"We warned the president -- don't ever, ever agree with the Republicans,"

[patrice]

198. The point was that the mandate should be rejected because it was proposed by the Heritage Fndtn.

Shall we reject the Constitution because of the imperfections/bad traits of those who proposed it?

Is that a good standard upon which to accept or reject an idea, . . . who proposed it? wow. Shouldn't the comparative MERITS and liabilities of an idea or person be primary?

The Constitution is the best, unless you are African American or Female and, because it was written by and for landed aristocracy who got that way through genocide on American Indians, we should include them in those who might have a less than worshipful attitude toward the Constitution.

Those who proposed the Constitution, exclusively white males with significant real estate, fought amongst themselves for about six months, to divide up and control power by designing a republic with somewhat less than direct democratic representation (look at the "balance of power" between the House and the Senate) of white males without real estate, screw everyone else . . . Is it any surprise that they FORGOT to define the Civil Rights of American Citizens, so when they sought ratification from their lower class supporters, the first thing that happened was that they had to go back and amend the Constitution to add The Bill of Rights? and, even then, they left a few out. It was imperfect even to those who wrote it and it has been amended on average a little over every 8 years since.

African Americans from whom these landed white males had been transferring wealth/labor for almost 170 years by the time the Constitutional Convention decided that they were 3/5 of a person each, purely as property of slave holders in order to increase THEIR power, were not freed by the Constitution when it was written and a great deal more wealth was legally transferred (by their status under the Constitution) from them until they were emancipated in 1863. That's 244 years of wealth transfer made legal by the Constitution. And that doesn't even mention the nearly 100 more years that it took the Constitution to recognize their Civil Rights.

Pretty much the same thing for women, except that that they got the right to vote quicker than African Americans did, but STILL are not protected from economic discrimination by an Equal Rights Amendment.

......................................................

Just as you cannot love someone unless you admit who they are, flaws, bad habits and all, you can't love what the Constitution is, what it did to create this nation, unless you love it warts and all.

The Constitution, an imperfect idea proposed by imperfect people, has since come to be seen as a structural PROCESS that CONTINUALLY takes us somewhere we weren't, but which we hope to be.

Why is it so hard to think the mandate, an imperfect idea proposed by imperfect people, could serve a similar purpose?

Or shall we just reject it out of hand, because of hate, because of who proposed it? My mother used to call that cutting your own nose off to spite THEIR face and it's fucking ignorant.