Thursday, October 14, 2010

Q.E.D.

"I think the Constitution is wrong."

Obviously.

And I think you're a domestic enemy.

8 comments:

Defender said...

Free speech, freedom of assembly and association, the right to petition for redress of grievances, due process. Yeah, pretty radical stuff. To some.
Let them continue to come forth and be recognized.

Kent McManigal said...

Well, I agree that the Constitution is wrong in areas where it empowers government to do things that are a violation of individual rights, but I'm sure that's the opposite of the areas he disagrees with. Plus, unlike him, I never swore to uphold the Constitution.

TJP said...

Sweet! Are we making up our own rules now? I say the Constitution requires that the state of Massachusetts gets one less representative. Ooh, ooh! Do my rule first! Do my rule first!

The Constitution is wrong because it was written by humans. There's no such thing as an objective law. The Constitution, however, is in force, and therefore its requirements are not optional. And since the Constitution deals only with what the federal government may do, maybe McGovern needs to review his job description.

I'm glad I never swore an oath to uphold the Constitution. Unlike a worthless central government employee, I'd feel obligated to keep my promise. Pulling that kind of crap these days gets you machinegunned in the middle of the night.

Anonymous said...

I think it's one thing to say the constitution is wrong.

It was wrong when it counted black americans as 3/5 persons, so we changed it.

If this person thinks the constitution is wrong, I submit that he should start a movement to repeal or modify the first amendment.

TJP said...

Since the First Amendment doesn't grant rights, he can repeal from here to Hell, and it won't make a difference.

Anonymous said...

Having listened to the whole clip, I agree with him that we have had bad supreme court decisions. Slaughter House anyone? To me one of the worst decisions, I don't remember when it happened, was when artificial legal entities know as corporations were deemed to have the same rights as citizens of the USA. I do not believe that a corp has the right of free speech. I do believe that the citizens that form the corp have rights. But corps have privileges. It feels strange to be in agreement with McGovern, but I think he has it right this time.
MichaelG

TJP said...

Every conceivable right is not enumerated because the list would be endless. It would be an enormous political victory if more than half of this country would discard this state-centric position on rights and realize that the issue is what powers are granted to government.

A private corporation does not have individual rights because it's a freakin' limited liability agreement created by federal and state laws, for the purposes of extracting tax revenue. Whether or not a tax code designation has rights isn't relevant--what matters is that if the government doesn't have legal authority to restrict what people do under that tax code designation, then the de facto condition is freedom.

"Corporate Rights" is an imaginary issue. The Congress and the President could end the controversy tomorrow with a stroke of a pen, by getting the government out of the corporation-creating business. It's required, regardless, because there's no corresponding enumerated power.

Fits said...

I have sworn such an oath. But it wasn't a suicide pact that included obeying unlawful orders. Like a commander in chief presuming his word is sacrosanct and overextending his authority. Good thing us old guys know everything.