Liberal talk show host Rachael Maddow and former ultra-conservative U.S. Senator Rick Santorim used the "3/5 Compromise"(Article 1, paragraph 2, section 3) portion of the Constitution to rile their respective base. Ms. Maddow said, and I'm paraphrasing, "...they didn't read the part about blacks being counted as 3/5 human" and Sen. Santorum said, again paraphrasing " I don't see how a black man could decide how much of a human someone else is", refering to abortions. They are both well aware that the compromise stemmed from negotiations over taxation and fair representation not the humanity or lack thereof of any segment of the population. Although more complicated than this brief summation, the end result was to count slaves and indentured servants as 3/5 of a person while free men were counted as whole. Many people through the years have concluded that this was purely a race based compromise but the truth is, in many cases, black men in the Free States were allowed to vote and indentured servants were seldom of African descent.
Another example of "used and abused" is the Second Ammendment. The ratified version reads simply, "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." Some would have us believe that this amendment guarantees all Americans the right to arms, period, without qualification. Others believe it is an anachranism and that in a modern society with police and a standing army , it is simply no longer necessary or tenable. Historcally, the thought and purpose of the 2nd Amendment stemmed from a debate between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson about a standing army. John Adams felt we would be best served by an standing Army trained and ready to protect a fledgling nation from any and all outside forces. Thomas Jefferson felt that a standing army would become isolated and insular from the civilian population they were sworn to protect and that we would best be served by a series of well organized militias. To that effect the Second Amendment was written and adopted. Now, will understanding the thought processes behind the 2nd Amendment likely change the opinions of the polorized? Probably not, but it might give pause to those on the fence about assault rifles and 30 round clips
The 14th Amendment was adopted in 1868 after the Civil War to insure that freed slaves were given the same rights as all other Americans. Unfortunately,as we are all well aware, it didn't work out quite like that. To speak to one point of the Amendment only, the Roberts Supreme Court addressing a small portion of the 14th Amendment, "any person born or naturalized" , was used in support of an activist clerk to bestow full, unqualified and unprecedented personhood on Corporations. The Roberts Court, Chief Justice John Roberts himself, crafted the case he wanted his court to hear and effectively drowned the voice of the People with a virtual flood of Corporate dollars, by legislating from the bench in the so-called Citizens United v. the FCC. The club over our heads is that this conservative wing of the Roberts Supreme Court knew full well that whatever precedent coporate person-hood enjoys can be laid squarley at the feet of a court reporters summation of the ruling for Santa Clara County v Southern Pacific Railroad, not the actual ruling itself.
This list could go on for quite some time, but that is not my intent. My intent is to point out that as long as we remain ignorant, we're like baby seals waiting for the club to strike. And it will strike. Patriotism, like many good and bad habits, is learned. Our children are running around out there either ideologically tainted by our own hatreds and fears, or simply ignorant of the greatness that our forefathers envisioned for this nation. Instead of teaching our children the unadulterated facts, ideals and intentions of our Constitutuion and it's framers, we allow states like Texas to remove Thomas Jefferson, maybe James Madison and even George Washington from their text books because of their "liberal bias". We are doing a huge disserivce to ourselves, our childern, our nations future and and the U.S. Constitution we all claim to hold so dear. Let's stop trying to politcize everything, especialy history and teach the facts. Reading, writing and arithmatic are important, but the soul of our nation is captured in the words of this revered document, why not try and understand it? Science, art and social studies seem to have fallen by the wayside on our quest to pass the test. We are creating a generation of children that can read, write and count, but have no understanding of the beauty of art, no curiosity for the science of the universe we live in and a lack of understanding of the basic concepts of that which made this the greatest nation in the history of the Earth.
Read a book, think for yourself. Let's not allow our history to be rewritten and our future taken from us because we can't be bothered to spend a little time educating oursevles. Let's stop balancing budgets on the future of America and educate the children. It's the least we can do. The very least.
