Whoopi Goldberg's recent mocking of John McCain on The View is particularly maddening as both a historian and a libertarian/conservative. I am sure that everybody has seen the clip by now but here it is anyway:
"Should I be worried about slavery?" This is just insulting to McCain because it paints him, as well as other people favoring a stricter interpretation of the Constitution, as not only wrong, but bigoted racists as well. Of course, if I were McCain I would have made light of the situation and jokingly said "yes."
This attack besides being smug also displays Whoopi's ignorance. First of all, the Constitution did not legalize slavery because it was already legalized in various states at the time of ratification. There was a general consensus among the founders that slavery was an issue for the states to decide. There was also a consensus that slavery was a dying institution, which is evidenced in the clause that outlawed the Atlantic slave trade in the year 1808.
Yes, Whoopi, slavery was legal in several states at the time the Consitution was ratified. Many founders did own slaves, but slavery was not legalized in the Constitution. Being a strict constituionalist does not mean that you are a racist, but it does mean that you believe that there is a limit to what the constitution will allow. Those who are strict constitutionalists do not believe that one can just imagine various rights and then use to filmest of constitutional arguments to support them. Why does The View continue to give a soap box to moronic radicals like Whoopi, Joy, and Rosie?
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