Taking back the Constitution
In the February 7, 2011 edition of The Nation, Garrett Epps argues that the political right is trying to steal the United States Constitution "in plain sight," and that it's time to take it back because it belongs to all of us. His article is titled "Stealing the Constitution: Inside the right's campaign to hijack our country's founding text--and how to fight back." Epps argues that it's time to counteract the "poisonous rubbish" that the far right's self-appointed constitutional "experts" are teaching well-meaning citizens. One of those "experts" of the far right is United States Supreme Court Justice Antonio Scalia, who has just agreed to serve as a faculty member for Michele Bachmann's new "Constitutional School" for new members of Congress. How has the political right been able to successfully portray itself to be the only party that can meaningfully define the Constitution? One big reason is that legitimate constitutional scholars are unwilling to step into the fray in a public way. Instead,
Scholars from top schools hold forth with polysyllabic series of hermeneutics that ordinary citizens can't fathom. Meanwhile, conservatives don't hesitate to speak directly to the public-and, often, to dumb down the Constitution. They purvey a simple method: anyone who doesn't support the far right version of the Constitution is at best unpatriotic, at worst a traitor.
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