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Wake up, America!! The political right in this country has engaged in an insidious campaign to subvert our constitutional democracy for at least thirty years. And, up until now, they are winning. In the 1990s people like Newt Gingrich, Tom DeLay, Dick Armee, and Mitch McConnell realized that there is a way to slowly, but surely subvert the basic principles and values of our society without people really noticing. It has been their intent to undermine and alter the basic principles of our constitution and democracy, and change those to an authoritarian oligarchy.

What they have been doing, and continue to do, is taking the very symbols which express the values and beliefs undergirding our attempt to establish and maintain a constitutional democracy, and give them new meanings. Those are altered meanings which were never intended by our founders and which alter the basic social and political nature of our country, Let me give examples:

· Mitch McConnell took the value of freedom of speech and twisted it to justify unlimited campaign contributions, stating that equals speech. That means that the more you put in, the greater freedom of speech one has. The founders never intended that.

· McConnell took the stance that corporations are people for political purposes. That means that people who invest incorporations have more political rights and power than those who do not have corporate investments. The founder never intended that.
· The political. Right interprets the freedom of speech includes the right to do and say anything that one wants to, regardless of the consequences. In their perspective that includes the right to lie, to cheat, to viciously derogate, to slander and libel, the right to engage in mob action. The founders never intended that.

· The Second Amendment gave the right of our citizen the right to own rifles and shotguns to get rid of destructive varmints. to hunt game for food, to protect oneself. It did not give our citizens an unlimited right to own weapons of war, weapons whose primary purpose is the killing of people. It did also NOT give one the right to openly carry weapons on their person at any time and place. The purported rights are false interpretations never intended.

· The political right has taken the symbolic terms of freedom and liberty and twisted hem in such a way that the terms are being used to undermine our constitution and democracy, not to support them. They have tried to give those words the meaning of the unlimited right to do whatever they will, regardless of the consequences for others and for our society. Then they are using those misinterpretations to justify and support all sorts of malicious actions.

· Similarly, the right has used the symbolic term of “free enterprise” or the open marketplace to mean the right to do anything a business operator wants, in a completely “buyer beware.” environment – to use, exploit, and abuse both workers and customers. I am sure that our founders never intended that.

I could go on and on, but the point is that we must point out EVERY attempt to appropriate and misuse our great symbols of American constitutional democracy – and to point out how they are trying to use our symbols to undermine the principles they embody. It is OUR PATRIOTIC DUTY to do so.

Please feel free to add to the list of maliciously misappropriated symbols and of their false interpretations. Please pass this on as widely as you can, and urge as many people as you to join the effort to stop the attempted theft of what our country was intended be and should become.

wordywalt 9 Feb 2
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9 comments

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1

You are right about their havign been at it for quite a while....

2

While I am saying little here, I do agree with you. Be aware that political activists who favor our democracy are watching things daily and working behind the scenes.

1

Interesting to see the patchwork of comments to this post. Some comments are substantive, thoughtful discussions. Others are a mixture of insults, tangential deflections, solitary questions, barren assertions, and cuteness substituting for argument. Is there a pattern?

@DangerDave Can you email this detailed list? I'd be curious to see it.

3

I think the origins go back to the reaction to the 1960s, the rise of youthful challenge to authority, anti Vietnam war, racial equality, etc etc, all of which sent a shiver down the spine of the US ruling class. Professor Noam Chomsky has spoken and written eloquently about this-- the concerted effort by power in the US to thwart the rise of populism and movements for social and economic equality. All the points you mention relate to that. The great irony, given their fear of left wing populism, is that it is rancid right wing populism that threatens the stability of the US -- a growing fascist movement they can neither control nor extinguish. The current pitiful state of America is nothing less than the fruit of the poisonous tree -- the Right Wing American elite's ruthless suppression of all progressive politics since the early 70s. They have crippled America's evolution and rendered the country into the current state it is in.

1

What evidence is there that "it was together 30 years ago"?

The American citizens were probably even more deluded then than they are now.

Pew research have some info regarding polarisation here. Article is a bit old though.
The graph they illustrate their point with, is quite striking.

[pewresearch.org]

1

What would it take for America to really come together, at least to the point 30 years or so ago?

Mvtt Level 7 Feb 2, 2021

It will take a strong embarrassment and humiliation of the political right to make them behave with honesty and with the purpose of strengthening our constitutional democracy.

@wordywalt lol. An outsider looking in will make the same criticisms of your political left as they do of the right. Egos prevent the recognition?

Nothing in all likelihood.

1

Your definition of the 2nd Amendment is incorrect.

Actually, the 2nd ammendment was left vague and has not been fully adjudicated (most likely it never will be). Even the early founding fathers had their arguments on it. Since that time, no one would argue for Hamilton's stance.

Sir, his ramblings prove he does not understand much of anything regarding the Constitution. His deflection,, or, psychological projection, is really, well, impressive. Aside from the occasional misspelling, and grammatical error (which I admit I'm guilty of sometimes), he does spin a well worded yarn. That aside, he's still wrong about pretty much everything.. Nice hat by the way... Where can I get one? 😁😎👍

@Beowulfsfriend the second amendment is very short and to the point, here it is: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

COMMENTS FROM THE ANNOTATED CONSTITUTION

For over 200 years, despite extensive debate and much legislative action with respect to regulation of the purchase, possession, and transportation of firearms, as well as proposals to substantially curtail ownership of firearms, there was no definitive resolution by the courts of just what right the Second Amendment protects. The Second Amendment is naturally divided into two parts: its preliminary clause (A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State) and its operative clause (the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed). To perhaps oversimplify the opposing arguments, the states’ rights thesis emphasized the importance of the preliminary clause, arguing that the purpose of the clause was to protect the states in their authority to maintain formal, organized militia units. The individual rights thesis emphasized the operative clause, so that individuals would be protected in the ownership, possession, and transportation of firearms.

Congress has placed greater limitations on the receipt, possession, and transportation of firearms, and proposals for national registration or prohibition of firearms altogether have been made.

It was not until 2008 that the Supreme Court definitively came down on the side of an individual rights theory. Relying on new scholarship regarding the origins of the Amendment, the Court in District of Columbia v. Heller confirmed what had been a growing consensus of legal scholars—that the rights of the Second Amendment adhered to individuals. The Court reached this conclusion after a textual analysis of the Amendment, an examination of the historical use of preliminary phrases in statutes, and a detailed exploration of the 18th century meaning of phrases found in the Amendment. Although accepting that the historical and contemporaneous use of the phrase keep and bear Arms often arose in connection with military activities, the Court noted that its use was not limited to those contexts. Further, the Court found that the phrase "well regulated Militia" referred not to formally organized state or federal militias, but to the pool of able-bodied men who were available for conscription. Finally, the Court reviewed contemporaneous state constitutions, post-enactment commentary, and subsequent case law to conclude that the purpose of the right to keep and bear arms extended beyond the context of militia service to include self-defense.

Using this individual rights theory, the Court struck down a District of Columbia law that banned virtually all handguns, and required that any other type of firearm in a home be disasssembled or bound by a trigger lock at all times. The Court rejected the argument that handguns could be banned as long as other guns (such as long-guns) were available, noting that, for a variety of reasons, handguns are the most popular weapon chosen by Americans for self-defense in the home. Similarly, the requirement that all firearms be rendered inoperable at all times was found to limit the core lawful purpose of self-defense. However, the Court specifically stated that the Second Amendment did not limit prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, penalties for carrying firearms in schools and government buildings, or laws regulating the sales of guns. The Court also noted that there was a historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons that would not be affected by its decision. The Court, however, declined to establish the standard by which future gun regulations would be evaluated; and, more importantly, because the District of Columbia is a federal enclave, the Court did not have occasion to address whether it would reconsider its prior decisions that the Second Amendment does not apply to the states.

The latter issue was addressed in McDonald v. Chicago, where a plurality of the Court, overturning prior precedent, found that the Second Amendment is incorporated through the Fourteenth Amendment and is thus enforceable against the states. Relevant to this question, the Court examined whether the right to keep and bear arms is fundamental to our scheme of ordered liberty or deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition. The Court, relying on historical analysis set forth previously in Heller, noted the English common law roots of the right to keep arms for self-defense and the importance of the right to the American colonies, the drafters of the Constitution, and the states as a bulwark against over-reaching federal authority. Noting that by the 1850s the perceived threat that the National Government would disarm the citizens had largely faded, the Court suggested that the right to keep and bear arms became valued principally for purposes of self-defense, so that the passage of Fourteenth Amendment, in part, was intended to protect the right of ex-slaves to keep and bear arms. While it was argued by the dissent that this protection would most logically be provided by the Equal Protection Clause, not by the Due Process Clause, the plurality also found enough evidence of then-existent concerns regarding the treatment of black citizens by the state militia to conclude that the right to bear arms was also intended to protect against generally-applicable state regulation.

@Captain_Feelgood
You'd have to win the next Clearcreek Free Militia chili cook-off. That chef's hat, custom made by Linda, is now in my neighbor's kitchen.
Or..... simply send $29.95 plus shipping to:
The Big Paw
Care of the CFM
Clearcreek Township, Ohio.

@Mofo1953 I know what it says. And, I know many of the cases and can use google just as well as anybody. It will continue to be litigated for a long time. I was making the point that it was made vague and that even the founding fathers had their arguments. Like Hamilton. Out of curiosity, do you agree with his points (no looking)?

@Beowulfsfriend no agreement with poster points but I do not agree that one of our shortest amendments is vague.

1

Pot vs Kettle

3

What is Really Happening is the Southern Confederate States are Trying Again to Win the 1865 War

MAKE NO MISTAKE ABOUT IT - Conservatives are Reversing their 1865 Civil War Loss through Democratic Means

They are half way through
The conservatives are almost half way through of reversing of the Civil War of 1861 to 1865 loss by winning all levers of power.

100 years in the making
This has been 100 years in the making and slowly but surely moving towards the goal of sub-ordination of "impure" blood of blacks, immigrants, Jews, Muslims, Hindus and all other non-whites in their nation of white Americans and bringing the word of the Bible as the final commandment to everyday life of God fearing and Jesus loving good Americans.

They are aggressively using democratic means
They have done this through carefully calibrated democratic moves by winning local school boards, county offices, judges, governorships, courts, political appointees, PACs, funding conservative think tanks, moving up to federal offices of senators, house members, federal court appointees, government office appointees at all levels including outnumbering liberal justices with young and hardcore conservative justices.

They are well funded
They are well funded, very motivated and united along with the full support and participation of government funded churches in their march while we progressives are just thinking it is just all elections and still trying to educate our folks on what progressive values are.

They are united
There is no agreement among ourselves. The Conservatives are as united as we are divided. We are so naive and unmotivated losers.

It is not simple elections any more
We are just treating elections are once a year, once in two or three or four years elections, but it is not that simple.

The War of Northern Aggression is not over.

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