Jim DeMint is trying to raise some money. In in soliciting for some cheddar, DeMint tells potential donors that he believes "the only way to take back our freedom is to return to the constitutional principles our founding fathers promised in 1776."Jim DeMint visually attempts to show reporters how much he knows about constitutional history.
I suppose DeMint will be hoping his potential donors now as little about history as he appears to, because any schoolkid knows the Constitutional Convention was not convened in Philadelphia until 1787. Then again, maybe DeMint doesn't really our Constitution and instead, wants to return to the salad days of the Articles of Confederation, which were drafted and ratified AFTER the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Of course, the Declaration of Independence was just that, a declaration of independence. It does not contain core constitutional principles from our founding fathers.
As Salon points out, this could just be seen as a stupid, ignorant missed fact. But when the appeal for money starts throwing out figures related to 1776, like donors giving $17.76 dollars or DeMint's hope to raise $17,760 in $17.76 increments over the next five days, well then that's no longer a mistake, it's just retarded.
Way to go, Jimmy. This will make everyone forget about South Carolina's floundering educational system.
4 comments:
Not to split hairs, but weren't the Articles of Confederation ratified in 1781? If so, it sounds like Jim wants chaos - utter chaos! As big a fan as you are of Punk, I thought you'd like that.. No? Well, i tried....
I don't get the problem. The Declaration of Independence clearly refers to these principles:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness..." etc.
Therefore, to say that in 1776 the founding fathers promised (future tense) a government based on principles which became the basis of the Constitution, seems like very much an accurate statement to me.
Danny,
Maybe I'm tainted by the fact that after being exposed to DeMint for so long, I know he's an idiot.
I would say the Declaration did not lay out constitutional principles as much as it laid out universal truths to which all men were entitled, to which those men at the time felt they were denied and to what they cited as justification for throwing off the proverbial yoke of monarchy.
Now maybe I'm splitting nat hairs out of pepper (hey...it's what I do), but to me, constitutional principles are rules set out for government. In 1776, our founding fathers did not really know what those rules were to be. In fact, it took them 11 more years to come up with those. In 1776, they were simply stating the rights those rules should protect.
I don't know, still seems like a fairly innocuous statement to me.
Now if DeMint had something like, oh... that his parents got together as a result of what happened in Selma, even though he was born before that... or that there were 57 stats in the U.S... or that the number of American Muslims would be one of the largest Muslim countries... or that the principles of the Constitution were put to paper 20 centuries ago... well then he would sound REALLY stupid! :-)
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