With Friday’s historic overturning of Roe v Wade, leftists are again vacillating between claiming that constitutional rights are being eroded and averring that the Constitution should be irrelevant. One writer doing the latter is The Root’s Candace McDuffie, with a Sunday title reading “The Constitution Was Literally Written By Slaveowners. Why Is America Obsessed With Upholding It?”
Aside from observing that leftists have an odd affinity for the word “literally,” one could note that the writer’s question equates to asking: Why is America obsessed with upholding the law? For the Constitution is the supreme law of our land.
McDuffie’s commentary might not warrant mention had Microsoft Network not chosen to post her article to its homepage. This reflects a serious problem liberal psychologist Robert Epstein warned of in recent years: By controlling the flow of information, Big Tech can, uh, literally(!) shift 15 million votes toward a candidate and thus choose our leaders.
Read the rest here.
Alas, McDuffie's article was designed to persuade more than inform and likely was effective enough with blacks who are dissatisfied with their position in the US's social hierarchy. It's hard to hear that intractable problems in one's community stem from lack of virtue or intelligence and that one should simply be grateful, etc. Blind optimism combined with iconoclasm can quickly lead to terrible consequences, however. And no matter the personal foibles of those who generated and wrote the Constitution, it has generally served in maintaining a safe, stable society in which all people have protections against each other and the government. It's an age-old conundrum: good men may not make the best decisions or be the best leaders while often corrupt men serve admirably in such capacities. The framers of the Constitution would, of course, have been more virtuous than not. Though I wonder if some subset of virtues maybe applies to leaders who are somewhat morally challenged yet otherwise excel in making good choices for their people: erudition, loyalty, perseverance, courage, etc. It might be beneficial to a society like ours in which The People often give an adolescent response to imperfections in their leaders, resulting in disrespect and negation of all that person's good qualities. Though this wouldn't solve the problem of not liking one's place in the hierarchy - a strong motive to destroy it or abandon it altogether. I admire your efforts at reaching out to those who'd do one or the other, Selwyn.
Posted by: tj | June 28, 2022 at 08:11 PM