We have been discussing Democratic leaders and activists who have been calling for revolutionary change and a rejection of the foundation of the American constitutional system. The latest is Human Rights Campaign president Kelley Robinson, who spoke at the National Democratic Convention. In an earlier speech, Robinson rejected what she referred to as the Founders’ “little piece of paper” and called for the reimagining of our constitutional system.
The voices calling for radical change have been growing for years, including among law professors and legal commentators.
Viewers now get a steady diet of figures like MSNBC commentator Elie Mystal who called the U.S. Constitution “trash” and argued that we should simply just dump it.
In a New York Times column, “The Constitution Is Broken and Should Not Be Reclaimed,” law professors Ryan D. Doerfler of Harvard and Samuel Moyn of Yale called for the Constitution to be “radically altered” to “reclaim America from constitutionalism.”
Georgetown University Law School Professor Rosa Brooks went on MSNBC’s “The ReidOut” to lash out at Americans becoming “slaves” to the U.S. Constitution and that the Constitution itself is now the problem for the country.
I was recently called for a response to Robinson’s call. Yet, it is not clear if Robinson is speaking about the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution as that “little piece of paper.” However, she insists that “[i]n this moment, we’ve got to reimagine it with people that look and love like us at the center.”
Robinson added:
“And I think for us right now is about reimagining freedom and this American story in a way that is more revolutionary than what our Founders actually put down on that little piece of paper, but instead is the type of democracy that is by and for all of the people in this country. That’s the opportunity that we have.”
Her comments did include positive views of the progress made under the current system:
“The story of America is the story of progress towards freedom. In just a few generations, my family went from being enslaved in Mississippi to the first free Black family in Muscatine, Iowa, to preparing to elect President Kamala Harris. Progress is happening my friends!”
As someone who has supported LGBT rights for over four decades, I have nothing but admiration for those who fight for equal rights for everyone to be able to live their lives according to their own values and associations.
However, a radical “reimagining” of our constitutional system is a popular and growing call on the left. It is often left vague in terms of what such a reimagination would entail, but suggests structural, not just policy, changes.
It is that “little piece of paper” that has secured the equal rights for members of this community.
Assuming that the “little piece of paper” is a reference to the Madisonian constitution, it is a “type of democracy” that has proven the oldest and most successful constitutional system in the history of the world. It has survived precisely because it was designed for the most pluralistic nation in the world. It allows for tremendous social and political changes but does so within a framework that protects individual rights.
Before we start “reimagining” our way out of the most stable constitutional system in history, we may want to consider how the alternatives have been faring around the world.
It is that “little piece of paper” that introduced a revolutionary concept of governance that permits a nation of rivaling factions and values to govern as one. That does not mean that we do not have deep and at times bitter divisions. However, we are joined in a common article of faith in the Constitution.
While he spoke more about democracy in general, Churchill’s famous comment could as easily refer to the Madisonian system: it may be “the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”
Thank You, . Turley… these folks, whatever their titles, many earned here because of the Opportunities afforded to them by a Nation founded on that ‘little piece of paper..’ simply need to go off somewhere and form their own Nation.. be their own ‘Founding Fathers..’ for their own idea of what a Country should be and let the majority of us who have lived here by the Grace of God’s enabling that ‘little piece of paper’ live in Peace…
Wow. Even Washington Post is calling out Tim Walz for lying https://www.yahoo.com/news/tim-walz-gilded-record-political-161023316.html
* Ms Robinson is most likely speaking of the economic system. The political system was taken over by hired people within the bloated agencies system and not elected officials. The federal reserve is hired or appointed. Elected officials use their 4 years just taking donations and running for office.
The only stable branch of the three is the judiciary and now? The people’s train derailed when speech and press began to include lies and propaganda, obscenity isn’t a matter of knowing it when you see it. What a monumentally stupid thing to have said.
The economy is plagued with monopolies. Anti- trust lawyers failed? Another was is unions. Sure Sam Walton couldn’t have grown so big but there’d have been multiple Waltons had unions taken 49 percent of revenue. Walton was a great capitalist sincerely in providing 2 million jobs for people unlike the wealth of Gates employing far fewer.
No one runs for elected office anymore to be dragged through the streets, have your home raided and your wife’s underwear hung out for view, your friends jailed and raided agreeing to crimes they never committed just to go home.
Kick Robinson’s can down the street..
Reimagine into what? This person does not put forth one concrete idea because she incapable of making sound, logical choices in life.
Correct. They never say exactly what they want except “special rights” for some.
Turley’s statement: “As someone who has supported LGBT rights for over four decades, I have nothing but admiration for those who fight for equal rights for everyone to be able to live their lives according to their own values and associations.”
It’s not that they want equal rights. Those they have. The LGBT “community” wants to have special rights over and above other citizens. And they don’t want to be just “accepted”. They want to be celebrated.
Mr. Turley; your argument is logical, for those who understand our Constitutional Republic. Sadly the genius of that “little piece of paper” is no longer a sufficient guide among the people. The duties of the citizen patriot have been replaced buy the avarice of the consumer.
Thank God for the Bill of Rights and the Constitutional structure for amendment change.
One must be more ardent in the fact that we are all afforded the same rights. There are no codicils granting one group favor other any other; that would be tyranny.
One can love, worship, practice and peacefully protest whatever they like, so long as it does not infringe on the rights of others.
These facts, including the right to amend the constitution, must be universally reintroduced too, and then demanded by the people.
– Inflection Point @CobleOne – Banned by Twitter Nov. 9, 2020
– Inflection Point @Penone10 – Banned by X July, 2024
“A Republic: If You Can Keep It” – Benjamin Franklin
Franklin’s well chosen words served, not just as a warning; they were prescient. For our Constitutional Republic is established on a Rule Of Law and it’s Protection of Personal Liberty.
10 minute video on Americanism; what they no longer teach in our progressive, Marxist, education systems.
https://notionalvalue.blogspot.com/2011/12/merry-christmas-republic-if-you-can.html
I guess I should return to blogging
Inflection Point https://notionalvalue.blogspot.com/
Some people need to get over the fact that they are not top dog in the gene pool. The U.S. is still a majority White population.
Adjacent to this – its amusing, in a whistling past the graveyard sort of way, to see Jonathan Turley’s continuing evolution in response to the progressive left’s continued unmasking of itself. It’s akin to seeing a protagonist in one of the those early 90s horror films, gradually becoming aware that the danger is not outside…its actually IN THE HOUSE with them. Just so, when Turley throat clears about his support for “…. LGBT rights for over four decades, I have nothing but admiration for those who fight for equal rights for everyone to be able to live their lives according to their own values and associations.”. You’ve almost got the plot, Jonathan…it was never about ‘equal rights’ and folks living ‘their lives according to their own values and associations.” It was always this – a radical deconstruction of established norms to smash the American pluralistic character construct, and replace it with a new world equivalent of the New Soviet Man.
“I think the real danger to the country is the progressive agenda.”
“A continuation of the Biden administration is national suicide.”
“I will vote the Republican ticket. I will support the Republican ticket.”
– Former Attorney General William Pelham Barr
Off topic.
Well well well. Of all people, Trump-hater John Bolton had this to say about Trump: ““And to be clear, what Trump may have done at Arlington with the families, whatever he said to them, pictures that were taken. That’s not anything that’s wrong,’ Bolton said.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/john-bolton-says-trump-made-forbidden-move-after-controversial-arlington-visit/ar-AA1pHkWW?ocid=winp2fptaskbarhover&cvid=d9b1ae6dc13f4b3aaabd0fd8c3576292&ei=47
However,Bolton went on to say that Trump later posting the photos is what is wrong.
But THAT IS NOT WHAT MEDIA AND THE CEMETERY EMPLOYEE SAID DURING AND RIGHT AFTER THE INCIDENT–THEY WERE ‘IN THE MOMENT.’
So, bottom line, those on this site who said ‘ big to do about nothing,’ when media reported what happened at the cemetery, were RIGHT!
Notice it just became an issue since the families invited Trump to attend with them. No one had a problem with previous Presidents making appearances at Arlington. No one complained when Biden did a photo op there. Both Biden and Harris were invited to attend with the families and honor their fallen loved ones. Neither responded to the request. The 13 who died in Afghanistan died under Biden/Harris’s watch, but they couldn’t be bothered.
Jonathan: Nothing in the statements by Kelly Robinson at the DNC, nor by Elie Mystal, professors Doerfler, Samuel Moya or Rosa Brooks call for the “trashing” of the Constitution. They are not rejecting “the foundation of the American constitutional system”. They are voicing concerns about the threats to our Democracy posed by one person–DJT.
The only person today who is trying to “trash” the Constitution is DJT. In 2020 he refused to accept the peaceful transfer of power after the election and incited his followers to storm the Capitol to prevent the counting of the electoral votes–all in an attempt hold onto power in perpetuity. Today, that “convicted” felon is running again and saying he will be a “dictator” from day one–and reek vengeance on his political opponents by weaponizing the DOJ to go after them. That’s not what the Founders had in mind.
The Founding documents were designed to prevent such autocratic rule. Hamilton, Jefferson, John Adams, among others, all were concerned that a future president could become a dictator. So they devised a document with checks and balances. On December 17, 1814, John Adams wrote a letter to his friend, John Taylor, in which he warned about the danger of a president who might want to become an autocrat: “Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide”.
Adams letter is a reminder that Democracy is a fragile thing. This is the first time in the entire history of the country when a candidate for president openly says he wants to be a “dictator” and, with the blessing of the Justices of the SC he selected, wants the ability to freely assassinate his political enemies. That’s contrary to everything the Founders set out in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. The election in November will determine whether we “commit suicide”!
Simply BS. All of it. B. S. You listen to the rabid leftists on MSNBC and CNN and spew out their hatred of Trump like a puppet. This bugaboo campaign makes you look as unserious as Joy Reid and Lawrence O’Donnell. The U.S. flourished from 2016 until Covid hit (thank the Chinese for that, don’t blame Trump) and Bidenomics have now thrust us into an inflationary cycle which has hurt the pocketbooks of every single American except the ultra-wealthy (many of whom, inexplicably, back Know-Nothing Harris and Comrade Walz). Pay better attention next time and don’t rely on radical commentators for your information. Trump is, most assuredly, NOT the devil. He will NOT be a dictator. But Walz is a near-Communist and Harris is a nervous laughing machine. I’ll bet you didn’t know Trump shamed some of the NATO members into upping their share of the cost of the alliance’s defense of Europe. Reid and O”Connell didn”t want to talk about that. They are rabid. Try listening to some one else sometimes.
It’s more than BS. I think he thinks that by acting and sounding like he has authority to make these wild statements, he will develop a following and maybe some people will think he knows what he is talking about. Reality is, every day, he and george and gigie and fish and bug take turns giving each other one upvote, usually just minutes after a post. Do you think they are on a shift schedule?
Democracy is not a “fragile thing”,
You spastic POS.
This isnt 1781.
Get a grip, loser.
With your regard for the Constitution, I would expect you have some concern that it is not short of a “trashing” for anyone who refers to it as the “little piece of paper.” It is quite clearly a brush-off that indicates a disrespect, if not an outright contempt.
Yawn. You leftists seem to forget the DJT WAS PRESIDENT BEFORE, and democracy continued; the republic still stands. Your pearl clutching and case of vapors are beyond tedious.
If, God forbid, Trump got back into office, he would have no guardrails— no future ability to run for office. The Project 2025 playbook is ready to go, along with concrete plans to fire tens of thousands of civil servants and MAGA replacements ready to go. They’d have their “fetal personhood “ bill ready, along with executive orders to enact inflation driving tariffs and rolling back consumer and environmental protections.They’re ready to eliminate the Department of Education and NOAA and set up concentration camps for migrants. They plan to deploy local police and sheriffs to hunt down and encamp migrants, pending deportation. Trump’s invalid presidency was just a dress rehearsal for the totalitarian takeover he would deploy since he has nothing left to lose. As it is, he decimated our economy and public health and embarrassed our country with his praise for murderers like Putin. Then there’s the Big Lie and the insurrection. America wisely rejected him.
I hope you’re right, I’m so existed, I can’t wait!!! I am counting on Trump to do all of those things as quickly as possible. I hope he deports hundreds of thousands of illegals and brings back “remain in Mexico”, restructures the alphabet agencies, and removes the Biden barriers for the shipping of LNG to Europe so maybe we can finally hit Putin where it hurts. That along with the threat to scale back aid to Ukraine will finally bring both sides to the settlement table. It’s called governing, solving problems, not hiding out for four years while your degenerate family gets rich off your name.
For WHOM do YOU think DJT risked his wealth (now diminished by countless millions), his freedom (91 asinine felony counts and more) and even his life (1 failed attempt maybe just a warm-up), when he could have retited to a life of ease instead?
https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/91XFGdO22wL._CLa%7C2140%2C2000%7C81zXFyAVcRL.png%7C0%2C0%2C2140%2C2000%2B0.0%2C0.0%2C2140.0%2C2000.0_AC_UY1000_.png
Reading the article linked by Dr. Turley in the NYT by Doerfler and Moyn it is clear that they are arguing against the republic established by the constitution. They would like to see the establishment of a nation democracy instead of a republic of states. The article has nothing to do with DJT.
They would like to diminish or eliminate the Senate that gives equal voice to states, regardless of their population, offering “Our constitution’s guarantee of two senators to each state” as an example of the problem. They describe “the Electoral College and the Senate, [as] designed to be impediments to redistributive change.” They suggest “reducing the Senate to a mere ‘council of revision.'” (Their words, not mine!)
Perhaps more dangerous, they propose destroying our system of checks and balances by the “need to insulate the law from judicial review.”
Ultimately, their proposed path is for the basic form of government, “whether to elect the president by majority vote or to limit judges to fixed terms, would be decided by the present electorate, as opposed to one from some foggy past.”
For them, the constitution is wrongly “more difficult to change than the rest of the legal order.”
They literally wish to destroy the republic and replace it with elected mob rule, preferring that “fundamental values … would be protected not by law that stands apart from politics but … by ordinary expressions of popular will.” Hmmm, who can think of any time the “popular will” of the majority imposed injustices upon the minority?
Despite Dennis McIntyre’s claims, the article has nothing to do with DJT, it is much more dangerous.
..another Off-the-Subject, Out of Context, Full-of-Hate Illogical Rant trashing DJT by the resident darkside troll ‘anonymous…’ ..Classic TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome) fairytale SPIN……….. yawn……….
Always been a fan of the ammendment process and that the Constitution purports to be a living document. At least aspirational.
Not so much a fan of the tactics you and federalist society have taken with your attempts to use bits of the Constitution to squash other bits of the Constitution, there, Jon.
Of course the Constitution, like everything else, needs to be recalibrated from time to time. With all the work you’ve done toward those ends from the right isn’t it fair that all sides have the same opportunity, Turls?
“With all the work you’ve done toward those ends from the right isn’t it fair that all sides have the same opportunity, Turls?”
Turls isnt listening ya spastic booger eating drunktard.
Have another sip and sit by your mailbox. Your reply from Jonathan will be arriving soon.
The irony of the idea that there is a need to destroy “that little piece of paper,” which is the only one in the world that protects the Left’s right to espouse the destruction of “that little piece of paper,” is so thick that it is hard to breathe. Had any rational, reasoned, thought been given to their position, the cognitive dissonance suffered by those advocating this abomination would have left them totally debilitated.
* are these people speaking about politics or economies?
KNOW THE ENEMY
STOP SUCCUMBING IN EVERY BATTLE
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“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
– Sun Tzu, The Art of War
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“We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.”
– Barack Obama
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“And yet you rarely see liberals make the point that the Constitution is actually trash.”
– Elie Mystal
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“The solution to racism is to kill all white people.”
– Mark McPhail, Indiana University Northwest, (alleged)
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NATURAL BORN CITIZEN
“Permit me to hint, whether it would not be wise & seasonable to provide a strong check to the admission of Foreigners into the administration of our national Government; and to declare expresly that the Command in chief of the american army shall not be given to, nor devolve on, any but a natural born Citizen.”
– John Jay Letter to George Washington, 1787
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The Law of Nations or the Principles of Natural Law (1758), BOOK 1, CHAPTER 19, § 212. Citizens and natives [natural born citizen]
The citizens are the members of the civil society; bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority, they equally participate in its advantages. The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens. As the society cannot exist and perpetuate itself otherwise than by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights. The society is supposed to desire this, in consequence of what it owes to its own preservation; and it is presumed, as matter of course, that each citizen, on entering into society, reserves to his children the right of becoming members of it. The country of the fathers is therefore that of the children; and these become true citizens merely by their tacit consent. We shall soon see whether, on their coming to the years of discretion, they may renounce their right, and what they owe to the society in which they were born. I say, that, in order to be of the country, it is necessary that a person be born of a father who is a citizen; for, if he is born there of a foreigner, it will be only the place of his birth, and not his country.
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“SECURE THE BLESSINGS OF LIBERTY TO OURSELVES AND OUR POSTERITY”
“We the people of the United States…secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
– Preamble
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In my opinion, Kelley Robinson, Elie Mystal, Mark McPhail, Barack Obama, Kamala Harris, Lloyd Austin, Charles Q. Brown, Jr. et al., denied entry, by extension, under the unabrogated Naturalization Act of 1802, in full force and effect in 1863, are the direct and mortal enemies of the American thesis of freedom and self-reliance, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, Constitutional Americans, and America.
An illegal and unconstitutional, four-million-man, foreign, standing army was installed on American soil on January 1, 1863, by Abraham Lincoln, who was charged with safely and compassionately repatriating applicants who were denied entry to become citizens.
KNOW THE ENEMY
Cum ala’s alien parents were in America on student visas.
Maybe they can get Pelosi to rip it up for them.
“We have to [elect] the [bi—] so that you can find out what is in it.”
– Nancy Pelosi
Ever since Woodrow Wilson progressives opposed to individuals freely exercising their natural and unalienable rights have made it their mission to suppress individualism and acclaim collectivism, ignore minority rights for unchecked majority rule, and replace representative democracy with an unelected and unaccountable administrative state that melds the separate powers of the legislative, executive, and judicial branches into one. The “little piece of paper” bequeathed to us by statesmen far more enlightened than any we have had since has become seriously torn. Ominously, progressives today are hell bent on an absolute shredding of it.
In his 2019 book “The Conservative Sensibility” that many consider to be his magnum opus, George Will brings fully into the light of day the “Founders’ philosophy” and “the philosophy that the progressives formulated explicitly as a refutation of the Founders.” His effort is to awaken in readers the superiority of the Founders and the admonition that we not so easily discard it but instead strive diligently to reclaim it. Will’s final chapter “Borne Back – The Quest For A Useable Past” begins with an insightful quote from American novelist and historian, Wallace Stegner:
“In the old days, in blizzardy weather, we used to tie a string of lariats from house to barn so as to make it from shelter to responsibility and back again. With personal, family and cultural chores to do, I think we had better rig up such a line between past and present.”
Gertrude Stein wrote about Oakland in “Everybody’s Autobiography” quoting from chapter 4: “What was the use of my having come from Oakland it was not natural to have come from there yes write about it if I like or anything if I like but not there, there is no there there.” Maybe Ms. Stein was clairvoyant, seeing that in the year 2024 there would be a candidate from Oakland running for the presidency of the United States who came from a place where there’s no there, speaking metaphorically of missing brain power. The Oakland candidate speaks in tongues not normally heard, cackles when speaking and changes their mind at the drop of a hat all while preaching Equity yet living on the other side of the tracks. The candidate is a Quacksalver (Charlatan) of the highest order.
Oswald Spengler said paraphrasing: “Socialism is the lower classes capitalism”. The Socialist Democratic Party must be defeated they pose the greatest risk to a free and prosperous future.
God help us All!!!
Upstate: Onamonapia
* stein was an actual nazi. She worked with them etc
“Socialism is the lower classes capitalism”
– Oswald Spengler, George W.
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STOP!!!
You may believe the horse when the fact emerges from his mouth.
Socialism is nonexistent.
Socialism is faux.
Socialism is a ruse.
Socialism is a red herring.
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“The goal of Socialism is Communism.”
– Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
“So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men.”
Voltaire
NEW GUARDS
“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
– Declaration of Independence, 1776
One man’s insurrection is another man’s neighborliness.
Insurrection