Comments on: Trump and the first amendment… https://habitablezone.com/2016/02/27/trump-and-the-first-amendment/ Fri, 10 Apr 2026 03:45:24 -0700 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: ER https://habitablezone.com/2016/02/27/trump-and-the-first-amendment/#comment-35751 ER Sun, 28 Feb 2016 17:01:23 +0000 https://www.habitablezone.com/?p=55969#comment-35751 he complained that certain churches had complained to him that they couldn't work on his behalf because they might lose their religious tax-exempt status by engaging in political activity. Trump felt this was just another way for the gummint to coerce the churches and "keep them silent", and he proposed that under his administration the churches would be able to do whatever they pleased and still not pay taxes. I presume this would not apply to Islamic mosques. The conservative view of the constitution has always been one based on their personal superstitions and biases. In the 60s they complained the Federal courts were not constitutional because they insisted on overriding state court decisions on Jim Crow laws. They insisted they wanted "strict constructionists" who interpreted the constitution in precisely the way the founders wrote it, while knowing full well the founders purposely left many issues unsettled and vague, for future generations to sort out, and as compromises to help pass a document there was only limited agreement on. Particularly in the case of slavery and racial issues. On the other hand, they have shown themselves to be extremely loose and sloppy in interpreting the text when it favors their own twisted interpretations. Anchor babies don't really count as American-born, "well-regulated militia" means any redneck with a gun fetish, corporations are people and money is free speech. These issues, especially those that refer to concepts totally alien to the 18th century mind, such as automatic weapons, political TV advertising, and regulating and defining sexuality, marriage and reproduction, are indeed judgement calls, and it is up to each age to interpret the constitution as it seems fit. That's why we have courts, checks and balances, the federal system and the legislative/executive/judicial triad. We may not like the way it finally decides, but at least we a multitude of avenues to influence it fairly and with due process. I may not like the reinterpretation of the Second Amendment, or political action committees, but I accept those decisions as constitutional. The founders anticipated these hard choices and debates, they knew that, but these peckerheads just don't get it. he complained that certain churches had complained to him that they couldn’t work on his behalf because they might lose their religious tax-exempt status by engaging in political activity. Trump felt this was just another way for the gummint to coerce the churches and “keep them silent”, and he proposed that under his administration the churches would be able to do whatever they pleased and still not pay taxes.

I presume this would not apply to Islamic mosques.

The conservative view of the constitution has always been one based on their personal superstitions and biases. In the 60s they complained the Federal courts were not constitutional because they insisted on overriding state court decisions on Jim Crow laws. They insisted they wanted “strict constructionists” who interpreted the constitution in precisely the way the founders wrote it, while knowing full well the founders purposely left many issues unsettled and vague, for future generations to sort out, and as compromises to help pass a document there was only limited agreement on. Particularly in the case of slavery and racial issues.

On the other hand, they have shown themselves to be extremely loose and sloppy in interpreting the text when it favors their own twisted interpretations. Anchor babies don’t really count as American-born, “well-regulated militia” means any redneck with a gun fetish, corporations are people and money is free speech.

These issues, especially those that refer to concepts totally alien to the 18th century mind, such as automatic weapons, political TV advertising, and regulating and defining sexuality, marriage and reproduction, are indeed judgement calls, and it is up to each age to interpret the constitution as it seems fit. That’s why we have courts, checks and balances, the federal system and the legislative/executive/judicial triad. We may not like the way it finally decides, but at least we a multitude of avenues to influence it fairly and with due process. I may not like the reinterpretation of the Second Amendment, or political action committees, but I accept those decisions as constitutional. The founders anticipated these hard choices and debates, they knew that, but these peckerheads just don’t get it.

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