February 06, 2010 06:59 PM UTC

Constitutional scholars in 4th CD

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• by: NoCo_Indy

The more I think about it, the more worried I am about the answers in the 4th Congressional District GOP debate to the question “What’s your favorite constitutional amendment?”

I liked the humor of Cory Gardner’s throw-away line, the 21st Amendment giving us the right to drink alcohol (esp. in the wake of the 2008 election) and can see where Diggs Brown is coming from for the 2nd Amendment. I can respect that.

What troubles me is everyone else’s love of the 10th amendment, which gives the powers not in the Constitution to the states. I see the populism behind it, that the federal government “needs to be reined in.”

Don’t they realize, though, that the 10th was the hiding place for segregation, Jim Crow and who knows how many other practices to allow state-sanctioned prejudice?

If these guys really valued freedom, why wouldn’t they give a shout out to the 14th? The 1st? The 9th?

Or are they looking forward to a day when a state — hopefully not Colorado — tries to enact a Christian-based Sharia law?

My guess is that they don’t want to seem like they might ever agree with the ACLU, because we know how well that plays with the base. But to campaign on “state’s rights” seems like a throwback to days of German shepherds and water cannons. (That’s the 1960s, for those not old enough to recall).