Time Magazine Debases Constitution

“If the Constitution was intended to limit the federal government, it sure doesn’t say so.” — Richard Stengel, Managing Editor of Time Magazine, and former President and CEO of the National Constitution Center.

Please help share the linked article from which the following quote is taken.

The fourteen factual errors in the recent Time article are actually a big deal because the author of that awful piece, Richard Stengel, holds an incredibly influential position.

The author is not only the Managing Editor for Time, but he spent two years as President and CEO of the National Constitution Center. And even today, he works with the National Constitution Center’s Peter Jennings Project for Journalists and the Constitution, whose stated mission is “to help both professional journalists and students interested in journalism understand constitutional issues more deeply.” That is right. He is there to help journalists understand the Constitution better.
So I will present to you fourteen clear errors Mr. Stengel has made in his article, starting with the most egregious errors. Here are the fourteen errors, in short:

1. The Constitution does not limit the Federal Government.
2. The Constitution is not law.
3. The Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment emancipated the slaves.
4. The Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment granted the right to vote to African Americans.
5. The original Constitution declared that black people were to be counted as three-fifths of a person.
6. The original, unamended Constitution prohibited women from voting.
7. The Commerce Clause grants Congress the power to tax individuals based on whether they buy a product or service.
8. Inter arma enim silent leges translates as “in time of war, the Constitution is silent.”
9. The War Powers Act allows the president to unilaterally wage war for sixty days.
10. We have only declared war five times.
11. Alexander Hamilton wanted a king for America.
12. Social Security is a debt within the meaning of Section Four of the Fourteenth Amendment.
13. Naturalization depends on your birth.
14. The Obamacare mandate is a tax.

via Fourteen Clear Factual Errors in Richard Stengel’s Essay on the Constitution (And I Am Looking for Your Help) – Big Journalism.   From a powerful article by Aaron Worthing at Big Journalism.

I cannot describe my unease at this article.  The usual adjectives and phrases pale, and leave me wanting to pile more and more text on the problem.  This is very bad.  It is intentional, it is dangerous in the extreme, and it is WORKING.

I almost never ask explicitly for people to “pass it on”, as I figure that ideas and writing must stand or fall on their own.  But this is a bulletin.  PASS THIS ON.  Please go to the article linked above,  and spread it around any social network you can.

The next election is still over a year away.  THIS is the fight right now.

THank you.