Strict Construction

Funny how the Republicans are big on "strict construction" of the Constitution, i.e. getting back into the minds of the founders of the American democracy to understand their intent in writing the Constitution.

This very same Republican party picks and chooses what it considers to be "foundational". Brad DeLong points out that the anti-immigration stance of the Republican party goes directly against what one founder, Thomas Jefferson, and the signers of the Declaration of Independence had in mind for the United States. From Wikipedia's text of the Declaration of Independence:

He [the King] has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

The Declaration of Independence had a vision of the country in alignment with Emma Lazarus whose text adorns the Statue of Liberty. It is the text of her poem "The New Colossus":

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

But that isn't the vision for America held by the nativists inside the Republican party. They want to prevent immigration. They want to ship back the illegals (just like their intellectual predecessors wanted to ship the slaves back to Africa!). They are happy to split up families where the children hold citizenship but the parents are "illegals". These are the "principles" of the party that wants "strict construction" of the Constitution!

The Republicans are the party of short memory, of the infamous "Southern Strategy", and of sleazy "deals" with fanatics on the political right, i.e. it is the party that backs rednecks and antediluvians.

My favourite "strict construction" interpretation is the amazing transformation of the 2nd Amendment of the US Constitution which states:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Into a statement about an individual right to "bear arms". That is an "interpretation" worthy of the slickest snaky lawyer. Poor simple fools like myself, the naive and literal-minded, read "militia" as an organized military force. The supple, subtle minds of the Republican party and the NRA read "militia" to be clearly a synonym for "individual" as they use their ouija board to call up the spirits of the Founders and "strictly" interpret the Constitution. What a laugh!