The Radical Right and The Constitution

Why are matters of rather small import catapulted into fiery public rhetoric as if they defined the spirit of America? In a world of complex relationships and violent conflicts public debate rages over gun control, abortion and opposition-induced paranoia that big government is out to curtail individual freedom and control our lives.

The agents of deceit and rancor have been successful in whipping large segments of the populace into a frenzy over real and imagined threats; what the radical right fails to accomplish through rational debate it manipulates through misrepresentation and fear. Strangely, despite the secretive and intrusive policies of the Bush years, an impatient electorate shows signs of returning the party of a ruinous agenda to power once again. All manner of malcontents have gathered into an odd ‘grass-roots’ amalgam egged on by the vituperative verbal machinations of media pundits who play to a restive audience in the name of what they say the ‘original founders’ had in mind.

But those who claim to be constitutional absolutists ignore the specific admonition in that document that religion play no part in the selection of elected officials. They often insist this is a Christian nation and attempt to codify that particular frame of reference into a national legislative construct. And when it comes to the second amendment, they disconnect the clear intent of the framers that to maintain a well-ordered militia the right to bear arms should not be abridged. They insist that everyone has a right to own and sport a weapon. That’s okay, though, because the Supreme Court agrees with them.

We are beset with a court that rules narrowly when it comes to individual rights as when they overturned a lower court ruling that had awarded Lily Ledbetter damages for her company’s unjust salary practices because she failed, according to the company’s rules, to act in a timely manner to adjudicate her claim. They could have decided each pay period and her retirement package represented a new discriminatory incident, but they did not. On the other hand, the court rules expansively when it comes to its conservative bent, allowing corporations as ‘persons’ to contribute freely to political campaigns. They could simply have addressed the specific case at issue, as is the usual custom, but they chose to expand their reach and essentially legislate from the bench, overturning established law.

Should there be no limits to the rights of gun-owners? Shall we return to the “thrilling days of yesteryear” when streets echoed with the sound of gunfire and only a lone masked man and his faithful pal, Tonto, stood between bad guys and hapless town-folk? With the passage of time, sheriffs and marshals confiscated guns until their owners left town, to keep shooting deaths to a minimum at least in populated areas.

But we seem to have taken a step backward with thuggish men brandishing weapons strapped to their legs at public political gatherings, guns allowed in our national parks, and in church, should the need to kill an abortion provider arise. In one state, police selling guns seized from criminals discovered they were subsequently used in other crimes though the department seems unfazed by that fact and continues the practice. Starbucks recently decided to go along with ‘right-to-carry’ regulations and allow customers to bring guns into its establishments. A cartoon in Newsweek provides a chuckle about our unfunny, irrational universe - - A man outside a Starbucks tells his wife he’s going in for a coffee and says to her “cover me.”

The radical right has done a good job of convincing impressionable followers falsely that the government is trying to control their health care and turn the country into a Socialist enclave. And they further instruct them that they have an inalienable right to carry a gun because the Constitution and the Supreme Court say so. They say guns don’t kill people; actually though, people with guns kill people. Does even the most rabid gun advocate imagine the founding fathers could have envisioned semi-automatic weapons or countenanced guns at social events and political assemblies?

Right wing zealots claim they uphold a principled political agenda but offer instead self-serving versions of patriotism and the Constitution and manage to deceive an easily swayed public while more rational voices fail to make a convincing case for the change voters supported in the last election.

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