Without a clue, the loudest can convince

In this case, the loudest of the loud is the Tea Party. The 25 October 2010 edition of Newsweek features a well-written and well-reasoned analysis of this phenomenon which has been compared to the old John Birch Society (where is the Chad Mitchell Trio when we really need it?).

I read the article yesterday and suggested to several people that they should expect the magazine's editorial offices to be firebombed. Two of my listeners said they expect violence in the streets because of the Tea Totalitarians (afterwards referred to as the TTs).

The TTs claim to be originalists in regard to the Constitution but Newsweek compares this loosely defined group with famous originalists like Barbara Jordan and Abraham Lincoln for whom their stance on the document was "an integrative force." The Newsweek writers see the TTs as coming from "a tradition of divisive fundamentalism (emphasis mine as it will be throughtout)."

Unable to either cope with or accept contemporary society, their refuge is "authoritarian scripture and the imagined past it supposedly represents." For the TT, the Constitution confirms their "preexisting beliefs."

There have been other movements of this type: The American Liberty League of the 1930s and, in the 1960s, the above mentioned JBS. More recently, something called the Constitution Party sprang up in 1992 (Hmm, is there a 30 year cycle to this sort of radical right activism?) with sharron angle as a member. These people saw the Bible as the basis of AMerican jurisprudence. No wonder christine o'donnell had no idea that there is a legal separation of church and state. angle herself sees that tenet of law, that founding assumption so close to the hearts of the FFs as unconstitutional. palin preaches that rights are God-given. (Poor God! He gets blamed for everything!)

The Newsweek piece acknowledges that the Constitution is remarkable but goes on to as which Constitution should be revered as the writer(s) see several Constitutions have emerged over time. (I have long said that technology has a push-pull effect on society and ethics . . . several of our most vocal contributors to these boards disagree.)

The article concludes with a call for debate which the writers imply the TT does not brook. It quotes Jefferson who disdained " ' men [who] look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence,, and deem them like the arc of the covenant, too sacred to be touched.' " In the same letter to a friend in which the above words appear, he cautioned against thinking men of previous ages more wise than men today. Jefferson believed that while we are all dependent upon our forefathers, we should never feel that what they said and did " 'to be beyond amendment' " and that we should not believe any generation is incapable " 'of taking care of itself, and of ordering its own affairs.' "