Gut the Constution says Republican Senator

A few days ago I posted a comment applauding the efforts of three Republicans and saying that I thought Jon Kyl of Arizona was one of the most anti-liberty members of the US Senate. He seems to go out of his way to expand the size and scope of government. But he is one of these "New" conservatives who have fallen in love with Big Government as a hammer to beat people they don't like.

The Republicans, under the smarmy leadership from the White House, have run elections based on gay-baiting. They raise the issue every two years during elections in order to get fundamentalist moralists to turn out to vote. They assume that since the Republicans are now the most authoritarian of the two major parties that these individuals will vote for htem. And polls show they are right.

Jon Kyl has started beating the anti-gay drum in order to increase turnout. Republicans are worried as there is no longer any significant reason that those who believe in limited government, free markets, balanced budgets, etc. should vote for the GOP. The Republians have scuttled every one of those principles under the leadership of Franklin Delano Bush. Another old fashioned conservative principle was the concept of state's rights where there were issues which were reserved to the states. And marriage was one of those.

But Republicans only believe in state's rights when they are sure the states will do exactly what they want. They don't really believe in the devolution of power to the state level at all. Of course their problem is that the Constitution specifically denies certain powers to the federal government. No worry. As George Bush said, "it's just a damned piece of paper." And he has shown he really means that.

Now a Senate committe run by Kyl has come out explicitly against state's rights and devolution of power. It says:"The greatest fallacy of the same-sex marriage debate is the well-meaning but naive belief that Congress need do nothing and that the American people will sort the questions out on the state level." Read that carefully. Kyl's committee is quite clear. It is not that the issue won't be sorted out on the state level that worries Kyl and other anti-gay bigots in the Senate. What worries them is that they states will work it out in ways they don't like.

There was an old joke in Soviet Russia where an American tells a Soviet: "I am free. I can say anything I want about the American government." The Soviet responds: "I am free too. I also can say anything I want about the American government." The point was that in Russia the people were free to say anything provided the government agreed with them. In The Union of Socialist Soviet Republican States the states are free to follow any policy they wish provided they agree with the likes of Jon Kyl.

The Republicans say that allowing states to have their own policies leads to "confusion and chaos". Worse yet they admit that the Constitution no where "prohibits same-sex marraige" and therefore "applications of marriage law are typically left to the states". Republicans want to rip up the Constitution becasue they don't like the results. Is it any wonder that the majority of voters now want the Democrats to win?