After the recent Supreme Court ruling that struck down Texas regulations on abortion clinics as arbitrary and/or lacking sound medical basis, abortion foes pounced on Donald Trump for not saying anything about it.
Shocking, I tell ya! A man who supported abortion all of his life not having much to say about lifting restrictions on abortion!
Of course, it is shocking only to those who actually believe Donald Trump had an 8th-decade conversion to the "pro-life" cause. Along with support for unregulated gun access and reading the Bible daily. Etc.
It appears the Religious Right is as clueless as the NRA.
A 70 year old man suddenly has a change of heart over Jesus, guns and abortion ... all at the same time. How stupid do you have to be to NOT recognize this as a CON job? The right-wing's irrational fear and loathing over Hillary has made them pliable dolts.
For the Religious Right, who is instructed to "have the faith of a child" (per Jesus), I'm not completely surprised at their lack of curiosity and absence of skepticism. And, I guess I shouldn't be surprised by the NRA either since its #1 goal is to maximize the profit of gun manufacturers under the rubric of an absolutist 2nd amendment.
Tuesday, June 28, 2016
Thursday, June 16, 2016
No Sacred Amendments
There is nothing sacred about the Bill of Rights, in terms of permanence.
The Bill of Rights are simply the FIRST ten amendments to the Constitution.
They were added to the Constitution AFTER it was ratified by the States.
The people OF THOSE TIMES supported those amendments, just as Americans since then have supported amendments to support abolition of slavery and the right of women to vote, to name but a few.
We are no more bound by the amendments of the first American generation than future generations should be bound by amendments we support today. That's the whole point of a democracy, after all. It evolves, grows, learns, etc. - tempered by experience and reality. Not frozen in time.
Those who believe any amendment is beyond modification or even retraction simply do not understand how our liberal democratic system was setup to function.
This is what Thomas Jefferson had to say about change:
I'm sick and tired of hearing that we should be held hostage to what people in the 18th century thought about guns and their role when muskets and canons were the primary weapons of violence and war.
As a gun-owner myself, I'm quite content to use basic defense weapons for target practice. I don't need or want anything more. And, even if I did, I would give up access to higher-grade weapons as I'm not so selfish as to demand a right to recreational high-power target shooting at the expense of crazy people using same high-power weapons to decimate my fellow citizens.
The Bill of Rights are simply the FIRST ten amendments to the Constitution.
They were added to the Constitution AFTER it was ratified by the States.
The people OF THOSE TIMES supported those amendments, just as Americans since then have supported amendments to support abolition of slavery and the right of women to vote, to name but a few.
We are no more bound by the amendments of the first American generation than future generations should be bound by amendments we support today. That's the whole point of a democracy, after all. It evolves, grows, learns, etc. - tempered by experience and reality. Not frozen in time.
Those who believe any amendment is beyond modification or even retraction simply do not understand how our liberal democratic system was setup to function.
This is what Thomas Jefferson had to say about change:
"I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."
As a gun-owner myself, I'm quite content to use basic defense weapons for target practice. I don't need or want anything more. And, even if I did, I would give up access to higher-grade weapons as I'm not so selfish as to demand a right to recreational high-power target shooting at the expense of crazy people using same high-power weapons to decimate my fellow citizens.
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