Reporta has the links, and some of the questions (and answers) are actually fairly interesting.
Addendum: Some highlights. For some reason they covered the Eureka City Council races but not the mayor’s race?
Aside from Gallegos, it looks like the progressives blew them off.
And Allison Jackson carries a copy of the Constitution in her purse! That’s good to know.
Johanna is fiscally conservative and philosophically moderate, which I think means she favors Kierkegard and Kant over Hegel and Heidegger.
Paul G. doesn’t believe God needs government support. Would he take Jesus off the welfare rolls?
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October 28, 2010 at 11:35 am
Erasmus
Re Johanna Rodoni: if only this were not a witticism!
October 28, 2010 at 8:00 pm
Plugar
Great. Let’s humor the bat shit crazy with undeserved attention.
October 30, 2010 at 7:42 pm
Anonymous
You ought to carry a copy of the Constutution Erik, and really read it. Maybe you should get in on a CD so you could listen to it. It really is amazing.
I don’t care if you took Constitutional law when you were in snake school, read it line by line and think about it.
October 30, 2010 at 8:50 pm
Eric Kirk
Actually, in my line of work, I have to read it periodically. And my first shows on KMUD required that I discuss various portions in detail.
It isn’t the most clearly written document in the world, but given that it was generated by a group with so many different agendas, its endurance is amazing. Certain aspects work better than others, and it would have been nice if they had defined terms like “well regulated militia,” “cruel and unusual punishment,” “for the general welfare,” “due process,” and “for public use,” but I imagine had they tried they might not have reached any sort of consensus.
It failed to protect everyone as it certainly allowed for slavery conferring onto slave owning interests the cake they got to have an eat too by defining slaves as partial persons for the count. The electoral-college system and Senate are anachronisms which plague modern democracy. A few other problems, but again, considering all, it is a pretty amazing document and product of the secular enlightenment.
The problem I have with carrying a copy of it in my purse is that it treats the document like a Bible rather than a framework for law. It is a tool to maintain an orderly and just republic, not a holy text to be revered.
I do think everyone should read the Bill of Rights periodically, and the 14th Amendment. They are the heart and soul of the document.
October 31, 2010 at 11:30 am
Joe Blow
Eric, Some devout religious people treat the Bible as a “framework for law,” you know?
Would you say that the Constitution establishes both principle and law?
By the way, what is the “heart and soul” of the Bible?
October 31, 2010 at 9:36 pm
Eric Kirk
I’ll have to defer to you as to the Bible, but the Catholic Worker folk with whom I worked with in providing services the homeless back in college told me that the essence of the Bible could be found in the Sermon on the Mount, whereas the fundamentalists would emphasize the 10 Commandments and John 3:16.
There are parallels between the struggle between fundamentalism and liberal approaches to the Bible and that between strict constructionist and living document doctrines of the Constitution.
In Judaism the tension was between Hillel and Shammai. From Judaism 101:
Hillel and Shammai
These two great scholars born a generation or two before the beginning of the Common Era are usually discussed together and contrasted with each other, because they were contemporaries and the leaders of two opposing schools of thought (known as “houses”). The Talmud records over 300 differences of opinion between Beit Hillel (the House of Hillel) and Beit Shammai (the House of Shammai). In almost every one of these disputes, Hillel’s view prevailed.
Rabbi Hillel was born to a wealthy family in Babylonia, but came to Jerusalem without the financial support of his family and supported himself as a woodcutter. It is said that he lived in such great poverty that he was sometimes unable to pay the admission fee to study Torah, and because of him that fee was abolished. He was known for his kindness, his gentleness, and his concern for humanity. One of his most famous sayings, recorded in Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers, a tractate of the Mishnah), is “If I am not for myself, then who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, then what am I? And if not now, when?” The Hillel organization, a network of Jewish college student organizations, is named for him.
Rabbi Shammai was an engineer, known for the strictness of his views. The Talmud tells that a gentile came to Shammai saying that he would convert to Judaism if Shammai could teach him the whole Torah in the time that he could stand on one foot. Shammai drove him away with a builder’s measuring stick! Hillel, on the other hand, converted the gentile by telling him, “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah; the rest is commentary. Go and study it.”
November 1, 2010 at 10:32 am
Joe Blow
Eric,
That is a very good answer. Thank you. I appreciate your response.
At first I wondered what Judaism had to do with my question. When I read the quote I thought, if Eric gets the full meaning of what Hillel said he would be close to understanding the answer to my question: “What is the heart and soul of the Bible?” If you were to ask me that same question, I would only give you a minor variation to: “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah; the rest is commentary. Go and study it.”
It is understanding the significance of that statement that allows for understanding of what is defined in your statement: “living document doctrines of the Constitution” and how they correlate – focusing on the word “LIVING”. Hillel defines the “living” aspect of Judaism as contained within the Torah as I might with Christianity as contained in the Four Gospels within the New Testament in how these words are defined: “That which is hateful to you.” You and I would probably disagree as to what Hillel meant or how these words were defined by the gentile, but I doubt Hillel had any problems in that regard because he told the gentile what he needed to do to correctly learn and define them within himself: “That is the whole Torah; the rest is commentary. Go and study it.” The same is true in the New Testament regarding Jesus’ teachings.
This answer contradicts your Catholic Worker folks’ understanding as their total response is actually literal, fundamental or, to coin a Bible term, physical in their definitions. Essentially, they were making two definitions of the same thing or from the same base way of thinking. Even though, within its context quite accurate. Neither understanding or definition is “living.” You should not confuse “liberal” with “living” – one is about “doing” and the other is about “being.” Contrary to the obvious, perhaps cursory perception, Hillel was teaching the gentile how to become something more than he was. Only then could he legally, completely and perfectly deal with his neighbor consistent with the Law.
Oh, yeah. One more point. And become substantive as a Jew.