Saturday, January 7, 2012

A Republican Misunderstanding

You would think ... or at least hope ... that most sane, reasonable and responsible Republicans would be ashamed and embarassed that the current field of candidates is the best the party could scrounge up. It's perfectly acceptable to have a few off-the-wall beliefs or the occasional personality quirk. What's not acceptable is to base one's entire political belief-system on off-the-wall, contemptible, and in many respects just plain ignorant positions. And even more unacceptable is to then do your damndest to foist those beliefs on the American people. What Mr. Santorum and many like him fail to understand and appreciate is that they have entirely the wrong view of the U.S. Constitution. It's his, and those like him, belief that unless a 'right' is specifically mentioned, then it simply does not exist. He could not be more wrong. The U.S. Constitution lays-out in fairly straight-forward language the boundaries within which the various branches of the government must operate. It also carefully enumerates a few specific "rights" which it has been felt from time-to-time throughout this nation's history needed to be reaffirmed; in case anyone got the idea that they could act in ways which abridged those rights. All other rights/liberties/freedoms not specifically mentioned in the Constitution belong to the people. The U.S. Constitution was not crafted to serve as a checklist for what Americans could and could not do. It was created entirely for the singular purpose of defining and instructing how our government can and cannot conduct the people's business. Perhaps Mr. Santorum and his fellow candidates need a refresher course on Constitutional Law. Or perhaps he should simply READ the copy of the document he professes to have on his person at every waking moment. Whatever he chooses to do, he should also STOP trying to turn the document upon which this nation was founded into his own personal "Whack-a-Mole" hammer with which to squash the rights, liberties and freedoms that belong first, foremost and forever to the American people.

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