In today’s Washington Post, cartoonist Tom Toles argues that the tea party movement reveals itself to be racist by “want[ing] to go back to the Constitution as it was written,” despite the document’s acquiescence in the continuation of slavery. Toles’s cartoon is a particularly hateful variant of a misleading, but all too common, argument that tries to vilify critics of a “living Constitution” and justify judicial activism by pointing out that the Constitution was written in a different and less tolerant time.
Whether ignorant or intentionally misleading, this line of argument ignores the fact that 1) the Founding Fathers provided for constitutional evolution through the democratic process of constitutional amendment, and 2) what conservatives, libertarians, and the tea party movement favors is a strict constructionist or originalist interpretation of the Constitution and its amendments, not “go[ing] back to the Constitution as it was written” sans amendments.
Toles and other critics of strict construction would benefit from reviewing the Constitution and the history of the civil rights movement. They would learn that constitutional amendments and legislation, rather than a “living Constitution,” are responsible for the greatest advances in civil rights, including the elimination of slavery and the enfranchisement of African Americans and women.
Steve Maley
KnightsofMalta
Is Toles listening to Whoopi Goldberg?
Dan McLaughlin (Diary) Wednesday, July 21st at 2:17PM EST (link)That’s the same line she tried to feed to McCain, the implicit assumption being that we got rid of slavery by a Supreme Court decision, which is 180 degrees the opposite of the truth.
“No compromise with the main purpose, no peace till victory, no pact with unrepentant wrong.” – Winston Churchill
Tea Party Racism
paulainnes Thursday, July 22nd at 3:37PM EST (link)The Radical/Liberal Dems and Republicans are desperate and pitiful in their desperation. I guess I need to say this one more time but, just because a person doesn’t care for and vote for Obama, doesn’t mean that they are racists.
chick
newland65 Tuesday, August 10th at 5:05PM EST (link)what a bunch of bull,, we all are racist’s commie b word
do people
rdelbov Wednesday, July 21st at 2:23PM EST (link)still read newspapers—I hve been paperless for 18 months now–canceled after obama won
Yes, because
scubadiver49er Thursday, July 22nd at 10:42AM EST (link)I’m now out of a job because of “The Three Stooges” (Barry, Henry & Nancy) and I’m checking every source I can to try & find some semblance of a job, thanks to Barry willfully tanking the economy. I’m a firm believer of the Cloward – Piven strategy, trying to collapse the economy so he can take over, only worse than what we got with FDR and the “New Deal”. When viewing what BHO has done from this standpoint, EVERYTHING he’s signed into law to date is one more step towards his eventual takeover.
“I just can’t wait to be King” – Lion King.
“I Just Can’t Wait to be King” – Simba from “The Lion King”, 1994
Barry Soetoro – ???
Provide WP with some links....
Ron Robinson (Diary) Wednesday, July 21st at 2:34PM EST (link)I just posted a link to Jeff Dunetz’ RD story in the comments on that WP story
________________________________________

Ron Robinson
Chair, AD 49 Republican Central Committee
California Republican Central Committee
PROCINCT Author/ Founder
The Precinct Project
Unified Patriots – How-To: Activists Taking Action!
The local paper publishes a lot of his cartoons
m_quick Wednesday, July 21st at 2:48PM EST (link)I always expect to see something like this when I see his style of drawing. When I first saw his cartoons I thought they were annoying because of the writing he always does below the picture. He makes an unfunny joke about conservatives in the cartoon, then elaborates in an even less humorous way in the lower margin. It’s a double whammy of unfunny, liberal political hack nonsense.
Toles, and his fellow travelers on the left, are ordinarily constitutional ignoramuses
RedBeard Wednesday, July 21st at 2:56PM EST (link)This does nothing to lessen their culpability, however. Anyone professionally engaged in public policy discourse should have at least a passing acquaintance with the subject at hand. Toles obviously does not. If he had such knowledge, he would not publish such tripe as this, because he would know he would be caught in a very obvious lie.
Unless he’s stupid in addition to being ignorant, in which case all bets are off.
Standard-bearer for grouchy curmudgeonry since, oh, 1975 or so.
Because
jsanzone (Diary) Wednesday, July 21st at 3:11PM EST (link)of course, no tea partiers talk about the 1st, 2nd, 4th, or 10th amendments at all (though there is some contention over the 16th and17th).
http://www.2010blog.net
20/10 Blog
chick
newland65 Tuesday, August 10th at 5:07PM EST (link)it dont matter, as these jurk’s that are in office, are stepping on the amendment’s anyway.. they make their own rules..
And a look at his other work reveals a very lame excuse for a cartoonist.
Locked and Loaded (Diary) Wednesday, July 21st at 3:24PM EST (link)His drawing stinks; his ideology, more so.
The Racist Badge of Courage...
jcincy Wednesday, July 21st at 3:51PM EST (link)If this nonsense keeps up, it will be hip to be called a racist.
“Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation, to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.” — John Jay
Don't sugar coat it, Curt
Vassar Bushmills (Diary) Wednesday, July 21st at 4:37PM EST (link)The cartoon, and I assume Toles, were both pretty illiterate.
Most leftists are
aesthete (Diary) Thursday, July 22nd at 2:23AM EST (link)Even the ones who are nice and intelligent.
The act of defending any of the cardinal virtues has today all the exhilaration of a vice – G.K. Chesterton
Tom Toles Is a Disgusting Human Being
IJB Wednesday, July 21st at 4:41PM EST (link)Don’t believe me? Look into what the guy’s done sometime.
I’ll be toastin’ the day that guy kicks it, believe me…
Leftists hate the Constitution
whoframedrudy (Diary) Thursday, July 22nd at 3:55AM EST (link)“Toles and other critics of strict construction would benefit from reviewing the Constitution and the history of the civil rights movement.”
I don’t think this liar Toles is ignorant of the Constitution. More likely, he hates the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights. Leftists also hate representative government.* A leftist once told me The Federalist Papers was a “bourgeois document.” They hate the Constitution because it is designed to short-circuit totalitarianism. Judges/legal scholars can honestly debate strict construction. But when the ‘Lying Left’ gets on about originalism, they reveal their animosity to the Constitution itself, regardless of interpretation, as an obstacle to their dreams of genocide.
*”…revolution in Russia detested parliamentary institutions … democratic tomfoolery.” Ulam, Stalin biography.
You’re gonna need more than one lesson. And you’re gonna get more than one lesson.
I Racist
ontap Thursday, July 22nd at 11:31AM EST (link)I racist
So they say I
Have come to be
Wanting not for
Someone else’s dollar
Striving to be free
Yet respectful enough
To not do anything I please
Knowing right from wrong
Knowing charity from greed
Knowing compassion from abhor
I racist
So they say I
Have come to be
Associating with a party
That prefers tea to coffee
Looking to better the lot of all
And realizing that government
Has been the source of the fall
I racist
So they say I
Have come to be
Not focused upon the news of the day
Looking over my shoulder
To remiss of better days
When truth and purpose
Was a part of the American way
Not the lies and distractions
That has brought this
Country to fray
I racist
So I may be
A banner with thou
Cannot shame me
For character is the truth of oneself
And reputation is the public perception
Given by those who conspire and deceive
the caca comes out
Veronica (Diary) Thursday, July 22nd at 12:24PM EST (link)I so love the internet.
Yeah, we’ve got twitter mentality going on, people thinking before they write (I’m guilty), etc.
And these leftist baffoons aren’t thinking twice about exposing their gameplan.
That’s great for us. Now we know why they defecate all over the Constitution.
Knowing is wonderful, actually, because we deserve the truth about what lying in their black little, weasley, shriveled up hearts.
Now we know they’re propelling socialism and the “living Constitution” with their slavery, civil rights and distributive wealth arguments.
As though this country was corrupt and needs more “change.”
Keep it up, fools.
I just came across a kid’s Constitution book in my library, specifically on the Bill of Rights — and I couldn’t quite figure out why Martin Luther King’s picture was right beside the title page. — usually, the pages to the left of the title page are blank. But in this book, there was King. No prob.
Well, come the end of Chapter 1, we’ve got several pages referencing slavery. They devote each chapter to the first 10 amendments, but they close up the book with a whole chapter devoted to civil rights and slavery — with the final chapter focusing on activism (“.. the Supreme Court ruled that schoolchildren can’t be required to salute the American flag..”)
It’s all stated less ominously than you would think. This is a kid’s book and it is very, VERY subtle.
Now we know their basis for a “living Constitution.”
Curt, this is a very important post.
Maybe add something like ” — their reason for a “living” Constitution”?
When I clicked on this post off the frontpage, I was expecting a silly mockery of the teaparty again.
This post is much more than that. A very important post, thank you!
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Pray as if everything depends on God, and work as if everything depends on us. – St. Augustine
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Opinions!!
trp878 Thursday, July 22nd at 5:33PM EST (link)Toles is no different than any of us. “Opinions are like rectums, we all have one.”
Don't be foolish Mr. Levey,
markducharme Friday, July 23rd at 12:25AM EST (link)…for it is fools who think such people, as “mr.” toles, lack only education. He means us harm. He is a willing and malicious tool for evil. He, and every other twit in the fake news media, HATES liberty and is simply pounding the drum that numbs the masses into accepting their plight as non-elites, thus protecting his station in society as a permanent member of the elite class.
“Review” nothing. This guy, and his ilk, knows the truth and intentionally shields others from it – clear enough?
The "Tea Party is racist" theme...
sccrenny (Diary) Friday, July 23rd at 12:31AM EST (link)has all the intellectual honesty and integrity of “Blacks will steal from you” and “Democrats are corrupt socialists”. You would find many times the “facts” and “examples” of the last two than the first, but all three are equally, patently and blatantly dishonest and destructive.
When I look at Barack Obama I don’t see black. I don’t see white. I do, however see RED! It’s the same color I see when I look at Pelosi, Reid, ACORN, SEIU…
Precinct Delegate since 2010