If Constitution flawed, then how could Obama take office and defend it?
About the Author: If you want to contribute something that'll advance discourse, fine. If not, go elsewhere. BUT BE ADVISED: I will not tolerate incivility, profanity, obscenities and blasphemy. Read more from this authorIf Barack Obama believes the Constitution is fundamentally flawed, then how could he truthfully put his hand on the Bible and swear (or alternatively, affirm) to preserve, protect and defend the document? I don’t think he can. But given he’d replace Bill Clinton as liar-in-chief, what’s yet another lie, right?
Also, how could the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court offer the oath to a president-elect Obama, knowing Obama’s view of the Constitution?
As someone fixated on becoming president since who knows when in his life, Obama must know that every president must recite the following oath, in accordance with Article II, Section I of the Constitution: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
Personally, I do not think this fascist, this Marxist from Chicago or wherever has the moral underpinning to also comprehend what “faithfully” means. Unless, that is, it’s to his Marxist foundation.
“Solemnly”? Ha! Oh, he’d be solemn. Yet another act to fool the masses.
Putting his hand on the Bible? Given he’s a Protestant Christian in name only, that’d be yet another lie.
As to the best of his ability? If past is prologue, then the best of his ability will be at best to give a “present” presidency.
That is, unless it’s taking your money and giving to others, hoisting the flag of surrender, installing leftist/liberal Supreme Court justice and other federal-bench judges, and pushing a racial agenda, including reparations for blacks.
Obama is a dangerous man, representing dangerous people in, and perhaps even outside of our country, who would gleefully and systematically destroy America.
Preserve, protect and defend the Constitution? He hasn’t the mettle or heart. Nor does he have the intention or political and cultural impetus to do so.
But if elected, Marxist, racially separatist, fascist, clueless, vengeful Obama will have earned the title that requires faithful defense of the Constitution.
Given his character and ideologies, though, he still will not have earned the right.
Tags: Article II, Constitution, Constitution "fundamentally flawed", inauguration, Obama, Section I U.S. Constitution
The answer is easy, he won’t swear on his bible - the communist manifesto.
LC, interesting comment. Maybe he’d have that in his back pocket or in his mourning coat?
More bad news today:
Obama Leads in Florida, Ohio, Must-Win Battlegrounds for McCain
By Catherine Dodge
Oct. 29 (Bloomberg) — Barack Obama leads in Florida and Ohio, states Republican John McCain must win to capture the presidency, as voters prefer the Democratic presidential nominee’s personal traits and approach on the economy and health care.
Obama, an Illinois senator, tops Arizona Senator McCain by 50 percent to 43 percent among likely voters in Florida, a Bloomberg/Los Angeles Times poll shows. He leads 49 percent to 40 percent in Ohio, as voters in the two states overwhelmingly rate domestic concerns as more important than national security.
Voters choose Obama, 47, as the candidate best able to handle the financial crisis and health care. And by an almost 2- to-1 margin, they say the Democrat has “the better temperament and personality to be president.”
“Domestic issues are the outstanding issues of the day, and Obama has been owning those,” says Susan Pinkus, the Los Angeles Times polling director. What is more, “voters are more comfortable with him” after his three debate performances.
Florida voters by more than 2-to-1 say a candidate’s views on domestic issues such as health care and the economy are more important than positions on the war in Iraq and terrorism; voters in Ohio say the same by a 3-to-1 margin.
Crucial States
No Republican has won the White House without capturing Ohio, and Florida helped George W. Bush obtain two terms in the White House. The current U.S. electoral map, polls show, indicates it would be almost impossible for McCain, 72, to win without carrying those two states.
In 2004, Bush won 286 Electoral College votes, including Ohio’s 20 and Florida’s 27. It takes 270 to win and if Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic nominee, had won either of those states, he would have defeated the incumbent president.
Less than a week before the Nov. 4 election, Obama is running ahead in all the states that Kerry won, and is highly competitive in more than half a dozen states where Bush prevailed.
There’s also a gender gap in the Democrat’s favor. Among women voters in Florida, Obama leads 51 percent to 41 percent; in Ohio, his lead is 54 percent to 38 percent. Obama has a small lead among men in Florida, while McCain is slightly ahead with male voters in Ohio.
Temperament
In Florida, 58 percent of voters say Obama has a better temperament to be president, compared with 30 percent for McCain. In Ohio, Obama beats McCain on that question 57 percent to 29 percent.
“I find Obama to be pretty calm under any circumstance,” says poll respondent Donna Orcutt, 63, of Toledo, Ohio. “In the debates, some of the zingers he got he handled pretty good. If the object was to see if they could make him lose his temper, that didn’t happen.”
Orcutt, a Democrat who is retired and used to work for a house-cleaning company and as a secretary, says Obama has a better understanding of the economy because he didn’t grow up in a privileged environment. McCain, she says, “is a very nice man,” though he has never had to worry “about where the next paycheck is coming from.”
On the question of which candidate they trust to make the right decision about the economy, voters in Florida pick Obama over McCain by a 9-point margin, and in Ohio, the Democrat leads by 12 points.
Health Care
Obama does even better on the question of which candidate would better handle health care. In Florida, he is preferred by 52 percent of voters, compared with 34 percent for McCain; in Ohio, 54 percent pick Obama and 30 percent choose the Republican.
The Democrat also is ahead with white working-class voters, who overwhelmingly favored his opponent for the Democratic nomination, Senator Hillary Clinton of New York. Obama gets the support of 52 percent of these voters in Ohio, compared with 38 percent for McCain; in Florida, this group is almost evenly split, with a slight edge for Obama.
Even though Bush used victories in Ohio and Florida to build his winning coalition, more than seven in 10 voters in both states now disapprove of his job performance; more than eight in 10 say the country is on the wrong track.
Seventy percent of voters in Florida and 62 percent in Ohio say the recent troubles in the economy have hurt their family’s financial situation.
Change Agent
Ohio and Florida voters also say the ability to bring change to Washington — a central theme of Obama’s campaign — is more important than having the most experience, which is one of McCain’s selling points.
“I truly see Obama as someone who will come in with a less political and more intelligent problem-solving approach to really trying to address the critical problems,” says poll respondent Laurie Kadoch, 60, a Miami Democrat, who teaches at Florida International University College of Law.
Bush’s record is hurting McCain in Ohio, where more than half of voters say the Republican will continue the current administration’s policies. Voters also are split on that question in Florida.
As in previous polls, the bright spots for McCain are his ability to successfully handle the war in Iraq and protect the country from terrorism. The Arizona senator leads Obama in those categories in both states, the poll shows.
“He does have a whole lot more experience than Obama does,” said Republican poll respondent Maria Lyle, 25, a stay- at-home mother from Jackson Center, Ohio. “His ideas line up more with how I feel. With the terrorism issue, I feel we do need to have our troops over there.”
Palin Pick
McCain’s choice of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to be his running mate appears to be a drag on the ticket in both states. Less than half of voters in Florida and Ohio view her as qualified to be president. By comparison, more than seven in 10 voters in both states say Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Biden, a Delaware senator, is qualified to be president.
The survey of 809 registered voters in Florida — including 639 likely voters — and of 816 registered voters in Ohio — including 644 likely voters — was conducted Oct. 25-27. The margin of sampling error in both states is plus or minus 3 percentage points among registered voters, and of plus or minus 4 points among likely voters.
If someone whose citizenship is validly questionable to be eligible for elected office refuses to provide the documentation he is in fact a citizen the military won’t recognize him as commander in chief until he answers up.
I have a feeling Obama is not concerned about what he swears to. I just don’t think it’s an issue for him. He does what he needs to do, to accomplish what he wants to accomplish.
Right. And that makes his word worthless. And that makes him amoral, a mercenary who’ll do whatever it takes to achieve whatever ends he deems worthy, the rest of us be damned.
Hey moron. He said there was a fundamental flaw in the constitution. He was talking about its allowance of slavery and its provision that African Americans should be counted as 3/5 of a person. Read the remarks you are referencing. So would you disagree with Obama’s assessment? Do you think there wasn’t a major flaw in the constitution? If thats the case I think you better explain to your readers why you support slavery. I’m interested in hearing that one. And by the way loud mouth, facism and marxism are on completely opposite ends of the ideological spectrum.
The so-called three-fifths clause:
“Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.”
This was PURELY for taxation and representation purposes, and had NOTHING to do with justifying or promoting slavery. Notice that Indians who did not pay taxes were not counted at all.
Slavery was legal in the American colonies, just as it had been legal in Great Britain whose law the colonies respected. After America rebelled, the founding fathers realized that slavery would be a breaking point. They could not outlaw slavery and have a nation. They did not outright BAN slavery, but they wrote the Constitution in such a way that slavery would inevitably BE banned in the future. There was no flaw in the Constitution.
This is what our founding fathers said:
John Jay, great supporter of the Constitution after its creation and an author of The Federalist wrote in 1786, “It is much to be wished that slavery may be abolished. The honour of the States, as well as justice and humanity, in my opinion, loudly call upon them to emancipate these unhappy people. To contend for our own liberty, and to deny that blessing to others, involves an inconsistency not to be excused.”
Oliver Ellsworth, one of the signers of the Constitution wrote, a few months after the Convention adjourned, “All good men wish the entire abolition of slavery, as soon as it can take place with safety to the public, and for the lasting good of the present wretched race of slaves.”
Patrick Henry, the great Virginian patriot, refused to attend the Convention because he “smelt a rat,” was outspoken on the issue, despite his citizenship in a slave state. In 1773, he wrote, “I believe a time will come when an opportunity will be offered to abolish this lamentable evil. Everything we do is to improve it, if it happens in our day; if not, let us transmit to our descendants, together with our slaves, a pity for their unhappy lot and an abhorrence of slavery.”
As to the “3/5 of a person”, this refers to the Dred Scott case. That was the product of the SAME judicial activism that brought us Roe v. Wade and abortion. Don’t blame the Constitution; blame the activist judges who create law out of whatever the hell they want like Obama would appoint. It is frankly amazing to me that the SAME arguments justifying abortion are made that once justified slavery. Only liberals are too morally stupid to understand it.
What Obama is saying is that the Constitution defines what government CAN’T do to take away the “inalienable rights” that were ordained by God (Declaration of Independence). Obama doesn’t like that. He wants the Constitution to positively state what the government gets to DO for (and by extension to) the people. In other words, Obama wants to turn the whole Constitution on its head.
Another blogger who obviously has not listened to the program that he refers to, demonstrating his willful ignorance and ridiculous fear mongering.
First, to correct a factual inaccuracy, Obama does not refer to the Constitution as “fundamentally flawed”. That is a description he uses for Colonial and American culture. The flaw he is apparently talking about is slavery and racism. The only critical term he uses for the Constitution is ‘imperfect’. He also calls the Constitution “a remarkable political document that paved the way for where we are now”.
That part of the discussion is about the acceptance of slavery in the Constitution. A document intended to protect liberty that allows for slavery is clearly both “imperfect” and flawed. Some of the framers and strongest supporters of the Constitution believed this as well.
Whatever the particular argument that Obama was making, the idea that someone who believes that the Constitution is flawed cannot swear to protect and defend it is nonsense. The Constitution is an imperfect document created by imperfect people. The framers understood this and included the ability to alter the Constitution. Anyone who supports a Constitutional amendment believes that the Constitution is flawed. This includes our current President, with his support of a Defense of Marriage amendment, and other Presidents as well. I would bet that some of the authors of posts like this one support some change in the Constitution as well.
Additional note for the author- Fascism and Marxism were ideologies that strongly and violently opposed each other. They made our squabbles between liberals and conservatives look like a Sunday picnic. Calling someone a fascist, Marxist just makes you look silly.
AMEN to Brendan! A sane voice amidst the babble!
ai and Brandon,
Moron? Please.
No, I didn’t listen, but I read his words.
Perhaps you two might as well.
Perhaps, then, all of those who support Obama might read some of his words and chew on them.
But, then, would they understand what he said or be able to sift through the mountains of crap he’s uttered.
Just a thought, mind you.
We can’t say our parents didn’t warn us with their old sayings and stories back in the day.
The wolf in sheep’s clothing
The pied piper who gets revenge on society by seducing the children
Too good to be true
Actions speak louder than words
Beauty is only skin deep
You can’t be all things to all people
Bad company corrupts good character
I’m hoping the last story is the tortoise and the hare, myself.
Good question. The answer is that old, dead documents like the bible and the constitution mean nothing to our cultural and political elites. But our superiors in Hollywood and Washington are careful not to show too much disdain for these artifacts, since they are cultural totems for great unwashed who still cling to guns and prejudice.
The ends justify the means. That’s all you need to know…
– Nietzsche is Dead
I wouldn’t know where to start. You guys need to get a life and stop obsessing on your weird imagined conspiratorial nonsense.
Obama was saying that after the Civil Rights movement he could now sit at a counter and order a cup of coffee - IF he could pay for it. His point was that the Constitution was not sufficient to provide for the money for his cup of coffee.
His statements were not about more than the above. That’s the whole idea…we need to pay for everyone’s coffee. If he can’t change the Constitution to pay for the coffee, he’ll do it through organizations like ACORN.
Why do you suppose that the Constitution contained the curious clause, “three fifths of all other Persons”? Hint: it was a compromise between opposing viewpoints. So, who argued for and against the “three fifths” clause?
The South included most but not all of the slaves. Do you think the South was arguing to reduce their representation in Congress? Hell, no. The South wanted to count 100% of the slaves in determining their representation. It was the North, including Abolitionists, who refused to accept slaves as whole persons, at least for the purpose of representation in Congress. This is a matter of historical record.
It is also a matter of historical record that the Amended Constitution long since eliminated slavery. Zero’s complaint was that the Constitution of the United States of America did not meet the standards for redistribution of wealth as established by Karl Marx in the Communist Manifesto. He explicitly stated that this was a failure by our founding fathers, when in fact the Constitution was written to keep the government out of our affairs, not to assure that the government had power over our affairs. If we wanted the government to have power over our affairs, we could have remained a colony of Great Britain or joined the Soviet Union.
Zero wants change, but he won’t tell you what that change will be. You get to find that out after you elect him.
Fascism was national socialism; communism was class-based socialism. BUT THEY WERE BOTH SOCIALIST, AND SOCIALISM IS PART OF THE NAME OF THE NAZI PARTY JUST AS IT IS THE USSR. Both Fascism and communism come from the far left (if fascism is “conservative,” please explain what the hell they are trying to conserve). They both start from many of the same philosophical premises, and both lead to the same totalitarian outcomes. Neither believed in individual liberties, but insisted that all rights resided in the state. Both utterly rejected a Transcendent God who could endow men with rights. What fascism and communism had in common far outweighed their differences.
Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union made a pact with one another, and were actually allies, before Hitler turned on Stalin. The statement “Fascism and Marxism were ideologies that strongly and violently opposed each other” is quite simply asinine. After the war, Communists began to identify fascism as the polar opposite of communism (and there were no more Nazis to defend Nazism). But no one who understands fascism would make such a mistake.
Here are Obama’s own words:
I think that we can say that the Constitution reflected the enormous blind spot in this culture that carries on until this day and that the framers had that same blind spot. I don’t think the two views are contradictory to say that it was a remarkable political document that paved the way for where we are now and to say that it also reflected the fundamental flaw of this country that continues to this day.
The Constitution is the greatest political document in human history, and has led to more greatness, more success, more freedom, and more celebration of the dignity of the human spirit than any political document from any nation that has ever existed under the sun.
Barack Obama trashed it, pure and simple. He wants a Constitution that promotes “redistributionist change.” And he thinks the founding fathers, with their “enormous blind spots,” wrote a fundamentally flawed document.
btw, Obama also compared America with Nazi Germany:
“I mean you’ve got World War II, you’ve got uh, uh, uh, the doctrines of Nazism, that, that we are fighting against, that start looking uncomfortably similar to what we have going on, back here at home.”
Hitler once said he would let his dogs use the American Constitution for a litter box. I guess we can look at the bright spot and dwell on the fact that Obama hasn’t said something like that - or at least it hasn’t come out yet…
That Fascism and Marxism were ideologies that strongly and violently opposed each other is a historical fact that is easily confirmed. Stating it is hardly ‘asinine’. Before making comments like that try reading a little history. And, no, Jonah Goldberg doesn’t count.
You got one thing almost right. The Nazi’s (not Fascists in general) did call themselves the National Socialists. Socialist was a term used by a lot of political movements in the post WWI era, some of them had nothing to do with, or actively opposed Marxism. The ruling party in Germany that the Nazis opposed called itself socialist. The Nazi’s started off considering themselves a kind of third way movement, but as they grew in power they found more of their members and allies came from the political right in Germany. Later they allied themselves with the Fascist movement that had spread from Italy to other parts of Europe. From the beginning they were strongly opposed to Communism and considered it a threat to Germany.
That Hitler and Stalin made an agreement to divide up Poland doesn’t tell us anything about them other than that they both wanted Polish land. Hitler had declared his intent to destroy the Soviet Union several years before the ‘Non-Aggression Pact’ was agreed to.
Italian Fascism and the movements which copied it all were strongly anti-Communist. They all warned against the threat of international-socialism. The two factions clashed often and the outcomes were often violent. In Spain there was open warfare with the Communists siding with the Spanish Republic to fight the Fascists.
Is it fair to call an ideology as extreme and revolutionary as Fascism conservative? No, of course some of the extreme members of our political right are hardly conservative either and they still like to call themselves that. The Fascists were socially conservative and proudly declared themselves anti-liberal. They railed against cultural degeneracy and moral decay and called for a return to traditional values. While some fascists opposed religion and the power of the church others openly embraced it and got some of their strongest support from the church. While I’m sure that you and I both find a great many things about Fascism repellant, it was embraced by the political right of the countries it came to power in. And the idea that it opposed Communism was not some revision of the post war era.
Were there similarities in the things Fascists and Marxists did to achieve and hold on to power? Yes. Two extreme movements sharing a ruthlessness in their quest for power is not the same as sharing ideologies.
At least you actually quote some of what Obama had to say before claiming he said things that he didn’t. He in no way ‘trashed’ the Constitution. He doesn’t, in the entire interview, once call for any change in the Constitution.
The quote about “redistributionist change” comes from a discussion about the efforts to ensure equal funding for public schools. He makes an argument for using the political process instead of the courts to do that. He argues that, even in States that have a guaranteed right to an education in their State constitutions, the courts still aren’t the appropriate place to try to fix things like our educational system. While you might not agree with the goal of improving schools in poor neighborhoods, his argument is one that opposes judicial activism and using the courts instead of the democratic process.
I’m sure you think that you can just quote “redistribute” and make everyone think he must be talking about something sinister, but can we be a little intellectually honest here? In addition to public schools, state colleges and voucher programs are redistributions. So are Social Security and Medicare. Why don’t you go to a retirement community and ask them if its all just some Communist plot?
As for the quote about WWII; racism was a big part of Nazi philosophy. Racism was still a big part of our country in the 30’s and 40’s and still enshrined in the law of a lot of our states. The war effort was one of the events that helped this country realize its hypocrisy; whites and blacks both fighting and dying to stop the evil of Nazism.
For anyone who cares about this whole made up controversy, just find one of the unedited recordings or transcripts of the show and listen/read the whole thing and make your own mind up. If it doesn’t put you to sleep first.
You guys give me a stomach ache. Have you read the constitution? You seem more interested in hate speak than solutions. Apparently you like the state we are in thanks to the previous 8 years.
itsumama, as a matter of fact I have read a lot of the Constitution.
By your brook is not with me. Contact the attorney, the constitutional attorney with 30 years of constitutional law experience and four cases before the Supreme Court, of which he won three, and chat with him.
But you see, you can’t, because you’ve not intellectual horsepower to make any argument.
You Obama trolls have only knee-jerk robotic responses.
You label hate everything with which you disagree.
You’re the perfect poster children for Obama and what he is and who he represents.
BTW: For stomach ache, I recommend Pepto-Bismol. Or that you stay away from places that challenge that intellect or mores or ideologies or yours.
I have been a Republican for my entire life, but I am now ashamed of what the GOP has turned into. The GOP used to stand for small government, and not punishing those who have done well for themselves, but that is not what they are today. Today, the Republican party seems more concerned with pandering to out of date religious fundamentalists, rednecks, and biggots. They speak of heartland America in their speeches, but only pass policy in favor of large companies, no matter the concequence to American families.
I have always supported deregulation in favor of the trickle-down effect, but in light of the current financial crisis and widespread corruption in corporate America, I now see that this method is not working. Maybe I’ll be viewed as a traitor to the GOP, which is fine with me, but I can no longer support a party that has strayed so far from its core values.
As far as slamming Obama for expressing his feelings about our ailing country, you should be ashamed of yourself; though, I suspect you won’t. It’s easy to see from reading your article and subsequent posts, that you are hardcore Republican, no matter what they do to this country. I would be willing to bet that you would never consider a Democratic candidate, and you would always find something to hate about them, simply because they do not fall in line with the party politics you so evidently worship. I feel sorry for you. I would never ask you to betray your core beliefs, whether they be religious, monetary, social, or other, but to regurgitate the propaganda that the GOP employed during this election, to attempt to undermine the president-elect, is dispicable.
I ask you to re-read your article and realize how much hate is in your general tone, then tell me how your actions are working to help our country.
A truly disgusted American,
Kyle
Fascism and Marxism may start out in different directions with diferent ideals, but they end up in the same place at the bottom of the circle. Totalitarianism.
Faulting these founders over slavery, which was in existence when they were born and while they were raised is missing the realities of the times.
They made the best document for success to date. It’s what still manages to hold the country together, though it’s grip is slipping in a serious way. When the lawmakers ignore the constitution, the ramifications filter down throughout the system.
By the way, for you “dyed in the wool” Republicans, you are aware of Bushes take on the document I assume. “Don’t wave that in my face, it’s just a goddamned piece of paper”.
Thanks for your comment.
BTW: No “dyed in the wool” Republicans.
Wish you and others like you who make that comment would understand that there is not necessarily any intersection between being a Republican and conservative, especially these days.
Confusing those of us who are conservatives with Republicans is a mistake.
Was a mistake for the Republicans, too.