Nearly every oath of service in this nation includes the phrase “Defend and protect the Constitution of the United States of America” in some form or the other. Not having a King we needed an object of loyalty, something bigger than the individual to focus our loyalty on. It was well planned by the Framers that when taking office each servant of the people would swear to uphold and protect the very document which created this nation.

It is therefore shocking how few of our fellow citizens actually get know or understand what the Constitution says. We have multiple issues where the public opinion seems to be against the Constitutions very clear demands for all citizens to have the same rights. The big culture war issue has been about the right of gay citizens to marry the person of their choice. Time and again the public has voted to deny this right to their fellow citizens.

"Originally posted at Squarestate.net"

Now with the help of the radical Republican propaganda machine the issue of citizens of the Islamic faith are under the same kind of pressure. The intent of a long time Manhattan Imam to build a large community center two blocks (Two New York City blocks, not the dinky things that you and I have in our neighborhoods) from the former site of the World Trade Center has lead to at least one on the radical Right to call for a ban on all mosque or Islamic community centers across the nation.

Indeed, enough was enough when right wing miscreants charged Democrats with setting up death panels to knock off our grandmothers so expenses would be lowered, and of raising costs that they were actually lowering, and a multitude of other totally baseless accusations. It was enough when the right wing representatives appealed to their base with appeals for personal freedoms that would be denied if health care were provided them through the ‘government takeover’ that now supplies their own health care needs.

What is the surest sign that one’s ideology is utterly, hopelessly bankrupt? When, increasingly, manifestations of that ideology take the form of hobgoblin obsessions with the most inconsequential, paper-thin minutiae, folded into intricate, hollow origami of false meaning.

What exactly are some people complaining about when they say Obama isn’t delivering “change”?

I am sick of political know-it-alls protecting their own hidden racism by saying there’s no Bradley Effect (either it’s a myth and explained by technical factors, etc or it’s overstated) and no potential problems with race and this Election Day.

This is cross-posted from Air America where I’m the editor. It’s part of a thing we call “Ask a Liberal.”