Most Notable Quotations of 2010 (UNCLASSIFIED)

[David A. Daniel]

Most stuff that is "in the constitution" is not in the constitution. Almost
all of what we consider to be "in the constitution" is actually
interpretation of some general and vague concept that was actually written
there. The writers almost never specify what they really mean and, given how
smart they all were, that can't have been by accident, it seems to me. Just
a little (before this election*) example: Constitution says that the
president must be a natural born citizen, but does not define what
constitutes being a natural born citizen. That, and a whole bunch of other
provisions, are left for congress to take care of within the general concept
that the constitution establishes. The fuzziness of the constitution is the
ultimate in wiggle-room. Even so, a little consistency would be nice.
Teabaggers insist on the constitution when it comes to guns, and want to
throw it all out when comes to religion, civil rights and anything else they
disagree with. And so it goes.
DAD
*BTW, am I the only person on Earth who knows that (a) John McCain was born
in Panama and (b) it doesn't matter - presidentially - if Obama was born in
Hawaii or not? Sometimes it seems so...





-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of
Shapiro, Fred
Sent: Monday, November 22, 2010 2:38 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: Most Notable Quotations of 2010 (UNCLASSIFIED)



The First Amendment prohibits an established religion, a very important
separation of church and state, and religious tests are also prohibited by
the Constitution.  What is more open to debate is whether the Constitution
envisioned a complete separation of church and state, what Jefferson called
a "wall of separation."  But clearly the concept of separation of church and
state is in the Constitution.  Conservatives often criticize me for my
position that there is a big category of misquotations by people furthering
conservative political agendas, but the fact is that there is a vast body of
big distortions of Founding Fathers quotations promulgated by conservatives
arguing that the United States was intended to be an explicitly Christian
nation.

Fred Shapiro



________________________________________
From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of
Mullins, Bill AMRDEC [Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL]
Sent: Monday, November 22, 2010 11:14 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: Most Notable Quotations of 2010 (UNCLASSIFIED)

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

>
> At 10:01 AM -0500 11/22/10, Dan Goncharoff wrote:
> >I would add to the list of quotations:
> >
> >Where in the Constitution is separation of church and state?
> >Christine O'Donnell
> >
>
> To be fair, it's not in the Constitution proper but in the First
> Amendment.  Perhaps Ms. O'Donnell  hadn't gotten that far, or skipped
> the boring First to get to the good stuff in the Second.
>

To be really, really fair, "separation of church and state" isn't in the
Constitution proper or in the First Amendment.  Both allowed some
interaction between church and state.

"Separation of church and state" comes from a letter by Thomas
Jefferson.  Not a bad rule, but it isn't in the Constitution.
Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

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