re: #183 Dopamine Fish

Well, the original text of the Constitution was written by, and for, wealthy white slave-owning men. They’re the only people the Constitution was originally meant to protect, everybody else can just go die, I guess.

/My sarcasm, but how long before Sam Alito actually says this (or similar) out loud?

Just. stop. this. bullshit. The Constitution was largely written by one wealthy white slaveholder (whose debts prevented him from freeing his slaves even assuming he would have wanted to), but it was argued and recast by a Convention that included slaveholders, abolitionists, and the indifferent. The same wealthy white slaveholder was largely responsible for the Bill of Rights, which have functioned as a bulwark against the interests of the powerful against the powerless. And all this took place after another wealthy, white and heavily indebted slaveholder expressed the ideas floating in the air at that time: “…that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” (Also an oversimplification, but I don’t have time to write a book,and there are good ones already available.)

More important, the reduction of history to a series of tweet-sized statements does nothing but harm to public discourse. It’s getting to the point where we expect nothing better (and nothing else) from public figures than the ability to make clever remarks — and we already know where that leads.