This is a question that comes out of pure ignorance on the part of Whoopi. This is what she said to John McCain on The View: "Should I be worried about being a slave, about being returned to slavery because certain things happened in the Constitution that you had to change." She has obviously never read the Constitution or she would know that the end of slavery was enshrined in our Constitution in the form of a constitutional amendment after the Civil War. Reading the Constitution would tell you that much, you do not need to have taken a constitutional law course at Harvard to figure this one out. It is not a matter of needing activist liberal judges to make sure that Whoopi is not a slave again. It's in the document. Put simply, Whoopi exemplifies the arrogance of ignorance.
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Friday, September 12, 2008
Whoopi To McCain: "Should I Be Worried About Being A Slave?"
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I believe Ms Goldberg was replying to McCain's claim that he wants judges that interpret the constitution according to the way the founding fathers believed. I believe her point is the founding fathers had some things wrong, were not infallible and that if we don't have justices that are able to think for themselves we wouldn't have the amendments we now have.
ReplyDeleteConnie,
ReplyDeleteYou display a fundamental misunderstanding of how our Constitution works. The founding fathers did not set the constitution in stone and make it unchangeable. They made it very difficult to change, but not impossible, via constitutional amendments. You wrote that "if we don't have justices that are able to think for themselves we wouldn't have the amendments we now have." That is simply wrong. Supreme Court Justices are in no way involved in the amendment process. Constitutional amendments, such as the one prohibiting slavery, can arise either out of Congress or from the states themselves.
Here is a quote describing how it works: "The first method is for a bill to pass both houses of the legislature, by a two-thirds majority in each. Once the bill has passed both houses, it goes on to the states. This is the route taken by all current amendments. Because of some long outstanding amendments, such as the 27th, Congress will normally put a time limit (typically seven years) for the bill to be approved as an amendment (for example, see the 21st and 22nd). The second method prescribed is for a Constitutional Convention to be called by two-thirds of the legislatures of the States, and for that Convention to propose one or more amendments. These amendments are then sent to the states to be approved by three-fourths of the legislatures or conventions. This route has never been taken."
The Supreme Court plays no role in the amendment process. Whoopi is simply ignorant of how our Constitution works. She seems to think that you need liberal justices to make sure slavery does not come back again. You need no such thing. You can "strictly" read the constitution and you will find that slavery is prohibited. It is not a matter of judicial interpretation. It is prohibited in the document itself. Her question arose out of ignorance.