{"id":4621,"date":"2011-01-14T06:07:23","date_gmt":"2011-01-14T13:07:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/josemarquez.com\/xsml\/?p=4621"},"modified":"2011-01-14T06:07:23","modified_gmt":"2011-01-14T13:07:23","slug":"the-fire-this-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.josemarquez.com\/etc\/2011\/01\/14\/the-fire-this-time\/","title":{"rendered":"on politicians reading the U.S. Constitution out loud, as if it were a prayer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I wrote the following last Saturday, with the state of Arizona on my mind, in a fit of anger. Soon after, I decided against posting it. I am doing so now that the far more thoughtful Jill Lapore <a href=http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/arts\/critics\/atlarge\/2011\/01\/17\/110117crat_atlarge_lepore?mbid=social_twitter>has expanded<\/a> on my closing gripe. <\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\nLike the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Indentured_servant#Colonial_America\">Irish, Scottish, German and English indentured servants<\/a> as well as <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Middle_Passage\">the enslaved Africans before them<\/a>, today&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.economist.com\/node\/17722932\">de facto indentured servants<\/a> from Mexico and the rest of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cato-unbound.org\/2009\/08\/05\/jorge-castaneda\/a-us-war-with-mexican-consequences\/\">the war-torn<\/a>, debt-ridden Third World are a stark reminder that there will always be a gap between the letter of the Constitution, which abides no distinction between any man or woman, which is blind to race and class, and its interpretation; a stark reminder that rights on paper are nothing without the conscience to protect them; that justice can be bought and sold. <\/p>\n<p>The sorry spectacle earlier this week of grown men reading a legal compact as if it were a prayer; what ostentatious, self-aggrandizing horseshit. The Constitution has no magical powers when read aloud; it does not reveal its true meaning by being chanted. Its only power comes from how it is interpreted and applied, how it is debated and <a href=\"http:\/\/yglesias.thinkprogress.org\/2011\/01\/bowdlerizing-the-constitution\/\">revised<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I wrote the following last Saturday, with the state of Arizona on my mind, in a fit of anger. Soon after, I decided against posting it. I am doing so now that the far more thoughtful Jill Lapore has expanded on my closing gripe. Like the Irish, Scottish, German and English indentured servants as well&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.josemarquez.com\/etc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4621"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.josemarquez.com\/etc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.josemarquez.com\/etc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.josemarquez.com\/etc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.josemarquez.com\/etc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.josemarquez.com\/etc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4621\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.josemarquez.com\/etc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.josemarquez.com\/etc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.josemarquez.com\/etc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}