Sen. Ed Markey on Constitution: Originalism Is 'Racist, Sexist, Homophobic'

P. Gardner Goldsmith | October 28, 2020
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Senator Edward Markey (D-MA) appears to be upholding the bizarre tradition established by most politicians who’ve emerged from the state in the past 100 years: he is showing utter ignorance of, and contempt for, the US Constitution.

As Zachary Evans writes for National Review, Markey took to the floor of the Senate mere hours prior to the US Supreme Court confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett. In what appears to be an attempt to continue the narrative that President Trump is “packing the court” when fulfilling his constitutional duty of nominating a judge for that court vacancy, Markey had to take the silliness a step further, saying:

Originalism is racist. Originalism is sexist. Originalism is homophobic. Originalism is just a fancy word for discrimination.

Which, considering that fact that only through an originalist view of the amendment process that allows for changes to the Constitution in order to accommodate things like, oh, THE EQUAL PROECTION CLAUSE OF THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT, is more than a bit of an off-target thing to say.

 

 

But Markey said it, and he wasn’t done with saying it on the Senate floor. He made sure to Tweet it shortly thereafter. So let's re-read that fine bit of creative writing...

Originalism is racist. Originalism is sexist. Originalism is homophobic. Originalism is just a fancy word for discrimination.

Of course, some of us know that “Senator” is just a fancy word for “shameful authoritarian pickpocket.”

Isn’t it amazing to see how bald-facedly politicians can be when employing trigger words and rhetoric? Words like “racist,” “sexist,” “homophobic,” and “discrimination” have become such popular go-to terms, such imagined “shields” that the left biggies don’t even realize their repeated reliance on these words empties the terms of their real meaning. It diminishes the way contemporary folks might see ACTUAL racism, sexism, homophobia, and discrimination, and, in a way, it shows incredible disrespect for those who suffer, will suffer, or have suffered those injustices.

And then there’s Markey’s stunning blindness to the fact that the only way he gets his $174,000 per year paycheck via US taxpayers (and their children, since the US operates in massive debt) is because he fills one of the two polluted Senate seats the Constitution creates for Massachusetts. Neither Markey, nor his “Native American” cohort, Elizabeth “Faux-a-hontas” Warren, could suck the public teat, or make speeches on that expensive Senate floor, if there weren’t… AN ORIGINALIST VIEW OF THE CONSTITUTION.

Perhaps someone could ask Mr. Markey, “If I strolled into your Senate office and plopped my feet in your desk, claiming I was the US Senator, what document would you cite as your evidence to show me that I was incorrect?”

That would be the Constitution.

And what if I said, “Well, Ed, even though the Constitution’s really not racist, sexist, homophobic, or ‘discriminatory’, I ‘identify’ as Senator, and I’m claiming the Constitution is discriminating against my choice!”

Ed would, of course, be forced to cite the original wording of the so-called “rules”, and get the tax-funded cops to remove me.

He would, in very quick order, become an “originalist” when it suited him.

And then there’s the next question someone could ask Mr. Markey:

"If an originalist reading of the Constitution is so bad, why did you swear an oath to uphold it as written and currently amended?"

Is it that you really didn’t MEAN IT when you swore that oath, Ed? You swore the oath, but you actually intended to disregard the strictures of the document and forget your oath when it suited you to do so?

Serious constitutional researchers must admit that the US Constitution was seen by many patriots of the Revolutionary Era as a usurpation of the Articles of Confederation. Many Anti-Federalists suspected Alexander Hamilton of working to centralize and increase power, and they were proven right. On an even more fundamental level, the Constitution is not a voluntary contract. It is government, and, as a result, it is force. If it were a real, voluntary contract, it would be a business agreement, and, by definition, could not be a government (i.e. a polis).

But at least people like Ed Markey, who openly volunteered to run for the Senate office the Constitution purports to create, who swears he will abide by its strictures, can have the class to abide by it.

Instead, he and his allies work to undermine it, even trying to block the appointment of a woman who might more closely abide by her oath when she hears cases on the Supreme Court. And they have the gall to claim it is illegitimate for Trump to do what is constitutionally mandated – to fill the empty SCOTUS seat.

And, as Zachary Evans notes:

In additional tweets, Markey also called for Democrats to ‘abolish the filibuster’ and to ‘expand the Supreme Court,’ i.e. expand the number of justices appointed to the bench.

Which is a page ripped right out of the Democrat playbook as they tried to bend the narrative to portray Trump’s wholly constitutional appointment of Amy Coney Barrett as him somehow “packing the court” when, in fact, it is Democrats like Markey who want to pack the court.

At what point can one see a politician like Markey -- who not only disregards his oath to the Constitution, but openly calls reading it as written a form of “evil” – a domestic enemy of the US Constitution?

Don’t ask Ed. His track record on things like the meanings of words isn’t very good.

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