I guess I like Norm Coleman well enough, and as a senator he’s preferable to Al Franken in the same way that doing laundry is preferable to being broken on the wheel. But I hope he’s not already in the “let’s say anything to win” phase of his legal challenge:
There can be no count that is accurate or valid when 654 potentially valid absentee votes remain disenfranchised and when some votes are counted twice – leading to a violation of one of the most sacred principles of our constitution – “One person, One vote.”
What? I’ve read the Constitution before, and, contra Earl Warren, it nowhere mentions anything about how many votes each person gets. For the love of Pete, man, this is a race for the US Senate, where a vote in Minnesota is worth almost 7 times as much as a vote in California, but only 1/10th as much as a vote in Wyoming. And hell, the Senate is the club where 41 members can stop the other 59 from getting their way.
So please, Norm, don’t invoke “one man one vote.” If you have legitimate arguments to make about the way the election was handled, I guess go ahead with those if that’s what it takes to keep us from being subjected to Senator Smalley. But if your legal challenge has nothing else to rely on than “one man one vote,” please just call it quits before that phrase inflicts more harm on our constitutional order than it already has.
Apollo posted this at 1:24 AM EST on Tuesday, January 6th, 2009 as We don't need no stinkin' Constitution
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The absolute contempt that gay marriage advocates have for the democratic process is jawdropping.
“The core purpose of a constitution is to protect minority rights,” said Shannon Minter, legal director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights. “It’s the law of California that same-sex couples have the fundamental right to marry.”
That is such crap. Complete, absolute, total crap, and I could almost guarantee that 9 out of 10 constitutional law professors would agree with it. That’s why lawyers believe it.
The core purpose of a constitution is to define how a free people is to govern themselves: how bills become laws, who can hold offices, what powers each office has. Protecting rights is incidental to that.
A document that laid out the rules for how the government worked but didn’t specifically protect any rights would still be a constitution, but a document that just “protected” rights without laying out how the government worked would not be. When you start viewing a constitution as nothing more than a method of vindicating supposed rights, all you get are lawsuits and rule by lawyers.
It is the law of California that its people have the fundamental right to govern themselves, subject only to the restraints of their good sense and the Constitution of the United States. Things get wild and woolly when you give a people the ability to amend the constitution with a majority vote, but democracy is, everywhere and always, wild and woolly.
But that doesn’t change the fact that living in a democratic republic compels a respect for the majority and a respect for all citizens to select rules of government that reflect their values and traditions.
The damned thing passed on Tuesday, and on Wednesday there are already lawsuits - attempts to substitute the rule of lawyers for the rule of law. When you so fundamentally disrespect the majority’s right to self-government, you have no legitimate claim that the majority is disrespecting your right to use a specific word to describe your personal relationships.
Apollo posted this at 10:46 AM EST on Thursday, November 6th, 2008 as We don't need no stinkin' Constitution, Philosophy, Politics
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Here’s George Will, who writes a column devoted entirely to how John McCain and Sarah Palin don’t understand the Constitution. In doing so, he peddles such nonsense about the thing that I’m left curious where, exactly, he got his copy. From his strange desire to make himself look smarter than Sarah Palin, he winds up making her look like the second coming of John Marshall in comparison. I hope Will one day regains his senses and is embarrassed about this.
Apollo posted this at 12:02 AM EDT on Saturday, November 1st, 2008 as Conservatism, We don't need no stinkin' Constitution, Lord, What Fools These Mortals Be!
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Justice Thomas, from a speech excerpted in the Wall Street Journal:
As I have traveled across the country, I have been astounded just how many of our fellow citizens feel strongly about their constitutional rights but have no idea what they are, or for that matter, what the Constitution says. I am not suggesting that they become Constitutional scholars — whatever that means.
My emphasis, because I love it so much.
Remember that many Obama supporters describe him as a “constitutional scholar.” Whatever that means.
Apollo posted this at 12:03 AM EDT on Monday, October 20th, 2008 as We don't need no stinkin' Constitution
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Did anyone else notice last night when Biden said that Article 1 of The Constitution defines the role of the Vice President in the Executive Branch? Now my copy of The Constitution may be different from Ole Joe’s but in mine Article 1 defines the powers of the legislature - and clearly defines the VP’s powers and responsibilities as president of the Senate.
I patiently await The High Priest’s newest feature: The Odd Lies of Joe Biden.
Waiting…waiting…
Jamie posted this at 11:24 AM EDT on Friday, October 3rd, 2008 as We don't need no stinkin' Constitution
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Someone does the hard research to come up with documents concerning Obama’s past, and then reports on that research. He’s a “slimy character assassin,” a “right-wing hatchet man,” and “a smear merchant.” Never mind that the guy is a fellow at the Hoover Institute who has produced legitimate evidence about something that Obama doesn’t much talk about; he opposes Obama, so he must be denounced in significantly stronger terms than Obama used to denounce an unrepentant terrorist.
That last post says that this reply makes legitimate points; I’m not so sure, since it doesn’t explain why Obama’s entire response to Kurtz is to call him names and ignore the evidence that he’s unearthed. Fitting that such a response occurred on the same night that Bill Clinton spoke at the DNC, as this is exactly how the Clintons would have reacted.
I think this gets closer to the actual thoughts of most Democrats today. I mean, what’s a little bomb throwing forty years ago between friends?
Addendum: John Hinderaker has a good point about Obama’s efforts to charge political opponents with criminal offenses. McCain’s no friend of free speech, but Obama (whose party still wants to reinstitute the “fairness doctrine” to shut down Rush & Co.) seems like an out-and-out enemy.
Apollo posted this at 11:45 AM EDT on Thursday, August 28th, 2008 as We don't need no stinkin' Constitution, The Past Is Never Dead--It Isn't Even Past, Audacity of Hype
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