Monday, October 24, 2011

The Constitution? It's Just a Piece of Paper

Remember when Dubya made that statement? His actual words were "Stop throwing the Constitution in my face! It's just a goddamned piece of paper!", an appalling statement that I wrote about at the time.

And that's evidently what current Rethug front-runner, former pizza chef chief and full time cynical manipulator of the low-information voter Herman Cain thinks as well. He's a little more slick than Baby Doc, but he is either woefully misinformed on exactly what is in the constitution, or he's pandering to the Rethug base.

Why else would he make so many egregious constitutional errors in his speeches, in his off-the-cuff remarks, such as these:

  • Pledging to “sign” a constitutional amendment outlawing abortion if he is elected president: Actually, presidents have no duties at all when it comes to amendments.
  • Confusing Founding Documents: In his speech announcing his candidacy for the presidency, Cain lectured the nation to “reread the Constitution.” Rather than take his own advice, however, Cain quoted the Constitution as saying that “when any form of government becomes destructive of those ideals, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it.” Those words are not in the Constitution, although a very similar phrase appears in the Declaration of Independence, which, in case Cain is not aware, is actually an entirely different document than the Constitution.
  • Banning Worship: As part of a wide-ranging campaign of hate against Islam, Cain claimed that local communities have a right to ban mosques. The Constitution disagrees. It forbids laws restricting the “free exercise” of a person’s faith.
  • No More Medicare or Medicaid: During his time as a talk radio host, Cain claimed that absolutely every single line of the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional. One problem with this radical view is that if Congress cannot subsidize health care — one of the key functions of the ACA — then Medicare and Medicaid are also unconstitutional.
  • Unrepealable Laws: Cain doesn’t just support a radical tax plan that would create the largest deficits since World War II, slash taxes on the wealthy and jack up taxes on the poor, he proposed effectively locking that plan in place permanently. The Constitution forbids lawmakers from preventing their successors from repealing new laws.
  • Letting Arizona Start A War: Cain also wants to give each state the power to set its own immigration policy. The Constitution, however, leaves immigration almost entirely up to the national government because immigration policy is so closely tied to foreign policy. Nations have gone to war over another nation’s treatment of their citizens, so no one state should have the ability to force the entire United States into this kind of conflict.
And I believe that this is just the proverbial tip of the iceberg when it comes to that vast but empty storehouse of knowledge residing in the brain of Cain. But, since there is virtually zero chance that he will actually become president, I think we can relax.

Actually the Cain campaign is nothing more than a public relations tour designed to sell more books and get higher speaker's fees from the frothing wingnut morons who are willing to pay this joker for the privilege of being snookered by his moronic but undoubtedly charismatic snake oil.

4 Comments:

the yellow fringe said...

So do you think he could still end up on someone's ticket as the token crazy fuck? The bus to area 51 is loaded with prospects, competition will be fierce. I think the veep list has to include bobby jendel, porky from new jersey, and the rabbit in the hat that would light the rights candle, Condi Rice. I have always been baffled by how many red necks tell me they like her. I guess gaddaffee wasn't the only duck that wiled away the evening looking at pictures of the gap between her front teeth. Praise Onan.

Sarge said...

Vet,
The man is at best a baffoon. And,
the far right/far white wants a white man in their White House.
Conversely, evangelical christains will not vote for a Mormon. Perry scares the shit out of people -and Ron Paul is a kook and Bachmann is even worse.

Bests,


Sarge

Farnsworth68 said...

Thanks, guys. I'm left in a total state of ROTFLMAO. I heard Mike Papantonio on the Big Eddie show this afternoon likening the Rethug field to the cast of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and he said that even Dr. Frank N. Furter would be scared by these guys. Having seen it a number of times (usually in a state of mental dishabille), I have to agree with him.
-- The F Man

Anonymous said...

Fing Uncle Tom 1%er. Good thing Bat5h@t Bachmann has a better chance of winning than him, but we'd just get another flavor of Ayn Rand crap-cake that the U.S. aristocracy wants to feed us.

-WageslaveZ-