A-hyuck hyuck!
If his floor speeches are any indication, Louie Gohmert (R - Texas) isn’t a very bright man. He may even be crazy. Before I discuss his most recent lunacy, note that last October, Gohmert said this on the floor of the House of Representatives when discussing proposed hate crimes legislation:
If you’re oriented towards animals, bestiality, then, you know, that’s not something that can be used, held against you or any bias be held against you for that. Which means you’d have to strike any laws against bestiality, if you’re oriented toward corpses, toward children, you know, there are all kinds of perversions […] pedophiles or necrophiliacs or what most would say is perverse sexual orientations but the trouble is, we made amendments to eliminate pedophiles from being included in the definition…But people have always been willing to give up their liberties, their freedoms in order to gain economic stability. It happened in the 1920s and 1930s. Germany gave up their liberties to gain economic stability and they got a little guy with a mustache, who was the ultimate hate monger. And this is scary stuff we’re doing here when we take away what has been a traditionally important aspect of moral teaching in America.
Look, I don’t like “hate crimes” laws either. I think when it comes to assaults, you prosecute the crime, not the motive. Punishing people for their motivations is tantamount to punishing people for what they think.
But why is it whenever the issues of gay rights or hate crimes come up, conservative lawmakers always find a way to bring animal-fucking into the conversation? It’s usually lawmakers from rural areas, so it’s not unreasonable to conclude that these guys are speaking from firsthand experience.
Anyway, Congressman Goatfucker has proposed that the Seventeenth Amendment be repealed. What’s the Seventeenth Amendment, you ask? Well, once a upon a time, back before the presidency of Woodrow Wilson, members of the U.S. Senate were chosen by the state legislatures. The Seventeenth Amendment changed this, by providing for the direct election of Senators by the people of their respective states.
You read that correctly. Louie Gohmert doesn’t think Americans should be able to vote for their Senators. His reasoning is that if Senators are accountable to the state legislatures, the Senate would be less likely to pass laws that would infringe on state authority, and therefore conservatives would be more likely to be appointed to the Senate. But this is some seriously flawed reasoning. Does anyone think the New York state legislature would send Republicans to the U.S. Senate? And if it did, how long would it be before New Yorkers get themselves a new state legislature? Ditto for Massachusetts. Granted, Bay Staters voted for Scott Brown, but that is an anomaly. (Sorry, teabaggers.)
Gohmert’s proposal tells us a lot. Here’s a guy who’s a member of the minority party in Congress, and his solution for changing the political landscape is to give the individuals less of a say in government. Genius. It could be argued that preserving states rights gives the people more power, not less, but what’s often overlooked is that state governments are far more susceptible to corporate influence and bullying. Companies routinely lobby state legislatures, and when they don’t get what they want, they sometimes threaten to move their operations to other, more corporate-friendly states. And this happens because states are obviously smaller than say, the federal government, which can’t be threatened so easily. So while the idea of giving more power to the states sounds appealing, we must keep in mind what that means.
But Gohmert’s idea is not even close to being appealing. While the American people can be whipped into opposing their own interests on things like health reform, convincing them to relinquish their right to vote for Senators is an entirely different matter. Americans, no matter how ignorant, are not going to allow their elected representatives to repeal a constitutional amendment so that there will be less elected representatives.
Thankfully, there’s no way to spin this one to convince people that repealing the Seventeenth Amendment is a good idea, so Gohmert’s proposal is DOA.
- Max
No comments:
Post a Comment