No I don't 'revere' the Constitution and here's a bit of why

In my post a week and a half ago about the Supreme Court's Trump v Anderson ruling on ballot access, in his second comment, at one point, Cruxdaemon said:

In the Constitution that we all revere, federal elections are actually state elections.

Oh, no, as I told him back:

And, no, I don't "revere" the Constitution. I'm a leftist, not a liberal. I "accept" the Constitution. THAT is something entirely different.

And, here's a bit more detail on why.

First, directly related to that issue? Article III of the Constitution, on qualifications of judges? There's no minimum age to be a Supreme Court justice or inferior court federal judge. There's no minimum number of years of U.S. citizenship. There's no U.S. citizenship requirement at all!

I noted that in my "Swiftian modest proposal" piece on Substack, where I doubled down on the Alabama Supreme Court ruling that IVF eggs are humans, and said that if I were elected president, I'd be the ultimate pro-lifer by appointing such an egg to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Next, to go back to another originalist issue. And, that's the "three-fifths compromise" and other things in the Constitution dealing with "other persons," "such persons," or "person held to Service or Labor." The word "slave" is nowhere in the Constitution, and "slavery" not until the Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing it (except in prison incarceration).

That's why William Lloyd Garrison called it:

"A covenant with death ... and an agreement with hell."

And he was right, excepting that this secularist knows hell doesn't exist. And, per the Thirteenth Amendment not calling incarceration "slavery," that's one more reason not to "revere" the Constitution.

In addition, I said, in my discussion of oral argument in the case a month ago, that the Constitution is in many ways a "clusterfuck."

I venture that Cruxdaemon smokes some Constitutional Law Scholar president hopium, or thinks Akil Reed Amar is a genius of modern constitutional interpretation. He's not:

The Constitution Today: Timeless Lessons for the Issues of Our Era by Akhil Reed Amar
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

How Amar got to be a constitutional law prof at Yale writing dreck like he does, I don't know. This book is just the latest example, starting from the header.

Only dyed-in-the-wool originalists would talk about "timeless lessons" from the Constitution with a straight face and no nuance.

There are plenty of other howlers just in the introduction. Let's look:

"Between 1804, when the Constitution was amended to downgrade the vice presidency ..." (page 12)

Erm, the 12th Amendment did no such thing. The body of the Constitution clearly, with the amount of powers it specified for each office, showed how the VP was clearly "downgraded." If the words of the Constitution's body aren't clear enough, the comment of our first Veep, John Adams, writing well before the 12th Amendment, should be.

ALL the 12th Amendment did was create separate electoral colleges and electoral voting for the two offices. Period.

Then, on page 15, he buys into the money = speech argument on campaign finance, further showing where his interpretive bread is buttered. Long before Citizens United was wrongly adjudicated, Buckley was also wrongly adjudicated.

On page 17, he supports the National Popular Vote project without telling you that it would not survive a constitutional challenge.

Beyond his constitutional nuttery is this, in a footnote already on page 4:

"Slate makes a point of recording the precise minute that an item is published," as if this were special, even quasi-unique.

Erm, Amar, the semiweekly newspaper I edit does that. He sounds like Poppy Bush gushing in awe over a supermarket scanner.

I had been quite underwhelmed by a previous book of Amar's. I decided to give him another chance. He failed long before I read through the various actual essays in most chapters. (I did read the introductory summaries of several chapters, lest I be accused of not reading at all past the introduction. Besides, even if I had stopped at the introduction, per the above, I'd read more than enough.)

View all my reviews

And again, he's not, per that "earlier book" reference:

America's Unwritten Constitution: The Precedents and Principles We Live By by Akhil Reed Amar
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Good, but not nearly as good as all the fluffing reviews crack it up to be. And, it's got a couple of specific problems.

It's perhaps a 3.5 star, but, I'm moving down rather than up a half star.

Among its problems?

Amar claims that the Constitution enshrines 2-party government. No it doesn't, not even after the 12th Amendment. Even taking into account his definition of an unwritten Constitution, it doesn't, not from where I sit. Things like the requirement for members of the Federal Election Commission, etc., are sub-constitutional.

Second is his quirky interpretation of the Second Amendment being written to enshrine local militia vis-a-vis a standing national army. That would surely be news to George Washington and probably to at least a few others of the Founders, as well as many Constitutional scholars past and present. Rather, it was surely written to make sure that local militias would be well-organized when, as necessary, they would be called into national service; i.e., seeing militias as adjuncts, not in opposition.

Third is the naivete in the last chapter about future Constitutional amendments. With the tea partiers of today, at least some of them, wanting to throw out the 17th Amendment and its direct election of senators, Amar's political acumen must seriously be questioned.

Finally, per one other reviewer, these are the biggest, but not the only ways, in which Amar offers unsubstantiated opinion.

The only outstandingly good part was his discussion of the rights of jurors, including not just nullification, but the right to convict of a lesser charge than the one in front of them and more.

Well, I'd heard of him for some time. And now I've read him. No need to read him further.

View all my reviews