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John E. Finn

Teoksen Civil Liberties and the Bill of Rights tekijä

7 teosta 84 jäsentä 2 arvostelua

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I’ve reviewed numerous books on the US Constitution, but Fracturing the Founders is the first to put it in perspective – what it means on the ground in the USA, to ordinary Americans. John Finn has written how the documents are twisted, perverted and abused by right wing special interest groups. The book is enormously accessible, with Finn interjecting his personal take in brackets, for entertaining capstones.

Alt-right and other extreme positions on the Constitution are an entire spectrum of views, not a unified stance. It would take a constitutional lawyer and educator to separate them into understandable arguments. And so Finn, who has been teaching this for 30 years, has taken on the thankless task of making sense of everyone’s interpretations and insistence on the various amendments. The result is entertaining as well as educational, but also worrying when not horrifying.

It is no surprise that many of these positions are simply intolerance. Most of them boil down to white supremacy. A lot of alt-right positions are based on the Constitution being God-given, immutable, and literal. Like the bible. The preamble itself – We the People – means white protestant male landowners only - to the Alt crowd. And so therefore, the rest of all he documents as well.

Over the decades, Finn has examined and all but joined numerous groups peddling their own unique if not bizarre interpretations. And peddling is the right word, as they all seem bent on separating people from their money, with books, videos, DVDs, online courses, children’s comics and coloring books, public lectures and conventions.

For every clause in the Constitution, there seems to be a group trying to exploit a different interpretation of it. There are Sovereigns who claim the Constitution allows individual states to secede, and for individual white protestant males to ignore federal laws, especially income tax. The nullification of federal laws at the state level has all kinds of people positing different rights. The religious right has a firm insistence that ranges from the Constitution coming from the bible, to God giving the text directly to the Framers in a “miracle in Philadelphia”. And everyone is dead certain their interpretation is right. From a distance, it looks like something out of Gulliver’s Travels, or worse, Monty Python.

Finn calls these offbeat interpretations alt-amendments and alt-constitution. As a constitutional lawyer he shoots them down, but on the ground, they seem to be gaining adherents daily.

Free speech means being able to attack anyone anywhere any time - to the alt crowd. Any restriction of any kind is unconstitutional. Finn points out most clearly that the First Amendment right of free speech applies to government and not to private society. Employers, private schools, and online services are not covered by the First Amendment and have every right to specify what speech is acceptable and what is not. The First Amendment is in no way a blanket prohibition on any kinds of restrictions whatsoever, despite the bleatings of the alt-right that white rights are being infringed.

Same goes for owning guns. The right to bear arms doesn’t stop at muskets. Alt-second amendment fans believe they have the right to own and operate armored personnel carriers and tanks, going as far, Finn half jokes, as aircraft carriers and Death Stars. It is, as we hear so often, their God-given right.

For some, the 13th amendment (abolishing slavery) is invalid, because there was another 13th amendment (forbidding titles of nobility) that was never completely approved, but also never withdrawn. So that one sort of has a reserved but active status, and the replacement that was actually completed successfully – none whatsoever. To Gulliver’s Travels, add Alice in Wonderland.

Finn then invites us to live in the world of the Sovereign Citizens Movement, in which a parallel country is taking shape. It has its own laws, courts and rules, or lack of them. It’s for white protestant males only, denies the IRS, the federal government, and any law enforcement higher than a county sheriff. Anyone can be a lawyer, and Sovereigns will issue bad checks, fraudulent liens, deeds and other contracts, and claim immunity from prosecution for reasons such as their name being spelled in capital letters. Their interpretation of the Constitution is specious, and is constantly denied when they are hauled into real courts. They are backed only by God. Finn describes it as “populist folk magic”.

Finn’s oft-repeated point is that many of these rigid positions cause worship of the documents, rather than engagement. Engagement is what is necessary, particularly and precisely because of the way they were written. He says “Constitutional fundamentalism threatens the very thing it celebrates.”

His answer is just as plain: “Citizens must be taught to read the Constitution instead of memorizing it.”

For much of my life, I did not like the US Constitution because the Framers made it so difficult to change, that today, in a population so large,change has become essentially impossible. And there’s a lot that needs changing to reflect a completely different society in the 21st century. However, after reading Fracturing the Founding, I am instead grateful that the Constitution will not allow itself to be molested by the worshippers, bigots and zealots who dedicate their lives to changing it and us to fit their vision. That’s saying a lot for a book, and Fracturing The Founding does it easily and smoothly.

David Wineberg
… (lisätietoja)
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DavidWineberg | Dec 13, 2018 |
Understanding the American Constitution
One cannot understand the meaning of civil liberties without knowing its historical background. American constitutional law developed in direct relation with the making of the United States. Professor Finn exposed this process and gave to the listener the reasons behind the particular way of formation of the civil liberties and the bill of rights. With that in mind one can grasp its meaning and appreciate its values for a democratic commonwealth. Its translation to others westerners democracies is a whole other story.… (lisätietoja)
 
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MarcusBastos | Sep 27, 2018 |

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Teokset
7
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84
Suosituimmuussija
#216,911
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½ 4.4
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2
ISBN:t
17

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