US Election Results--and the Results
by Craig Ceely
Officially, the results of yesterday's mid-term elections in the US are as follows: the next Congress will see a House of Representatives with 228 Republicans, 208 Democrats, and one Idiot--er, Independent, and a Senate with a Republican majority of at least one (Lousiana has a run-off election in December, which may yet be won by a Republican) and, of course, Vice President Cheney, as the President of the Senate, is entitled to cast a vote in the event of a tie.
This represents a significant victory for President Bush, who will now be able to get what he wants in terms of a Department of Homeland Security, continued Congressional approval of his war on terrorism and (likely) on Iraq, and on those he nominates to federal judicial positions.
Here's the oath to be taken by all the newly sworn in Senators:
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.
They're lying.
The principle enemies of the US Constitution are domestic: the 435 members of the House of Representatives and the one hundred members of the US Senate. Included in this tally are members of both parties, Democrat and Republican. I do despise the Democratic Party and its political leaders, and by the way they ran their campaigns this year, they did deserve the defeats they were handed yesterday. But that doesn't imply that their Republican opponents deserved to win, or that these Republican victories are victories for liberty in America.
My primary evidence is the respect shown by conservative Republicans to the Ninth Amendment to the Constitution. Part of what has traditionally been known as the Bill of Rights, the Ninth Amendment is strikingly terse. It reads, in its entirety:
The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
That's it: that's the entire thing.
Interesting to note, isn't it, that conservative "thinkers" argue that there is no right to privacy in the Constitution, no right to have an abortion performed, no right to employ the drugs of one's choice without state permission, no right to possess or produce what others may deem obscene.
"Shall not be construed?"
In fact, conservatives loudly champion federalism--the prerogatives and privileges of the fifty states against that of the federal government--and yet agents of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration seize marijuana plants in California and jail those involved with growing or distributing those plants. Dear readers, medical marijuana is legal in California. According to California law and according to the US Constitution, those involved had every right to grow and distribute those plants. But that didn't stop the DEA.
"Shall not be construed?"
Further, conservatives are happy to tax you to pay for the various government enterprises of arresting and imprisoning drug users, suing Microsoft because their Internet Explorer product is (gasp!) free, and expanding a federal Department of Education, a department nowhere mentioned in the Constitution.
Sounds like an awful lot of construing, if you ask me.
But the Education Department is important to conservatives, you see, because they believe in standards, in quality education. They believe, they will tell you, that it is important that every child in America be able to read well.
Really? Is that why they can read "The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people," and still argue that there is no right to an abortion, or even to privacy?
The US Senate is charged with providing the President with advice and consent regarding his judicial nominees. President Bush is now far more likely to receive such consent now that the Senate Judiciary Committee will be chaired by a Republican. Conservatives argue that legislators and judges should abide by the "original intent" of those who wrote the Constitution, yet they engage in plenty of construing of their own.
Think about what that implies, for your own privacy and liberty, when you consider that federal judges are appointed for life.
Last night's election results won't even come close to bringing the Dark Ages to America. And, in a tough game, it's nice to see that the party which played dirtiest lost big. But Republicans are not the party of liberty, and a victory for Republicans does not imply a victory for Americans.
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