The House GOP gives us “Constitution Light”

Constitutions are checks upon the hasty action of the majority. They are the self-imposed restraints of a whole people upon a majority of them to secure sober action and a respect for the rights of the minority — William Howard Taft

The 27th president of the United States, William Howard Taft (1857-1930), who was also the 10th chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court after his stint in the White House would probably not recognize his Republican Party of this day. Of course, the party that just took over the U.S.  House of Representatives would have probably had the same reaction voters had to Taft after his serving a highly active — in the governing sense of the word — presidency. That reaction made Taft and one-term wonder. Big Bill, weighing more than 300 pounds, spent a lot of his time in the White House on issues such as trust busting, civil service reform, creating the Interstate Commerce Commission and, dread upon dread, passage of the 16th Amendment. That constitutional amendment allowed:

“The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.”

Heresy.

But as a gimmick, the new House majority spent several hours today reading the U.S. Constitution, supposedly wanting to make the point that the nation’s guiding governing document is central to what Congress does. The Republican had redacted some of  the more controversial portions of the Constitution which were later undone by amendments. This included the passage saying slaves were considered “three-fifths” a person when apportioning the population for taxes and congressional representation.

Funny that a party that almost makes taxation hate a religion would allow even a redacted Constitution to state that the great document allows the government to collect taxes.

I don’t know, but if it wasn’t for the fact that the Republican House comes off both holier than thou and so transparent in the most negative sense the reading of our Constitution might be seen as a noble act. In this sense, it wasn’t though. It was cheap political theatrics. It allowed some ignoramus to shout from the House gallery a dig at our “Kenyan-born” president. The birther crap is not only ridiculous, it is plain silly, a silly means of theatrics, and the Republicans can be some of the silliest people alive.

So today we see with the Republican-led Constitution reading that stupid not only is what stupid does, it is alive and well in our new House of Representatives.