Their's was the task (and nobly they performed it) to possess themselves, and through themselves, us, of this goodly land; and to uprear upon its hills and its valleys, a political edifice of liberty and equal rights; 'tis ours only, to transmit these, the former, unprofaned by the foot of an invader; the latter, undecayed by the lapse of time and untorn by usurpation, to the latest generation that fate shall permit the world to know. This task of gratitude to our fathers, justice to ourselves, duty to posterity, and love for our species in general, all imperatively require us faithfully to perform.Should we feel no sense of “obligation” to those who valiantly risked life and limb—through Revolutionary, Civil and World Wars alike—to cement these fine political traditions so that ivory tower academics like Seidman may casually shrug off any sense of “obligation” in favor of some condescendingly and grudged feeling of “respect”?
As an undeserving inheritor of these hallowed political institutions, Seidman only manages to demonstrate further contempt by alluding to, “The deep-seated fear that such disobedience would unravel our social fabric is mere superstition.” This, coming from one who blatantly indulges in the Liberal practice of Magical Thinking™, easily one of the most superstitious mindsets on earth. Again, he closes his thoughts with yet another whopper, “As we have seen, the country has successfully survived numerous examples of constitutional infidelity.”
This bald faced lie simply defies all logic or reason. It is precisely such rampant “constitutional infidelity” which has led America to the precipice, both financial and social, upon which it teeters today. Equally doubtful is this nation’s ability to successfully survive the catastrophic plunge, which awaits us due to such fiscal irresponsibility and socially divisive government policies; many of which are a direct byproduct of “constitutional infidelity.”
Seidman attempts to downplay his seditious tripe by saying that, “… even if we can’t kick our constitutional-law addiction, we can soften the habit.” As if strict adherence to Constitutional Law is some sort of pernicious drug “addiction” instead of a patriotic duty and such observance is a bad “habit” that needs to be kicked. What other bad habits would this cowardly rascal suggest we overcome; an unwillingness to let foreign powers dictate domestic policy, our resistance to Political Correctness, the American people’s justifiable insistence that all immigrants assimilate fully and demonstrate unalloyed patriotism?
Such concerns are brought into needle-sharp focus by a statement from Seidman’s CBS appearance, where he notes:
Unfortunately, the Constitution also contains some provisions that are not so inspiring. For example, one allows a presidential candidate who is rejected by a majority of the American people to assume office. Suppose that Barack Obama really wasn't a natural-born citizen. So what?So what? Seidman acts as if America’s electoral college isn’t a bulwark against how “one man, one vote” could just as easily herald the swift onset of a “tyranny of the majority”.
So what? That someone so manifestly unqualified to occupy the Oval Office currently usurps the role of America’s Commander in Chief, even to the point of declaring America to be “a large Muslim nation”, despite how the actual number of Islamic Americans totals less than one percent (0.8%).
This same person who countenanced the murder of an American ambassador and refused to send readily available military assistance to protect American soil abroad nonetheless felt no compunction over appearing at terrorism central, al Azhar University in Cairo, to state that, “… America is not – and never will be – at war with Islam.” This is the same person who seeks to de-nuclearize the world powers while rogue regimes in Iran and North Korea are zealously pursuing atomic weapons, even at the point of starving their own populations to do so.
On CBS, Seidman goes on to say that, “But what happens when the issue gets Constitutional-ized? Then we turn the question over to lawyers, and lawyers do with it what lawyers do.” Again, this academic pundit exhibits one of the most deleterious and habituated forms of behavior, which is consistently displayed by lawyers, judges, politicians and justices alike; a steadfast and almost unshakable, hardcore addiction to precedent.
So long as this reliance persists, there will not, nay cannot, be any return to actual Constitutional Law because it will always be perverted by the stumbling blocks of prior findings, even when those previous decisions represent the most base forms of illegal and incorrect Constitutional “interpretation”.
Again, in his “white propertied men” mode of Liberal code-speak, Seidman prattles on with, “So instead of talking about whether gun control makes sense in our country, we talk about what people thought of it two centuries ago.”
By doing so, he belittles the Second Amendment’s root cause regarding the right to bear arms as some odd and outdated residue of colonial times when, in fact, it is exactly the dread of a tyrannical government—which a well-armed citizenry has every good reason to resist—that the right to keep and bear arms so clearly addresses.
This sort of dismissive attitude constitutes some weird form of forensic name-calling, a favorite pastime of Liberals everywhere. As in, when you are called upon to produce factual evidence that backs up your unfounded assertions, immediately descend into vociferous name-calling. This summoning up of “white propertied men” is the latter day—though less obvious—equivalent of playing the race card. But, instead of talking about Black oppression, now it’s all about White Privilege.
In his next to last paragraph, Seidman claims, “This is our country. We live in it, and we have a right to the kind of country we want. We would not allow the French or the United Nations to rule us, and neither should we allow people who died over two centuries ago and knew nothing of our country as it exists today.”
There, again, you see this academic wanker attempt to diminish the pertinence, even today, of the Founding Fathers. Their concerns then are our concerns now and the White House is currently advocating that the United Nations determine America’s right to bear arms through the UN Small Arms Treaty.
Similarly, by supporting UN sponsored legislation for international blasphemy laws, the White House is actively seeking to restrict Free Speech on American soil. This was made explicitly clear when a movie titled, “The Innocence of Muslims”, was purposely made into a scapegoat for 9-11 Atrocity anniversary celebrations in Benghazi, Libya. Instead of defending the movie producer’s right to Free Speech, this crude production was allowed to justify the invasion of International Soil and murder of an American diplomat abroad.
Seidman closes with this little gem; “If we are to take back our own country, we have to start making decisions for ourselves, and stop deferring to an ancient and outdated document.”
As if “our own country” would even exist today without having been sheltered under the strong wings of its Constitution. As if Seidman would have the fundamental right to make such preposterous claims in many other nations around the world without facing harsh prosecution, if not summary execution.
Like so many others, Seidman has forgotten that, before all else, aspiring tyrants first restrict Free Speech and then set about confiscating all weapons in public hands.
Throughout all of this, the entire concept of altering the Constitution via the historical method of ratified amendments seems to have been lost in the shuffle. We already have a way of changing the Constitution but, as is so often the case, the political and judicial elite find it far more preferable to warp and mutilate this precious document behind closed doors than to allow the will of the people to serve as arbiters of the real and only acceptable legal process.
Finally, nowhere does Seidman even question how America’s Presidential oath of office, demands that whomsoever is sworn in that capacity must, “…to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
Then again, if the Constitution is no longer applicable, defending and protecting it isn’t much of a priority now, is it?
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4 Comments - Share Yours!:
Well said .... file that one under Knowing your Enemy.
Thank you, OMMAG. No matter which foreign shores seek to do us harm, so long as we maintain our Constitution's integrity, there is a chance.
If we are foolish enough to let slip our grasp upon this foundational document, then all might as well be lost.
In the category of "Know Thy Enemy", there is little better advice to be had than from another portion of Lincoln's Lyceum Address. These are the paragraphs which immediately follow the one that I posted:
How then shall we perform it?--At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it?-- Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never!--All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years.
At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.
Author's note: I had sought to avoid consuming too much front page space by using a smaller font, which during preview looked just fine. After seeing the final product, I've reluctantly decided to avoid inflicting eyestrain upon our readers and bumped everything up a notch. Thank you.
Posting this for Obobma:
Zenster writes, “Seidman is shameless in his attempt to resurrect that eternal bogeyman of slavery . . .”
When I was in Spain conducting research on the decolonization and colonization of Equatorial Guinea in the 1960s, I went to the Maritime Museum of Spain and asked to see the logs and hold manifests of Spanish slavers. At first I didn’t understand the significance of what I was seeing. The slavers loaded up their ships with sundry trinkets, blankets, knives, jewelry, mirrors and other such stuff. It finally dawned on me that the slavers bartered for slaves. I found the same evidence in the maritime museums of Paris, Portugal, Amsterdam and London. My liberal teachers had lied to me in America. Save for a few occasions, European and American white slavers had not invaded the equatorial interior to harvest their own slaves.
Indeed the process was simple. The ships anchored in bays along African littorals where they exchanged their barter goods to the white owners—usually Arabs—of slave factories. The Arabs or other owners traded the black chieftains in the interior for the captives they had gathered during constant tribal warfare. Before the advent of the trade, the chieftains tortured to death and at times ate their captives. It can logically be argued that to become a slave was to rescue your gene line if you had been captured.
Of course, this business between blacks and whites was sinful but the burdensome blame must be borne equally by whites and blacks unless blacks want to hold whites to a higher ethical standard, in which case they would be acknowledging white superiority. You don’t hold people you think are equal or inferior to a higher standard. The simple truth was that there were evil whites and evil blacks but slavery was not the great white sin. This was the great white and black sin. It’s about time the world recognizes this truth.
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