Department Of The Obvious

Tim Pawlenty walked back his tentherism today. I think it's dangerous to advance the idea that states can nullify federal laws based on a misreading of the Tenth Amendment - Civil Wars have been started over essentially that - but this brand of Republican hypocrites wouldn't dare go through with it. In fact, they're far more likely to parade around their states taking credit for expanding health care access based on the same exact policy they condemned when Obama was trying to pass it through Congress.

...Here's lead teabagger in Congress Jim DeMint with pretty much the same kind of statement:

Asked whether states should use the 10th Amendment to prevent health care reform from taking effect, he replied that an assertion of states’ rights was “probably the only way we’re going to stop this reckless spending.” He continued, “There’s no constitutional authority for the government to actually do [the reform proposed by Democrats], but whether the courts take it up is a different matter.”

The rules change, however, when it comes to Medicare.

DeMint expressed doubts as to the legality of Medicare under the Constitution, but said, “Regardless of constitutionality, it is a promise that we have to keep. … I think Medicare and Social Security have to be protected.”

Tenthers aren't just hypocrites, they're cowards, afraid of the consequences of their own nutty ideas.

Na Ga Happen

I don't doubt that tenthers want to use nullification or something like it to block health care reform in their states, but they'll back down so fast it'll make your head spin. These are some of the same right-wing governors who claimed they wouldn't accept stimulus money and then ran around their states withe giant novelty checks touting the funding. They're hypocrites, and won't give their opponents an opportunity to pull out some low-income person who was denied federal care and died because of their callousness.

Although, if Texas or any other Southern state wants to secede, and take all their right-wing Congressmen with them, I wouldn't exactly object.

The Rise Of The Tenthers

This is a very important article by Ian Millhiser for The American Prospect. Conservatives have found a new Amendment in the Bill of Rights to glorify, making a grand total of two, as they trash the other eight. Their entire Constitutional theory now rests on the tenth Amendment.

Almost a year after she called for an investigation to discover which members of Congress are "anti-American," Minnesota's nuttiest lawmaker is back. In a recent appearance with Fox's Sean Hannity, Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann accused her colleagues of "forg[etting] what the Constitution says" because they are poised to pass comprehensive health-care reform. Not to be outdone, Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina told right-wing activists on a conference call last Thursday that health reform violates the 10th Amendment; he also called on state legislators and governors to "champion individual freedom" by resisting the bill. Two Florida lawmakers beat DeMint to the punch, having already introduced legislation to block health reform from taking effect in their state.

These efforts are all part of a movement whose members are convinced that the 10th Amendment of the Constitution prohibits spending programs and regulations disfavored by conservatives. Indeed, while "birther" conspiracy theorists dominate the airwaves with tales of a mystical Kenyan baby smuggled into Hawaii just days after his birth, these "tenther" constitutionalists offer a theory that is no less radical but infinitely more dangerous.

Tentherism, in a nutshell, proclaims that New Deal-era reformers led an unlawful coup against the "True Constitution," exploiting Depression-born desperation to expand the federal government's powers beyond recognition. Under the tenther constitution, Barack Obama's health-care reform is forbidden, as is Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. The federal minimum wage is a crime against state sovereignty; the federal ban on workplace discrimination and whites-only lunch counters is an unlawful encroachment on local businesses.

I guess the words "to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States" don't appear in their pocket Constitutions.

Really, there's nothing new about Tentherism - it's basically nullification prettied up for the 21st century. But of course, nullification was a prelude to eventual secession and Civil War. It's not completely out of bounds to see us headed in that direction.

When George Bush sought to take money out of people's paychecks and deposit them in private retirement accounts, that was fine. Only when a Democrat takes office can the majority of actions of the federal government be seen as not only misguided, but actually in violation of the Constitution. Because conservatives consider it against the natural order of things for them not to control the government and distribute its Treasury to their favored corporate interests, a circumstance with them out of control must be criminal in nature.

This is an outgrowth of the right-wing populism we've seen in reaction to a recession and the uneasiness people feel with job insecurity and an uncertain economic future.

Today, however, the tenthers tap into the same populist outrage that inspired a generation of working-class religious conservatives to enthusiastically vote against their own interests. Fox News star Glenn Beck exhorts his audience to "be a constitutional watchdog for America" by lining up against health-care reform, cap-and-trade legislation, and the stimulus package. Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, who enthusiastically backed a tenther "state sovereignty resolution," told a right-wing radio host that he is "willing and ready for the fight if this administration continues to try to force their very expansive government philosophy down our collective throats." Tenther-inspired claims that federal spending violates the Constitution are so common at "tea party" protests that it is impossible to tell where the tenthers end and the tea baggers begin.

In other words, it is all but certain that tenthers will play a significant role in selecting the GOP's presidential nominee in 2012. And if that nominee wins, the tenthers could even come to dominate the administration in the same way that the religious right set its hooks into George W. Bush.

This is the inevitable point where all the anti-government rhetoric of the post-Reagan years was bound to go. Tenthers literally want a government that cannot govern, period. And the movement is growing. Ultimately, this is where the teabaggers meet up with the corporate interests who would thrive in an era of no regulation and no ability for the government to use their power.

But, you know, liberals are the Constitutional "activists."

The Line Of Secession

With all the talk of secession in the air, Rasmussen polled Texans about it, and they found that 31% thought that " individual states have the right to leave the United States and form an independent country," and 18% answered yes to "If you could vote on the issue, would you vote for Texas to remain in the United States or to secede from the United States and form an independent country of Texas?"

Roughly one out of every five people in the state of Texas think they should go ahead and form an independent country. If you're in line at the bank with five people, one of them believes this.

Now, Rick Perry, the king of the 18 percenters, wants us to believe he wasn't calling for secession, just asserting the sovereignty of the state of Texas under the 10th Amendment. This is classic Overton window stuff, putting secession on the extreme while making this assertion of sovereignty - and by extension the belief that the President is violating the Constitution - seem banal and reasonable. But of course, this is ridiculous. The President in the stimulus package offers the states the ability to accept federal funds, with certain qualifying guidelines. States can comply to the guidelines and accept the funds, or refuse the funds. That actually is the very definition of the 10th Amendment. It's not the President's fault that, during a recession, it would be deeply unpopular not to change the guidelines. Indeed, Secessionist Perry's own legislature in Texas voted to accept stimulus money for unemployment by changing their guidelines. Which I guess makes King Richard want to secede from the Texas legislature.

Now, back to that 18% number. 18% of the voting public from the last election would be around 20 million people. Which puts the 250,000 or so teabaggers in perspective, doesn't it? Basically, that was a collection of people so angered by losing power that they want to either create their own country or forcibly take back this one. In other words, nutters.



By the way, you'll surely be shocked to know that Tom DeLay lied on national television when talking about this.

...By the way, if any Democratic elected official ever even dipped their toe in the secession water, they'd be the second coming of Ward Churchill and forced to resign. Just sayin'.