Drink Up: Reforming The Constitution While Failing to Understand It

You may have seen the long essay about the Constitution that Time magazine published last week. It was fairly well mocked at all levels of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, as author Richard Stengel argued that the Constitution - which is only our founding document - had outlived its usefulness in this crazy modern world. (this argument that the world has gotten too complex for the Constitution is actually one of the oldest arguments of the would-be progressive reformers of the Constitution).

Beyond Stengel's political errors in calling for Americans to ignore the Constitution, or at least ignore those Republicans and Tea Partiers who want the government to adhere to it, Aaron Worthing has gone through Stengel's essay and found 13 obvious errors of fact and/or interpretation that undermine entirely Stengel's claim to being any sort of knowledegable commentator on the subject. Now, Worthing has gone back to the well and listened to an NPR program Stengel appeared on during the 4th of July - as a Constitution expert, of course - where he had this to say about Prohibition:

SEABROOK: Okay. Let me try you on this one, Richard Stengel. A man from the Marine Corps – he’s Darryl(ph) in Bend, Oregon – writes that he uses cannabis daily to treat both his symptoms of PTSD and chronic pain, no narcotics, no alcohol. He wants to know, he uses it responsibly, and he believes that cannabis is – the prohibition of it is unconstitutional for many reasons. Your thoughts?

STENGEL: Well, of course the high court did prohibit the use of alcohol as an amendment, and then that was overturned. I’m not sure that the Constitution says very much about that. But if you look at the use of alcohol and medication, you know, state courts right now, you know, have the predominant opinion about that. And if the states can legalize marijuana, as some states have, then, you know, that’s – you should probably live in one of those states.

That, my friends, is a radio transmission straight from an alternate reality. In that brief response, Stengel manages to be wrong on the history, wrong on the law, and wrong on the constitutional issues. Here's Worthing, again:

Oy, where do I start with that answer? First, contrary to his suggestion, the prohibition of alcohol was not enacted by the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court didn’t ratify the Eighteenth Amendment. “We the people” did. Nor was the Eighteenth Amendment “overturned.” The correct answer is that it was repealed, again by “we the people.”

Secondly, the current Supreme Court says that even if a state legalizes pot, the Federal Government can still outlaw it and arrest people for violating those laws even if the state specifically makes that usage legal. That was determined in a recent case entitled Gonzales v. Raich, a fact that Stengel is apparently blissfully unaware of. He seems to think that states can prevent federal enforcement of anti-drug legislation. He is, as a matter of black letter law, wrong.

Stengel, incredibly enough, is not just the Managing Editor of Time, he was also once the head of a non-profit called the National Constitution Center. In other words, he has spent at least some of his career ostensibly educating the public - or at least his fellow Washington insiders - about the "meaning" of the Constitution. Reading the above, you literally shudder to think at the level of ignorance on display by someone who is presented to the world as an expert on a topic about which he is so hideously misinformed.

Not surprisingly, Stengel is 100% behind the daft idea that the 14th Amendment allows the president to ignore the debt ceiling. Hey, when you don't understand the Constitution, there's no need to be constrained by it!

What the Huck?

In light of polling that consistently shows Mike Huckabee to be among the top tier of aspiring Republican presidential candidates, Patterico asks a damn good question: do you know anyone who is a Huckabee supporter?

They aren’t on blogs, as far as I can tell. So where are they?

I feel like a conservative version of Pauline Kael. who famously said: “I live in a rather special world. I only know one person who voted for Nixon.”

Well, I don’t know anyone who supports Mike Huckabee.

Anyone.

I see that he consistently pulls numbers in the same ballpark as Romney and Palin. But I do not personally know anyone who supports him. I have never in my life spoken to a single person who supports him. What’s more, I read conservative blogs like Hot Air and Ace of Spades, and sometimes dip into the comment sections. I have never seen a commenter, on my blog, those blogs, or anywhere else for that matter, who says they support Mike Huckabee.

Not one.

Me? I live in San Francisco, so I barely know Republicans. But, among those I do know - whether Tea Partiers, Big Business types, old Reaganites, or members of the Palin Army - I don't know a single die-hard Huckabee man. I don't know anyone who would donate money to him, work a phone bank for him, or walk a precinct on his behalf. The Free Will brother once spoke admiringly of Huckabee's Baptist Preacher stage manner, but I don't think he would go out of his way to support the Hucker.

Patterico's commenters seem to know a few scattered Huckabee supporters, all of whom are evangelicals and, uh, low information voters, if you know what I mean. I note that Huckabee hit the big time with a strong showing in Iowa, a state whose voters like aw-shucks personalities in their politicians and big government farm/ethanol subsidies in their politics, both of which Huckabee has in spades. Also, I don't think we should forget that Huckabee came in third place behind Romney and McCain back in 2008. Not exactly a resume' of destiny.

Yes, yes. It's early. But we're hearing a lot about how Huckabee is one of the front runners for the GOP nomination, at least according to the media. Hard to know how far he can get without an obvious base of support.

Red State Avatars: Dispatches From the Culture Wars

The good guys won a couple battles in the Culture War today. First, little Cody Alicea - he's the kid whose principal told him to take his American flag off his bike because it was causing racial tension - was escorted to school by hundreds of flag waving bikers:

Really, that's pretty inspirational stuff. Middle school's hard enough without having your principal take the side of race-baiting thugs in the lunchroom. I hope (but doubt) he learned something today.

Second, the Westboro "church" (they're the "God Hates F*gs" people) found trouble at its latest funeral. Someone slashed the tires on their mini-van and when they went looking for a mechanic to help them, no one in town would lift a finger. Aw.

First, let’s start with the serious stuff first. Earlier this month, Army Sgt. Jason James McCluskey died for his country in Afghanistan. Freedom Remembered tells us that “[h]e died at age 26 at Zarghun Shahr, Mohammed Agha district, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when insurgents attacked his unit with small arms fire. He was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart and Bronze Star Medal.” May God bless and keep you, Sgt. McCluskey.

So his funeral was apparently last Saturyday, and the Westboro Baptist @$$holes went to protest this soldier’s funeral. They apparently think that if you serve with a gay person you get their gay cooties and therefore go to hell. But when they went back to their minivan, they discovered that someone had slashed two of their tires

Everyone's talking about the slashed tires with Patterico barging into his co-blogger's post to sniff and say "I do not approve of criminal acts in response to speech acts, no matter how heinous the speech act in question." I'll get back to this in a second.

What's more remarkable is what the Westboro folks were faced with when they tried to "protest" another Marine's funeral in Maryland.

This morning in La Plata, Md., the hate group's parade of absurdity received quite a response: More than a thousand counter-demonstrators showed up early, established themselves on the rights-of-way around the church, and prevented the "God Hates Fags" crowd from getting anywhere near the funeral of Marine Lance Cpl. Terry Honeycutt.

A few minutes ago, I called Holly Smith, one of the organizers of the counter-demonstration. I was surprised to hear no shouting or noise in the background. "American flags as far as the eye can see," she told me. And the Westboro crowd? "They are up at a gas station probably a mile up the road, because they couldn't get any closer," she said. "We're in the shoulder for probably ten deep for at least 300 yards."

Now, that belongs in a movie. And, while those folks and the Cody Alicea's bikers may or may not be Tea Partiers, they are definitely acting in the same spirit: standing up to the forces that are tearing the country down, whether through politically correct rules that always seem to protect the sensibilities of the unpatriotic and unassimilated or media-savvy activists trolling for "civil rights violations." Is there any doubt that, were Cody to burn his flag that the principal would not have stood in the way? Is there any doubt that many on the Left love that the Westboro people are probably paving the way for a free speech right to protest at Marine funerals?

And I really have to question Patterico's high falutin' claim that he "doesn't approve" of criminal acts in response to speech. First off, how much of a crime is slashing a couple tires, especially when you compare it to the crimes that the Westboro people commit? 10, 20 years ago they would have been fighting off multiple complaints for disturbing the peace, inciting violence, and trespassing. But now? Everyone, even prosecutors like Patterico, stands around shrugging their shoulders saying there's nothing they can do. (Hey, they got permits! Permits, I tell you!) Well, I don't remember the day when it was decided that justice and the American Constitution demand that Fred Phelps be able to show up uninvited at military funerals and yell "God Hates F*gs!" I think a lot of people don't remember that happening. But, happen it did. And I think a lot of people don't like that (1) it happened and (2) the government and law enforcement are making a big show of not being able to do anything about it.

Not only that, I think a lot of people look at the Phelps clan and see a modern version of Madeline Murray O'Hare. You know: someone who makes a lot of noise about the Constitution and freedom, but is really just another leftist/fellow traveler (you know Phelps is a Democrat and a disbarred civil rights lawyer, don't you?) trying to tear down America a little piece at a time. The bizarre nasties on the Left end up on the news, always wearing the cloak of "idealist" or "free speech warrior," while real warriors like Sgt. McCulskey are ignored, and seventh graders need a motorcade escort just to ride a bike with a flag on it. If all Fred Phelps has to deal with are a couple slashed tires, he'll be getting off easy.