Tag: Constitution

To Be Clear

Posted on June 27, 2022July 18, 2022 By Mark Tiedemann

In the past, I have attempted to present my arguments, my sentiments, in respectful, intellectual, philosophically relevant languageâ€”not always successfully, I admit; sometimes my dismay and anger get the better of me, and sometimes there are things too unbelievably stupid to warrant much, if any, respectâ€”and to leave some opening for debate.Â

No more.

With the recent Supreme Court rulings, it should be clear to everyone that what is happening is nothing less than an attempt by extralegal and institutional force to change the nature of our country. This is nothing new. What is new (new-ish) is the outright lies and misrepresentation in which these attempts are couched and the complete shameless embrace of those lies.…

One Year Later

Posted on January 5, 2022January 5, 2022 By Mark Tiedemann

One year ago, we witnessed something we may reasonably assume we never expected to see in our lifetimes. The attempt by a mob to seize the nation’s capitol.Â

Characterize it any way you likeâ€”a demonstration that got out of hand, a planned assault, an aberration of mass hysteriaâ€”the salient feature is this: a large gathering, numbering in the thousands, attempted to break into, overwhelm security, and hunt down and intimidate members of our government who were in the process of conducting the legitimate work of the people.

The other salient feature is that this did not occur in a vacuum.…

The Only Thing We Have To Fear

Posted on June 4, 2020June 4, 2020 By Mark Tiedemann

We received one of those chain e-mails detailing in exhaustive hyperbole how all our current woes stem from the Left’s plot to “hurt” the president. It was filled with blaming, with tortured reconstructions of history, with the logic of the obsessively fearful. On the one hand, it made no sense. On the other, its message could not be clearer. The sender is terrified.

Of what, I am not exactly sure. But it encapsulates a raw, undifferentiating fear that first and foremost just wants everything to stand still.Â Everything. And maybe back up a few steps, history-wise, to an imagined time that never was.…

Papers, Please

Posted on June 28, 2018June 28, 2018 By Mark Tiedemann

Something that seems to get overlooked in all this sturm und drang over immigration is the visceral reaction those of us who oppose current policy experience over seemingly innocuous terms. “Undocumented” being chief among them. This one causes a chill to run down my spine almost every time I hear it. And it does not stop with illegal immigrants but goes directly to such things as voter registration and ID requirements. The idea that someone who has been living in a community all their life and simply lacks this month’s card can be denied a fundamental right appalls me.

While I understand the perfectly reasonable rationale behind much of this, I am, as an American, opposed to it on principle.…

Immorality Sweeps The Land!

Posted on December 14, 2017December 14, 2017 By Mark Tiedemann

Roy Moore lost. In a state so Red it could be on Mars, Doug Jones squeaked into the win by 1.5%.

Moore is refusing to concede. In some quarters, this is seen as principle. In the civilized world, sour grapes. But delusional.

“Immorality is sweeping the land!”

Says a man who allegedly hit on teenagers when in his thirties, and then relies on a biblical defense, something about Mary only being 13 or some such nonsense, and the fact that he asked their parents. Â Forgive me if I find that whole scenario simultaneously dubious AND extra-creepy. Â (But there is in the South, and presumably other places, a whole cult of True Believers who groom their prepubescents for marriage by parading them in adult drag in front of potential husbands, so maybe.…

Nazis In Our Midst

Posted on August 14, 2017September 9, 2017 By Mark Tiedemann

The events in Charlottesville Â evoke for me the desolation that marred the American landscape in the late Sixties. Cities burned. Riots obliterated property, took lives, attempted by sheer physical exertion to assert a condition of identity too unformed and inarticulate in aggregate to mollify the majority of Americans. It burned itself out, exhausted, and with the end of the Vietnam War some years later and the appearance of normalization in relations between the races, it seemed the â€œlong national nightmareâ€ was over.

The complacency which followed has brought us to a condition of absurd desperation. Once more it is all too vast and amorphous to address as a whole, but I wish here to talk about one aspect that has fueled the present explosion of what too many of us believed smothered in our national psychÃ©.…

Great Bear Politics

Posted on June 8, 2017June 8, 2017 By Mark Tiedemann

In all the chatter about Russian interference in the last election, one question keeps coming up. It’s never fully answered and because of that, the question as to whether or not such interference occurred remains in play.Â At this point, it’s like climate change—everyone knows it happened, but how, in what form, and to what end are details the absence of which seem to insulate the president for the time being. That seems about to change with Comey’s testimony.

But that question—why, what does Putin hope to gain, what’s the pay-off?—bedevils people.Â Especially people raised on spy thrillers and James Bond and post-Cold War conspiracy porn.…

So What Do We Do Now?

Posted on November 20, 2016November 21, 2016 By Mark Tiedemann

It has been clear for all of the campaign season and is now becoming clearer that Donald Trump should not be president.Â He is temperamentally unsuited to the position, he does not have the working knowledge of how things work in a government, and he is wildly unpredictable.Â He is also as thin-skinned as they come.

But so what?Â He has been elected.Â For better or worse, unless something remarkable happens, he will be president for the next four years.

By remarkable I mean any of several possible legal scenarios.

There is a petition circulating to request the Electors of the Electoral College change their vote.…

Electors

Posted on November 16, 2016November 16, 2016 By Mark Tiedemann

Talk is heating up about the possibility that the Electoral College might displace Trump and select Clinton.Â I have a couple of thoughts on this.

Firstly, this would be perfectly legitimate.Â If you need a historical reference, check Federalist #68, which discusses the electoral college and its purpose. Remember, the United States was formulated as a republic, which is not the same thing as a democracy.Â The Founders wanted to keep a firewall between The People and their government.Â Over the course of time, we have gotten used to the idea that We The People directly elect our national representatives.Â We do not, although it certainly appears that way and most folks can be forgiven for believing otherwise.…

Why We Need To Teach Civics

Posted on October 10, 2016October 10, 2016 By Mark Tiedemann

Listening to the debates, not between the candidates but among the potential voters, it becomes clear that for many the workings of our government are a thing of deep mystery and frustratingly obscure. Donald hammered on Hillary repeatedly that in 30 plus years in office she had an opportunity to “do something” about certain issues and she did nothing.

She was a senator and then she was secretary of state.

Neither position affords anyone the power to just “do something” about any damn thing they want.

While morality may not be relative, politics is entirely so.Â The problem is this:Â you have a hundred people in a room who have been given a problem to solve.Â …