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Galindez writes: "Nina, the political revolution needs you. We need to continue to build for 2020 and beyond."

Nina Turner, center, shown in a 2014 file photo, is considering an offer to serve as running mate for Green Party presidential hopeful Jill Stein. (photo: Marvin Fong/The Plain Dealer)
Nina Turner, center, shown in a 2014 file photo, is considering an offer to serve as running mate for Green Party presidential hopeful Jill Stein. (photo: Marvin Fong/The Plain Dealer)


Nina, Don't Go Green

By Scott Galindez, Reader Supported News

01 August 16

 

have been saying it for years: The progressive movement needs to take over the Democratic Party and use it to transform the political system. Our system is rigged in favor of the two major parties. The Greens, Libertarians, and other efforts to form new political parties will not succeed under the current rules.

Nina, the political revolution needs you. We need to continue to build for 2020 and beyond. I see you as a candidate for the Democratic Party nomination in 2020 even if it is challenging an incumbent Hillary Clinton. We do not have to surrender to the Clinton machine for eight years. We have to build on the progress we have made over the last 18 months.

I know you you must be motivated by the response you get when you enter a room of progressives. You are an inspirational figure for all of us, and it may be true that your moment is now. The problem is the system is rigged against the Green Party, and until we reform the system the Green Party is not viable.

Without a doubt my views line up better with the Green Party than the current Democratic Party. I am all for changing the system. I just think we need a viable vehicle to do that, and it is not the Green Party at this time. I�m all for scrapping the two-party system when we have the power to do so.

If someone has an idea on how to get the playing field leveled between now and November, I am listening. We took a strong shot at winning this election and lost. We did, however, make huge progress. It is not time to walk away from that progress and let the establishment off the hook.

I believe that one day we can build new political parties that represent us. The Democratic Party and the Republicans are not representative of the people, but they do control the mechanisms of our political system. Until we take power and change the rules of the game, new political parties are a waste of energy and resources.

Bernie is leading us in the right direction. We need you to help in that leadership.



Scott Galindez attended Syracuse University, where he first became politically active. The writings of El Salvador's slain archbishop Oscar Romero and the on-campus South Africa divestment movement converted him from a Reagan supporter to an activist for Peace and Justice. Over the years he has been influenced by the likes of Philip Berrigan, William Thomas, Mitch Snyder, Don White, Lisa Fithian, and Paul Wellstone. Scott met Marc Ash while organizing counterinaugural events after George W. Bush's first stolen election. Scott will be spending a year covering the presidential election from Iowa.

Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.

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+66 # Tippitc 2012-01-10 22:51
Racism is alive and well in this country, just not as blatant (usually) in politics - I believe it was some South Carolina wackos that wanted to secede from the Union after Obama was elected!! I don't know what parallel universe the repugnants live in, but it is very scary!!
 
 
+18 # kelly 2012-01-11 09:53
Uh, and my(oh, God how I hate to admit this!) governor who called for it even before that. If you'll recall, Rick Perry had said that Texas would be better off if it had stayed the republic it had started out as. And I must disagree with the not as blatant statement, unless you feel that racism against hispanics or some middle Easterners doesn't count. Then and perhaps this isn't racism but it is prejudice there is anti-semitism, anti-islam, homophobia and misogynistic tendencies running rampant throughout the entire Republican party. And you're right it is a parallel universe, it was the one in which the civil war was won by the South.
 
 
+24 # jwb110 2012-01-11 12:08
Quoting kelly:
Uh, and my(oh, God how I hate to admit this!) governor who called for it even before that. If you'll recall, Rick Perry had said that Texas would be better off if it had stayed the republic it had started out as. And I must disagree with the not as blatant statement, unless you feel that racism against hispanics or some middle Easterners doesn't count. Then and perhaps this isn't racism but it is prejudice there is anti-semitism, anti-islam, homophobia and misogynistic tendencies running rampant throughout the entire Republican party. And you're right it is a parallel universe, it was the one in which the civil war was won by the South.

For White Republicans anyone who isn't a White Republican is the 'Other" and there is the full scale of prejudice.
Uber-xenophobia .
 
 
+5 # Alice 2012-01-11 10:12
No, it was actually Rick Perry in Texas.
 
 
+13 # bugbuster 2012-01-11 11:34
Sometimes I wonder why we insist on shoving 50-state square peg through the round hole of political reality. Would it really be so bad if the South went their own way and picked up on the Confederacy where they left off?
 
 
+9 # elmont 2012-01-11 16:01
Quoting bugbuster:
Sometimes I wonder why we insist on shoving 50-state square peg through the round hole of political reality. Would it really be so bad if the South went their own way and picked up on the Confederacy where they left off?

Oh really? This is just a southern problem? Santorum played the issue in Iowa. I don't think Iowa was in the Confederacy. Please, please, correct me if I'm wrong. If memory serves, Brown vs. Board of Education involved a racist school board in Topeka, Kansas, not one in Tampa, Florida. And Kansas didn't secede either, right? But if it makes all you Yanks think it's okay to label this an exclusively southern problem, well, go right ahead. That's been your thinking all of my life.
 
 
0 # Duster 2012-01-13 20:08
You mean with slavery a legal social institution? Yeah, I think it would be a catastrophe. Slavery is bad not just for slaves but for the monstrous distortion it induces in the people in all levels of a slave holding society.
 
 
+51 # Billy Bob 2012-01-10 22:55
This is the best article I've read yet concerning the misinformation spouting from the likes of "martinfre", "joeconserv" and leenason@umass.edu, etc.

Next, I expect to read rounded out insults directed at Robert Perry and his "lack of knowledge" for disagreeing with their sources, even if his information is historically accurate.
 
 
+12 # kelly 2012-01-11 10:03
Do you honestly expect them to agree with an author that writes books about Iran-Contra and the Bush Dynasty to receive anything but scorn from the master trolls?
 
 
+18 # CCB5er34 2012-01-11 01:01
Yes, and the idiots, too many of them, fall for it every time. This country is full of ignorant people, who are racists and narrowminded, it is disgusting.
 
 
+19 # Alice 2012-01-11 10:14
Some of this comes from the slow but speeding up process of dismantling our education system. No more arts, no more civics classes (most important for good citizenship to be understood), rewritten history, and the pushing of religious and charter schools and home schooling. All of the Republican candidates have bashed the Department of Education.
 
 
+3 # b_niles57 2012-01-13 12:47
As a teacher, I totally agree. Shameful. It is evident in many postings on this site, where people pick and choose bits of historical theory to fit their argument without taking into account the actual events of our country's past. History is being twisted and rewritten by Republicans and Libertarians in order to push their clearly discredited notions of decentralizatio n and deregulation.
 
 
0 # William Bjornson 2012-01-11 01:13
Hey Billy Bob, what has leenason@umass.edu said that he becomes "the likes of". I haven't seen much of his stuff but a little and in particular that the EPA, while ostensibly regulating polluters, actually took the power out of the hands of the locals who were being poisoned and gave it to the corporations able to influence EPA with "economic benefits and jobs". Have I been fooled? Did he say "permanent welfare class" or some other taboo words? Seriously, I ask sincerely. What's the beef with him, he sounded sincere even if leaning a bit toward libertarianism. The other two I haven't noted. I have not religiously read all comments (shame on me) but I would be interested in an analysis. No trap request here.
 
 
+3 # b_niles57 2012-01-13 12:20
Yes. You have been fooled. Read through Leenason's posts on Grow Up, Ron Paul. She is sincere, as are most Libertarians, Republicans and Tea Partiers, but wholly misguided. Their biggest flaw is mistaking the tool (government and its agencies) with the carpenter ( bought off politicians ) or even the plan (inefficient use of resources by government agencies). The implimentation of agencies such as EPA may have been flawed, but that does not negate their overall usefulness (perhaps unrealized) as a tool for protecting the general welfare. The problem in almost all cases (as you indicate) is the undue influence of big business in government affairs. Why people try to flip this equation and put the onus on government instead of business is beyond me!
 
 
+2 # b_niles57 2012-01-13 12:57
To follow up on your question more precisely:leena son regularly cherrypicks history for any example that backs up her claims, regardless of whether the example she uses actually fits the overall narrative and events of our past. That's how she becomes "the likes of". Your EPA example is a fine start. Are their examples of misconduct? Sure. Is this an overall reflection of the purpose and effectiveness of that agency? No. We need to be protected from polluters. The EPA is the current tool we have that sprang up in reaction to Big Biz's obvious lack of desire to do that job themselves. Could it be better? Sure. But it is there for important, real reasons. That is the actual history. leeason wants to twist reality and blame the EPA rather than the businesses that have long histories of ignoring the environmental impact of their activities.
 
 
+9 # John Gill 2012-01-11 01:14
One of the problems is, that there actually ARE poor whites who actually ARE in a position to suffer from the racial inequality of poorly engineered social programs, inequalities of a kind that bleeding-heart liberal, college "eddicated" folks will often deny as non-existent or dismiss as relatively unimportant. I know a lot of my politically correct friends will hiss at that, but the fact is that an honest person can wholeheartedly support programs like affirmative action while still seeing flaws in the system. What President Obama wisely spoke of initiating early on,(and then that was pretty much the last I remember hearing of it,) was the institution of "economic need" rather than color of skin as the basis of eligibility for various up by the bootstraps programs like affirmative action. These programs ARE unequal, and they are unequal for a number of reasons, but sadly, one of those reasons is the way such programs can, in time of political need, be used as a wedge to divide WE THE PEOPLE. From the earliest colonial times, when European colonists were often forbidden by their political leaders, under penalty of death, the freedom to live among, and so learn from, the indigenous people who seemed to understand better how to get by in that harsh new land, the great white patriarchs have been playing poor and working whites against poor and working people of color, and we the people, just keep falling for it.
 
 
+4 # Vermont Grandma 2012-01-12 13:24
Sorry, Mr. Gill, the reason that affirmative action programs in the US can be used as a wedge is that not enough folks who have pink skins like you and me speak up enough, again and again, to remind ourselves and everyone else that there IS a legacy of previously denied opportunities that has resulted in less wealth in the black community, less educational opportunities for those in the black community (just now a school district in PA with a large minority community has NO money to pay its teachers because of the actions of the governor of PA so their teachers are teaching without pay --- how many of us have done ANYTHING about this travesty?), less access to government programs (like VA housing, farm loans), and on an on. We need to acknowledge that a debt IS owed and must be paid --- and not some $50,000 paid to African-America ns sterilized by the State of North Carolina without their knowledge. Until we own up to the centuries of discrimination against our African-America n brothers and sisters, acknowledge its lasting impact AND agree to make financial compensation, the need for programs of remediation will continue on and on and on.
 
 
0 # John Gill 2012-01-12 15:19
You don't have to be sorry,grandma, I agree with everything you said, except for the "the" reason part. You sound like an intelligent person, so I don't believe for one minute that you think there is any government program, policy, you name it, that exists for any "one" single reason, or that "the" way in which a policy, progam, can be turned and used as a political weapon against the PEOPLE is ever singular. Outside of that, you brought up issues supporting and justifying programs like affirmative action. Having been raised in a politically conscious environment, (riding with my mom( who was also "pink skinned" btw,) in the back of the busses in the deep south back in those mean old early sixties, the cross those yahoos burned on our front lawn, blah blah blah,) I could add to your list of reasons for supporting programs like affirmative action. So, nothing you said really contradicted my position, unless you are really overlooking the fact that we are ONE people, unless you are suggesting that government programs should discriminate against poor whites because of their skin color, and you don't mean that, surely.
 
 
+23 # mrbadexample 2012-01-11 05:57
When Thomas Frank penned WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH KANSAS?, a book about poor people voting against their own economic self interest in 2004 when re-electing W, activist Tim Wise answered with an essay WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH WHITE FOLKS? Dems keep missing the point--that appeals to people's economic self interest don't trump the GOP's mastery of the language of white entitlement. It's the discussion no one wants to have in this country--it's far easier to blame the problem on the Xian right, for example. But Black evangelicals vote their own economic self-interest. It's white, non-union working class folks who find the Repubs their home.
 
 
+10 # Alice 2012-01-11 10:17
Blacks can be misled as well, as in the case of being led by Mormans to vote for Prop 8 in California.
 
 
+30 # RMDC 2012-01-11 06:21
Yes, this is very good. The republicans have been the party of the rich and big business from the 1850s. How else could they get poor whites to vote for their candidates unless they played on fear and hatred? They've been doing that since the 1850s.

The real astonishing fact is that they have always gotten away with it. Most mass media is owned by republican-mind ed people so they are not likely to expose this fact. And the very people the republicans hope to attract are not really bright enough or self critical enough to see when they are being motivated by hate (esp. race hate) and fear.

Santorum's commnent was transparently the Reagan racism -- turning white against blacks with the suggestion that blacks get more welfare than whites. It was a lie and it was disgusting. But it was standard republican operation procedures, as Parry shows so well.
 
 
+12 # BradFromSalem 2012-01-11 09:20
Well said.

The big lie is that since the Republicans support businesses, their policies improve the economic well being of the entire nation.

Among other weaknesses in this line of thinking is that by allowing businesses to make the rules, the businesses will be profitable. And profitable business will create jobs.

What really occurs is that when business drives the rules, short term profitability is the best goal. Labor becomes a disposable commodity so that investing in training and paying good salaries are not in the interest of short term profits.

Racism can and is used as another tool to drive short term profits as well. Social stability, upward mobility, and market competition are all forces that drive toward long term profitability. And of course when business makes the rules and short term profit runs the business, the money industry own the business. (See Bain Capitol for an example)

People are being led to blaming the victims for the economic problems, and when it looks like those victims are a different color than White, viola; instant Racism!
 
 
+25 # walt 2012-01-11 06:46
Absolutely correct!

The GOP and their Tea Party are all about race. McConnell even stated it publicly when he said his main goal was to make Obama a one term president. And listen to the rhetoric of the other candidates and see it too as they cater to white bigotry.

The GOP needs to disband and start over. While they were originally formed to abolish slavery, they have become a hate-filled group owned and operated by the 1%.

Americans deserve better!
 
 
+5 # Suavane 2012-01-12 00:36
Dear Walt,

To your statement: "The GOP and their Tea Party are all about race. McConnell even stated it publicly when he said his main goal was to make Obama a one term president." I agree since this is the only time in my memory, where a Minority leader in the Senate, and Majority leaders in the House have agreed and banded together to say NO to any legislation offered by this President. Thus, blocking not only important legislation the President needed to move this country out of the worse economic crisis we've been in since the depression, but also important Presidential appointments. This, over helping the country in it's time of sever need! I have a word for this: Treason! Yet, in this blog I don't hear much protest. Why?
As to this statement you make: "Americans deserve better!" I say, we only deserve what the majority voters vote for!
I hope we vote to show that we deserve the President we have, with the hope of a better future, that through his leadership will surely be ours, and deservedly so! - Suavane
 
 
+14 # dcholley 2012-01-11 07:07
President Obama's greatest problem is his race (50% black,50% white), the "godfearing wingnuts" will happily destroy the USA as we have known it, in order to assure thier reservation in a nonexistant "heaven" devoid of blacks, yellows,browns, rainbows.
 
 
-3 # Phlippinout 2012-01-11 10:21
Maybe in their nonexistent heaven we can talk about the fact that Obama the man, is very conservative. He is a disappointment to those of us who are used to disappointment when it comes to politics as usual. There is no great choice in 2012!
 
 
+19 # Above God 2012-01-11 07:14
Why could't the Southerners pick their own cotton? We picked corn w/o slaves in the North. Proves the crackers in the South were lazy not the "Blahs".
 
 
+13 # JohnWayne 2012-01-11 08:45
This is a sad example of the 'angry white man.' My guess is that he has always been an angry victim personality and just uses 'politics' as a front to legitimize his emotional problems. This is both to pity him and to serve as a warning that these ultra-conservat ives will fight to the death to further their agenda because they have nothing left to lose. Here he is courtesy of MSNBC and Reader Supported News:

"Every time I see them on TV," George Morris, 77, told the Arizona Republic, "it makes me want to vomit."

Morris, a self-described "ultra-conserva tive," initially went to Giffords' town hall meeting outside the grocery store in Tucson on Jan. 8, 2011, to complain to his congresswoman, who he says kept voting for liberal causes.

However, before Morris had a chance to speak a gunman later identified as Jared Lee Loughner began shooting. Morris' wife, Dorothy, 76, was one of those killed in the rampage, and Morris was hit in the legs and back. Giffords was shot in the head.

He was angry at Giffords' job performance before the shooting, but now Morris is more convinced that she should be removed from office immediately, according to MSNBC.com.
 
 
+8 # BradFromSalem 2012-01-11 09:25
This guy Morris, is the perfect example of the article's discussion regarding the lack of understanding the right wing has for the Constitution and US History.

Also according to the article it noted that he blamed Gifford's husband for the shooting because he did not get Congresswoman Giffords protection when she went into public.
 
 
+6 # ericlipps 2012-01-11 09:04
I don't think the Tenth Amendment was a mere "sop to thr anti-Federalist s." What it actually was, though, no one has ever been able to figure out. Squaring the Tenth with the Constitution's "supremacy clause," which establishes that where state and federal laws conflict the federal law prevails, has been a challenge for two hundred years.
 
 
+11 # curlyq 2012-01-11 09:06
This is an incisive analysis of how we've turned what Herbert Croly called "The Promise of American Life" upside-down. Two things may be worth adding: 1) to the short list of New Deal era programs that were instrumental in building the American middle class, what was perhaps the most important of all was left out: the 1942 re-codification of federal tax law (which gave us the first broad-based graduated income tax structure). It was, and remains, the most essential way to re-seed aggregate demand, to stimulate investment, and keep us close to full employment; and 2) despite the tacit photographic recognition of the source at the top of the article, Parry suggests that "the political dynamic shifted" only with the ascent of Reagan--no; "Nixon's the one" (to borrow his '68 campaign slogan). The coded racism, the politics of resentment, and the resurgence of "trickle-down" troglodytes and their corrosive, zero-sum products, all came rushing back in with Tricky Dick. Even the subtle affirmative action problem cited here by one reader, while of no real consequence to the greater economy, is a poisonous Nixon legacy, created when he introduced quotas as a clever way of splitting whites and blacks in the labor movement...
 
 
+9 # BradFromSalem 2012-01-11 10:24
Curlyq,

Nixon's Southern strategy was cynically designed to flip Whites in the South to vote Republican, but Ronnie added the economic element to the strategy. Of course, LBJ did predict that the Democrats would lose the South for a generation due to the Civil Rights Act.

While I believe appealing to White Racists is mildly effective, I believe that LBJ was correct and that now that a generation has passed the tactic has lost a lot of its impact. Then again, maybe I'm an optimist.
 
 
+5 # MylesJ 2012-01-11 13:02
During that "30 years in the wilderness" we did manage someone with a conscience in Carter and someone with a brain in Clinton. LBJ was right but did not realize that other southern Dems would follow his lead.
 
 
+4 # restore2america 2012-01-11 10:09
Your assertion: "... the Constitution eradicated states' sovereignty which had existed under the Articles of Confederation. The Constitution asserted the sovereignty of "we the people of the United States" and the national Republic, with the states relegated to a secondary status." Is not correct.

The Constitution was structured to balance states power with federal power because the framers feared both an overly powerful central government and the inability of squabbling states to develop a prosperous nation. Our nation is federated with certain (but not unlimited) overarching (i.e. trumping) powers delegated to the Federal government. Federation means that the sovereignty of the states remains (read the history carefully!!), but it is not absolute. Neither, however, is Federal power absolute.

This is where we have run into trouble. On one hand, we have people saying that there should be no central control. On the other hand, we have people who want the nation to have only one set of (Federal) rules nation-wide.

Our federal government is obligated to protect ALL citizens rights. That is its primary function. That is where it has failed. Beyond its delegated powers in the Constitution, all power rests with the States and We the People (not They the Corporations).
 
 
+7 # Phlippinout 2012-01-11 10:15
I dont know what I dislike most, racist republican haters or a man who sold me on hope and change then put on a war mask as soon as I elected him to office. Its so much easier when you play the race thing, Obama was a better choice than Palin McCain but I sure wish I could get a candidate that can really walk his or her talk! Americans have become too accepting of war no matter what party they are being jerked around by.
 
 
+4 # reiverpacific 2012-01-11 11:13
"They viewed a vibrant central government as a way to protect the young Republic from renewed encroachments from Europe's monarchies, which otherwise could turn one state or one region against another."
This -to me at least- is the key phrase in the whole article.
Would you call the current Federal Government "VIBRANT"?
When I first came to the US in the 1970's, for all it's faults in international adventurism and it's attempted demonization of the American Indian Movement there was indeed a feeling of vibrancy and possibility, perhaps as a resultant of the 60's -70's push back by younger and even middle-aged non-conformists and the need to put the shame engendered in the aftermath of the Veitnam debacle behind the populace in the faces of it's leaders.
This impetus even carried over into the early years of Reagan, which is when I remember it starting to die -I was overseas for much of the 80's- but kept in touch anyway.
On returning, I was sadly forced to recognize the mean-spiritedne ss and inward-looking nature of the country at both national and regional level in so many ways as affected by each region's cultural norm, especially the South, where I spent some time.
I have been an individualist and small-business owner but spent time in the corporate culture as both employee and consultant, and see the "slowness" inculcated by the now-dominant corporate culture in the citizens who cleave to this mentality: Just a thought for discussion.
 
 
-5 # Nick Reynolds 2012-01-11 11:45
"The Tenth Amendment was essentially a sop to the anti-federalist s, added three years after the Constitution was ratified." I wonder if the writer thinks the same of the First Amendment, which is also part of the Bill of Rights.

"States Rights" has become a buzzword for those who oppose civil rights. But there's no doubt many worried at the time that the federal gov't would eventually become too powerful, just as many would today if the US had to give up its sovereignty and weapons to the United Nations.

One of our problems is so much is decided in Washington DC, and much of it by the president. As a result, everyone wants their favorite to be president. With so much at stake, corruption follows, just as it did when Rome became an empire. On our present course, We are no longer a United States; we are a disunited States. I don't see any peaceful way past the divide.

One possible solution would be to decentralize (a la Jefferson) some power back to the states. Let states, under the Constitution, decide issues they can decide, basically domestic ones. That reduces pressure to elect a president who will appoint Supreme Court Justices who will vote this way or that.

It also means we often wouldn't have one rule fits all, the federal government's interpretation. It might mean states could decide the issue of abortion. (Up go the red flags, I know). Would it be so bad if some states banned abortion while others allowed it?
 
 
+10 # wwway 2012-01-11 11:49
Hitler developed this play book and we all know what happened to the German society under the politics of fear.
My mother was from Arkansas. Many of her siblings and generations of descendants have remained in that same community for generations. They tend to be ignorant of the most simple things about the world, think that education is elitist, Southern Baptist religion the only way to heaven, and well...generall y they are angry whites who feel entitled to condem people of color and "liberal" white cousins like myself. I don't care for the south at all and will not choose to vacation in the southern states from Arizona to south of the Mason Dixon.I get the creeps just thinking about it.
 
 
+6 # Nell H 2012-01-11 13:17
South Carolina's voter photo ID law is all about taking the vote away from African-America ns.
 
 
+2 # elmont 2012-01-11 16:31
Lots of thought-provoki ng stuff here already. If any of this is repetitive, apologies, I may have missed an earlier comment.
1) To be fair to the Founders, and particularly some of the opponents to the Constitution, it should be pointed out that some of the opposition was based upon a belief that the Constitution didn't go far enough to protect individual rights--hence, the virtual immediate adoption of the Bill of Rights.
2) It always distresses me to see this whole race issue dressed up as a Southern problem. It's simply too easy to do this, in spite of years of efforts to so. Any fair examination of the history of race in this country will show otherwise. If you believe otherwise, ask yourself why there was not a single African-America n major league baseball player until...what was it? 1948? '49? At which time every major league team was in a state which fought against the Confederacy? Why was that?
3) I use every reasonable opportunity I can find, including this one, to tout a book which I wish everyone I knew would read: "When Affirmative Action was White," by Ira Katznelson. 'Nuff said.
 
 
+4 # wwway 2012-01-11 19:05
The Federalists felt that the Constitution was enough. Rand Paul certainly articulated this in his 2010 campaign for Congress when he said that if a shop owner doesn't want to serve a black man then he has the right. If a company wants to polute your land they have the right to do it. Under those circumstances, is Federalism enough?
The Anti-Federalist s felt that the Consitution didn't address the concerns of individuals or provide any rights or recourse. The constitution alone is just a formal design for governement. It says nothing about individual rights. Representatives from the religious colonies who attended the Constitutional Convention threatened not to ratify the constitution unless it came with individual guarantees. Sectarian interests were concerned that a secular government might interfere with religion and secularists feard that religion would dictate to government. Hence, 1st Amendment.
Anti-Federalist s had cause to fear the guarantees weren't enough. The 5th Amendment contains an "unless" and because congress is charged with making the rules of "due process" in common law there is room for denying rights.
 
 
+5 # Kiwikid 2012-01-12 03:05
I'm an outsider (New Zealander) who likes to keep up with what happens in your nation - where you go, pressure will ultimately mount to take us in the same direction. What strikes me about this article is right at the beginning in the quotation from Santorum about the sanctity of other people's money. This is very telling - I can't imagine any politician of any stripe talking like that in our country. And yet it seems to be very much part of the air that Americans daily breathe and accept as normative. I get the impression that the United States (sic) has very little concept of a social contract - I guess that would invoke the dreaded 'S' word (socialism, - shock, horror) . It seems as though many of your leaders (and people) think its okay to act like 2 year olds at a birthday party grabbing as many of the toys for themselves as possible with no willingness to share, even though it's patently obvious that there's more than enough to go round so that all can benefit. And in fact, if such sharing took place it would lead to a much more harmonious and prosperous society over all. Maybe the wealthiest 0.1% would have quite as much, but how many Bentleys do you need in your garage? I fear for your future, and by extrapolation, ours.
 
 
0 # ganymede 2012-01-14 17:47
I get a headache trying to sort out the reasons why the United States is so backward. I live in New York City where 80% voted for Obama and at least that percentage will vote for him in Nov. There are many well-educated and moral people in the South and the midwest, but they've been outnumbered by the thoughtless and careless people who have voted for backward and, basically, immoral rightwing Republican politicans. Fortunately this is coming to an end. Demographics plus the Internet is rapidly changing the equation. Still, it is a sad commentary that the greatest democracy in the world has let itself be so bastardized and brutalized by overly greedy people.
 

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