To find a complete constitutional fool. We have one of our own.
In a law school debate before legal scholars, Delaware Republican U.S. Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell questioned where the Constitution calls for separation of church and state. O’Donnell either disagreed or didn’t know that establishing a state religion is unconstitutional.
…O’Donnell criticized Democratic nominee Chris Coons’ position that teaching creationism in public school would violate the First Amendment by promoting religious doctrine.
Coons said private and parochial schools are free to teach creationism but that “religious doctrine doesn’t belong in our public schools.”
“Where in the Constitution is the separation of church and state?” O’Donnell asked him.
When Coons responded that the First Amendment bars Congress from making laws respecting the establishment of religion, O’Donnell asked: “You’re telling me that’s in the First Amendment?”
An audible gasp was heard in the crowd.
Our own constitutional fool — also a Tea Party darling, a man described by Law Professor Jessica Mason Pieklo as “deeply cynical and misinformed,” is the Republican candidate for governor: Tom Emmer, sometimes known around here as “Stonewall Emmer.”
Although he’s undoubtedly been instructed to keep his mouth shut about the issue now, he has labored for some time under the misapprehension that states get to pick and choose which parts of the Union they want to participate in. You can learn quite a lot about the issue of nullification by watching the “Standing on the Brink of Insurrection and Treason” video series linked in the sidebar.
The third installment, especially, features a description of some of Tom Emmer’s legislative efforts to nullify federal law without the help of a federal court. That is an entirely unconstitutional and unlawful exercise, but that didn’t stop Rep. Emmer from offering bill, after bill, after bill.
Update: People are starting to notice. The New Republic reports on Tom Emmer in The Year of the Nutjob. Thanks to Stephen Cusulos for the link.
6 comments:
“Where in the Constitution is the separation of church and state?” Now where might we have heard that before?
GOP Candidate for Secretary of State Dan Severson, that's where!
“Quite often you hear people say, ‘What about separation of church and state?’ There is no such thing,” Severson told Brandon. “I mean it just does not exist, and it does not exist in America for a purpose, because we are a Christian nation.”
http://tinyurl.com/2c7z792
How do these guys explain the treaty of Tripoli that was penned by a founding father, ratified unaminously by Senators who were around at the founding, highly publicized in the major newspapers of the time, and it didn't cause one bit of debate or concern. The treaty directly quoted:
Art. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion,
If Emmer is the logical offspring of the success of Bachmann, it gets even worse. The younger generations of Teahadists are even worse. The woman running for State Senate in 67 says that Emmer's two pieces of nullification are not enough. She will add to them when she gets to congress.
Ah, but that's not the Constitution, so they aren't wrong!
Whenever anyone says "Seperation blah blah not in the Constitution," I usually respond by pointing out that there's also no mention of Jesus.
<span><span>They argue that since that particular part of article 11 doesn't appear in the text of the treaty that the ones we were making the treaty with that that part of article 11 is a lie.
Of course then there's Glenn Urquarht who is running for Deleware's open house seat who recently made the statement that the phrase "separation of church and state" doesn't appear in Jefferson's Letter to the Danbury baptists...but that the phrase comes from Adolf Hitler.
I posed this question to my dad, who is a lifelong Republican. "If the crop of Republican candidates are so base ignorant that they don't understand the US Constitution and seek to repudiate it at every turn do you honestly think they deserve to be in office?" He just glowered at me.
But then I'm pretty sure Jesus Christ could be running as a Democrat and Satan could be running as a Republican and he would have to take a while to think about who he was going to vote for.
</span>
<span>What amazes me is that these are the same people drumming up a hissy fit over the fake stories of sharia law being implemented in various communities. </span>
<span></span>
</span>
It is supremely ironic, of course, that the same people -- the evangelicals -- who now bellow the loudest about the US being a "Christian" nation are the same ones who expressed concern to Jefferson about religion and government getting intertwined. You see, it was different when the evangelicals felt like the outsiders.
Post a Comment