Dahlia Lithwick and Jeff Shesol: Repealing Common Sense
[Dahlia Lithwick is a Slate senior editor. Jeff Shesol is the author of Supreme Power: Franklin Roosevelt vs. The Supreme Court, which was just named a New York Times Notable Book of 2010.]
...For a party (whether of the Tea or Grand Old variety) that sees the Constitution as something so perfect as to have been divinely inspired, the idea that it needs to be altered fundamentally is beyond crediting, something like putting the Fifth Commandment up to a popular referendum. But the Tea Party vision of the Constitution has never been one of fidelity to the document itself, or even to the Framers. Instead, it's a devotion to those scraps and snippets of the Constitution they accept, an embrace of only the Framers they admire, and an eagerness to jettison anything that conflicts with or complicates that vision, including the rest of the Constitution....
There is so much wrong with the Repeal Amendment that it's difficult to know how to begin to respond. The Constitution is—by design—a nationalist document. It is also—again by design—an anti-democratic document. American history reveals precisely what happens when state or regional interests are allowed to trump national ones, and the Constitution has been at its best (for example, the Reconstruction Amendments) when it has addressed (and, better yet, resolved) that tension....
Read entire article at Slate
...For a party (whether of the Tea or Grand Old variety) that sees the Constitution as something so perfect as to have been divinely inspired, the idea that it needs to be altered fundamentally is beyond crediting, something like putting the Fifth Commandment up to a popular referendum. But the Tea Party vision of the Constitution has never been one of fidelity to the document itself, or even to the Framers. Instead, it's a devotion to those scraps and snippets of the Constitution they accept, an embrace of only the Framers they admire, and an eagerness to jettison anything that conflicts with or complicates that vision, including the rest of the Constitution....
There is so much wrong with the Repeal Amendment that it's difficult to know how to begin to respond. The Constitution is—by design—a nationalist document. It is also—again by design—an anti-democratic document. American history reveals precisely what happens when state or regional interests are allowed to trump national ones, and the Constitution has been at its best (for example, the Reconstruction Amendments) when it has addressed (and, better yet, resolved) that tension....