The Republican war on the Constitution
For a GOP doubling down on a strategy of division and discrimination, the Constitution appears increasingly old and in the way.
posted on August 5, 2010, at 2:55 PM
Robert Shrum


It is the party of Lincoln no more.

As part of a crass strategy to appeal to anti-immigrant paranoia and racism, Republican leaders are now assaulting the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. The Amendment, which was passed after Lincoln’s death, ratified his life’s work. Republicans propose to repeal its guarantee of citizenship as a birthright, and while the impetus for this assault on constitutional principle comes from the GOP’s tea-intoxicated fringe, it has been seconded by Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, Sen. John McCain, and Sen. Lindsey Graham. In today’s GOP, the few with loose morals vie to lead the many with loose marbles.

Ever since JFK and LBJ took up the cause of civil rights, Republicans have executed a “Southern Strategy” to harvest the ballots of bias and backlash. But they now tread where no serious political party has since the days of “massive resistance” to integration. The Arizona law that sanctions racial profiling of Hispanics shows just how far the GOP of 2010 is willing to degrade fundamental constitutional rights in order to reap the electoral rewards of race-baiting.
Stoking nativism and bigotry, Republicans mount a latter-day "massive resistance."

As president, George W. Bush favored at least six constitutional amendments—to require a balanced budget (even as he ran up historic deficits); to ban flag-burning and same-sex marriage; to roll back a woman’s right to choose; to permit official prayer in public schools; and to establish so-called victim’s rights in criminal proceedings, a misnamed measure that would have undermined the presumption of innocence. Bush’s Anti-Bill of Rights, which stoked the fires of intolerance against gays, helped to secure his narrow re-election in 2004.

Six years later, the GOP’s assaults on the nation’s charter have multiplied.

The pre–Civil War doctrine of nullification has been revived in the form of this week’s Missouri ballot initiative, which purports to let that state void the application of federal health reform to its citizens. Similarly, the Arizona law’s disdain for constitutional boundaries and individual rights, and the movement to subvert the Fourteenth Amendment now sanctioned by Republican leaders, are designed to appeal to the very worst in our history and ourselves.

The federal court opinion striking down the California ban on same-sex marriage will add one more weapon to this arsenal of prejudice. GOP candidates can now trash another provision of the Fourteenth Amendment—the requirement of “equal protection of the laws.” This may be dumb politics in the long run. But this GOP, which reflexively bows to backlash and bigotry, seeks power now.

In an infamous campaign, a strategist for anti-busing Democrat Ed King, the successful candidate for governor of Massachusetts in 1978, said, “We put all the hate groups in one pot and let it boil.” That recipe has become as fundamental to contemporary GOP politics as voodoo economics.

You can see it in the cauldron of opposition to a mosque near Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan. Enduring anger about the terrorist outrage has been distorted into a crusade against anyone who practices the Islamic faith. Rick Lazio, the hopeless Republican nominee for governor of New York, hopes to ride to victory on the buckboard of such bigotry. Other Republicans have chimed in, predictably Rudolph Giuliani and inevitably Newt Gingrich, who offered up this argument (if you can call it that): “No mosque near Ground Zero so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia.”

By this preposterous logic would Gingrich have opposed the building of Catholic churches in America during the decades when the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco forbade “external manifestations or ceremonies” for any non-Catholic faith?

Showing that bigotry serves stupidity as well as ambition, Republican Rep. Peter King explained his objections to the mosque with this non sequitur: “It’s a house of worship, but we are at war with Al Qaeda.” (After bingeing on hypocrisy, the Anti-Defamation League staggered to embrace this drunken logic.)

To his credit, Mayor Michael Bloomberg stood in front of the Statue of Liberty, defied the outcry, and with clergy of many denominations around him defended the fundamental American principle of religious freedom.

If Bloomberg can lead, so can Obama. Assaults on basic American freedoms must be met with more than a tepid, carefully phrased press statement like the one the White House issued after the federal court decision on same-sex marriage. Of course, the president himself is a prime target of this politics of prejudice. Girding the Right’s various racial and nativist attacks is the pernicious fiction, fueled by Limbaugh and his imitators at Fox and on the nether regions of the radio dial, of an anti-white conspiracy perpetrated by America’s first black president. Still, Obama’s responsibility is inescapable. For as FDR said, “The presidency is preeminently a place of moral leadership.” Thus President Kennedy answered the anger sparked by the Supreme Court decision on school prayer by forthrightly, and wryly, defending the ruling: “We have in this case a very easy remedy … [E]very American family can pray a good deal more at home.”

Political officials who take their oath seriously should be cautious about how they act in the heat of the hour. With its heightening disregard for American principles, the Republican Party is increasingly a place of moral bankruptcy, its leaders destined for shame. Having already obstructed the path to economic recovery and prolonged the pain of millions who are out of work, Republican leaders are increasingly willing to debase the Constitution for partisan gain.

For more:
http://theweek.com/article/index/205792/the-republican-war-on-the-constitution

Excellent article. Very true.

I heard even Lou Dobbs backed away from supporting these people. I mean LOU DOBBS doesn't agree with this type of immigration reform!!!

Well, the race card fools Americans every time...works on both sides of the isle. Oldest trick in politics....just to show you how unconstitutional both parties are....here is an example...we have a democratically elected president who nominates an International Law Activist as SCOTUS to the bench who would love to do nothing more than to tear up the 2nd amendment, Bush in his days called the Constitution...."that damn piece of paper" and we have a republican senate that votes in KAGAN. So I am sorry, I am sick and tired of the Constitution being pulled out every time a DEM OR REP violates it...THEY BOTH DO IT. I can't keep score anymore. SO pick your poison, pick your favorite team...turn on your favorite channel and CHEER FOR YOUR TEAM. MAY THE BEST HYPOCRITE WIN. I say vote em all out send them back to 5th Grade Civics class and teach em the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and make em tear up their YALE AND HARVARD Law degrees...they ain't worth the ink. But until then...GO TEAM!

The 14th amendment was instituted to give children of slaves a guarantee of citizenship. You know the people that were loaded up on ships and brought here against their will and forced to work for nothing.

Illegal aliens that willingly cross the border are not comparable to the west african slave trade.

I see nothing wrong with reforming a law to close loop holes that allow people to gain entry to the United States through improper ways.If you come here legally with intent to reside then you're children gain citizenship. If come illegally and just have children to anchor your citizenship. That is a different matter all together. People can turn a twist things to suit their own purposes everyday both the GOP and Democratic populations both accomplish this successfully in order to divide and conquer the voting population of the United States. Instead of reading articles bring it up and read it. Everything on here is articles about something. The thing about the English language is that one word has five definitions. When you read something you can slant it in many direction and choose your own intent of law and policy. I sit at work and look at policies to decipher meaning and intent and switching an and to an or in policy can change the whole meaning of interpreted law dependent upon who reads the message and their interpretation their in of said passages. Easy cure to racial profiling? Make all citizens in AZ produce their citizenship information......then a new job how hard is it to produce birth certification in the US. All someone would have to do is know someone in vital statistics in any state to get ahold of reproduce a state officitaing stamp. So either way what gets solved.

Both Dems and Reps attack the Constitution, then they hide behind it when their azz is on the line.....all of em are hypocrites.

i think people should have a vote for an unconstitutional health care bill. the people of Missouri voted on it and did not want it. and the damn demoncrats still try to shove it down our throats. i will have no part of it, no matter what. if i go to jail over it, i will still have free health care, better than it would be if i wasn't in jail.

Interesting that the author waited till after the Repubs are out of official office-and now that the dems are doing the same things the neocons did (but worse), they come out of the closet and criticize. The hypocrisy of both sides is hilarious!

It's not un-Constitutional. Get over it...or we can adopt the GOP's HC plan, "Don't get sick, but if you do then die quickly". All these challenges will not make a difference...waste of time and money for your state...as well as many others.

It's just politics nothing more...lame politics actually. BTW there's no fine nor violation for not signing up...but only a fool would turn down HC. T-baggers mainly...

you an your anti republican agenda... i'm neither a rep or demo, certainly not a t-bag. and there is a fine, a 1 time only. and i don't want to pay for it. why? because it will not cover anything, the doctors and the pharmaceuticals will still charge outrageous amounts that i will still have to cover, then have to pay something on top of that. HC will never work untill the doctors and pharmaceuticals lower their prices. even insurance that you pay for very rarely covers any major amounts. 2500-5000 dollar deductible, and that only covers up to a certain amount. if the insurance wasn't making money, the would not do it. and they know how to con us so they can make their money.