10 Reasons the GOP Wants to Ditch the Constitution

Your Daily Dose of BuzzFlash at Truthout, via my buddy Mark Karlin. I’m only posting five of the reasons, so please link over for the rest:

One of the great ironies of the Republican Party right wing — which is to say the current crop of GOP presidential contenders — is their alleged reverence to the Constitution and the “Founding Fathers.”  But, many of their more provocative public statements appear to jettison the Constitution. Furthermore, many of the individuals who created the US system of government were Deists and supporters of the Age of Reason (Enlightenment) – believers in the power of the human mind, not advocates of a rigid and mystical religious faith.

10 Reasons the GOP Wants to Ditch the Constitution

1. Individuals such as Rick Santorum and Michelle Bachmann believe that the New Testament should be the law of the land, and that God should guide a president in his or her decisions, not the Constitution.

2. The Establishment Clause of the Constitution specifically states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,” while also preserving the right of individuals to worship their own faith.  The Christian right believes that Evangelical and Catholic fundamentalism should be, in essence, merged with the government.

3. Candidates such as Newt Gingrich echo a long-term obsession of the right wing: that the court system is “activist” (as in liberal).  Gingrich went so far as to say that he would ignore court rulings that he disagreed with, which would violate the three branches of government balance built into the Constitution.

4. The preamble to the Constitution cites to “promote the general Welfare” as one of the six reasons for establishing a nation of laws built upon the foundation of the Constitution. Is there a Republican candidate for office at any level who does not regularly bash the notion of “promot[ing] the general Welfare” of US citizens?  The Constitution does not say that is was written to create a society where individuals engaged in mortal financial combat – and the less fortunate were left behind.

5. There are numerous proponents of repealing the 14th Amendment, which outlines who has a right to be an American citizen.  One of particular objections of the 14th Amendment is that “anchor babies” – children of non-US citizens born in the US — are entitled to US citizenship. Interestingly, the 14th Amendment was enacted largely to nullify the pre-Civil War Dred Scott decision which had denied citizenship to slaves, or even freed blacks who were descendants of slaves.  Is there a whiff of racism in the right’s objection to the 14th Amendment?

[snip]

And that’s just the beginning of why the right wing is anti-Constitutional….

Please read the rest here.