I’ve taken a good deal of heat over my Internet career. Banished from dK for 2 years for calling some idiot who wished Obama to suppress the photographic evidence of United States torture a “Good German”. What else can you do? If you live downwind of Auschwitz don’t you feel the tiniest obligation to complain about the smell? They rendered Human Beings, Jews, like cattle, candles and tattooed lampshades in the Gift Shop on your way out. I was invited back personally by Markos and Meteor Blades without any conditions other than that I not interact with the person I chastised (to be fair Markos merely said- “Why aren’t you writing anymore?”).
Shortly after that I was banished again for calling Front Pager Denise Oliver a rapist apologist (she is) which seems oddly prescient in this moment of the clash between “rape culture” and #MeToo. I know what it is to be be bullied and I won’t stand for it.
I have no desire to return again. The real action is on Twitter and I don’t Tweet, but my point is I’m an acolyte of Clio and her lessons are not lost to me. I use the Nazi word quite freely because Nazi is as Nazi does whether you have a tooth brush moustache and a weird hair style to cover up your bald spot or just a weird hair style.
The big “news” today is that Trump has unilaterally decided that the 14th Amendment does not apply-
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.
Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.
Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
This is one of the “Reconstruction” Amendments that States that participated in the The Rebellion to Keep Black People Enslaved were forced to accept. Forced? We’ll just kill your sorry asses back tho the Stone Age you Idiots until you get the message that all men (now humans thank goodness) are created equal. It covers several necessary details.
Black Slaves were not citizens necessarily, this changed that. More importantly (and the reason this Amendment is frequently cited) is this-
No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
“Due Process”, “Equal Protection”. Sound familiar? Welcome to the 14th Amendment. Kanye thinks it should be repealed.
Section 2 is kind of obsolete in that all the participants in The Rebellion to Keep Black People Enslaved are dead. Likewise Section 3.
Section 4 is kind of interesting from an economic standpoint in that it amounts to a complete repudiation of Confederate Debt which is why their currency has become a byword for valueless except for collection and decorative purposes (or insulation, fuel, and toilet paper).
Section 5 is boilerplate that allows Congress to enact enforcement Laws.
Trump seems to think that by Executive Fiat he can ignore the whole damn thing (you’ll be glad you have that stash of Confederate Currency now!). Even the most racist (Plessy v. Furguson) Supreme Court since Dred Scott v. Sandford ruled in United States v. Wong Kim Ark that it’s Unconstitutional. Good luck with that.
To wind this back to the precis, the Hebrew people have lived in a stateless diaspora for over a Thousand years, unprotected by the language of the 14th Amendment. The reason their interests (for the most part) sympathize with that of Black People is that they have keen institutional memory of slavery. This Saturday we had the largest pogrom the United States has ever seen and last night Trump announced he’s going to take action to abrogate the 14th Amendment.
Feel like a ‘Good German’ yet?