There are, evidently, several right wing politicians in the GOP now arguing for nullification. These are not just John Birchers sniping from their mother's basement, but elected members of Congress.
Perhaps this is good for me. I have had to do a little research on nullification beyond Calhoun's 19th century charge. I had not connected the South's "Southern Manifesto" in response to Brown v. Board as a new version of "nullification," though it clearly was. And, in fact, in Cooper v. Aaron (1958) the Supremes ruled that southerners could not simply ignore court rulings they did not like.
And that is what really bugs me about this. This is the right wing version of "I am taking my ball and going home." There is no compromise on issues, and no recognition that we can often--hell, always--find ourselves having to "agree to disagree." That means that I end up living with policies that I don't agree with. I don't agree with the Patriot Act, and I certainly don't agree with Bush and Obama's decision to continue mining our phone and internet transactions sans warrant. That doesn't mean that I withdraw from the union. It means that I continue to participate in a system where I don't always get my way.
But conservatives--or this branch now running the GOP--don't operate that way. They are the only ones who appreciate the constitution. They are the only ones loyal to the country. And if they don't get their way, they will show us by rejecting the very country they say they love more than we do.
4 comments:
Your point about taking their toys and going home pretty much sums up the demagoguery wing of the conservatives. They have based their most vocal rantings on the politics of hurt and retribution; they have been wronged instead of just being on the wrong side of a vote. Fuck, listening to Palin, Beck, Doubt-Hat and the litany of others is like reading my own asshole "poor me" poetry from my middle school years when I was all hormones and Nine Inch Nails...
So you said it. They're mad about losing some big votes, and they'll argue for nullification because it'll offer immediate, short term relief for their woes, regardless of its long-term effects.
In my mind, we are seeing the revenge of the Confederacy. These ideas have all been relegated to the dustbin of history, except in this wing of the GOP et al. I believe these ideas spread out of Texas after some of these people gained a national voice via their oil wealth.
I see the beginnings in a letter written by President Eisenhower to his brother Edgar on November 8, 1954, saying:
Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H. L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.
The point he raises here is the source of these impossible, foolish throwbacks. Sheltered by their wealth and ignorance, they think they can repeal all these programs that help so many (well farm subsidies maybe not).
"I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor's lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers."
MLK Jr.
Post a Comment