Putting the “wha?!” in “what the fuck?!”
New Hampshire Republicans have already demonstrated that they drink steaming hot mugs of crazy on the regular.
Remember how New Hampshire Republicans essentially defunded Planned Parenthood of New England thus making it impossible for low-income women in New Hampshire to obtain contraception? The Republicans’ reasoning, of course, was NO ABORSHUNS EVAH! even though federal law (hello? Hyde Amendment?) prohibits the use of federal funds for abortion.
But no matter! New Hampshire Republicans don’t need a reason to kick New Hampshire women in their vaginae. These Tea Party fanatics just do whatever their tiny mental Jesus tells them to do.
I wrote about the New Hampshire GOP’s assault on women’s reproductive rights here. Later, I wrote about how Obama basically was all, “Nobody kicks American women in the vaginae! Not on my watch!” which resulted in the federal government stepping in to fund Planned Parenthood of New England, so women in New Hampshire could purchase contraception and other totally-not-abortion-related healthcare services.
(Now, what does all this have to do with the Magna Carta? Very little. Just wanted to point out that Obama is totally looking out for you and your uterus. Moving on.)
New Hampshire Republicans have dialed up the crazy yet again. But this time it’s not women’s lady-areas they’re legislating, it’s old-ass English law – the Magna Carta (most of which was repealed as soon as it was enacted.)
Yes, seriously.
From Think Progress,
New Hampshire Republicans are taking textual originalism to a whole new level: three lawmakers have proposed a bill that requires that all legislation find its origin not in the U.S. constitution, but an English document crafted in 1215.
When the legislature reconvenes this month, Republicans want their colleagues to justify many new bills with a direct quote from the 800-year-old Magna Carta.
No, don’t rub your eyes. You just read that. That just happened.
The bill is a one sentence bill which provides, “All members of the general court proposing bills and resolutions addressing individual rights or liberties shall include a direct quote from the Magna Carta which sets forth the article from which the individual right or liberty is derived.”
Again, from Think Progress,
The Magna Carta is indisputably an important historical document, with ideas about liberty that inspired America’s founders. But as the Concord Monitor points out, the substance of the document is fixated on the tedium of feudal times, and has little if any relevance to modern American life.
New Hampshire lawmakers might have trouble applying passages like, “We shall straightway return the son of Llewelin and all the Welsh hostages,” or, “If anyone who has borrowed a sum of money from Jews dies before the debt has been repaid, his heir shall pay no interest on the debt for so long as he remains under age.”
One of the bill’s sponsors admitted that he wasn’t terribly familiar with the actual text, and mainly saw the measure as an homage. New Hampshire Democratic Party spokesman Ray Buckley said he was “mostly speechless” when he heard about the bill. “I appreciate all the hard work the Republican legislators are putting into the effort to make them look like extremists,” he said. “Saves us the trouble.”
Didn’t white people flee England so they could start their own shit in the New Country (after kicking out The Original Browns™ and enslaving The Blacks™)? What’s with the sudden obssession with some old-ass English document? (Read “Repealing the Magna Carta” from Mother Jones, if you want to speculate. I’ll give you a hint — it has to do with TAXES.)
If this isn’t the most ridiculous nonsense I’ve ever heard, then I don’t know what it is.
Or to put it another way,
Verily, this bill most foul and archaic brings great shame to the name and a pox on the house of the New Hampshire Republican Party, the members of which shall henceforth be known as “ye olde milk-livered scallywags of Niwe Hamtunschire.”1
1I’m far too embarrassed to share how long I have spent on Google trying to find a English to Middle English translator, and even more embarrassed to share how long I’ve been reading about how to speak both Chaucerian and Shakespearese. I need help… and perhaps another Adderall. (Seriously… it’s been, like, an hour.)
[via Thinke Progresseth]
At least it’s better than the Code of Hammurabi. I can’t wait to hear Rick Perry lecturing on the Magna Carta in Manchester.
Oh, I dunno Scott…I wouldn’t mind seeing that eye-for-an-eye bit enacted against execs from BP and Trans-Ocean. Ya know, force ‘em to bathe and shower in crude oil from now until, well, ya know, a point far in the future.
The Code of Hammurabi says that if you rape a virgin, you get put to death and she goes free. The GOP would never go for that. The “she goes free” part, I mean.
The Magna Carta was without a doubt, an important document in history, but still, it’s applicability to laws in this country were superseded long ago by the Constitution, which, the New Hampshire GOP seems to forget (frequently) is the supreme law of the land. Yes, their state signed off on it, too.
Heck, they’re already scrambling to contain the damage done to their reputation by their birther legislators, and now this.
Here’s the translation:
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured_documents/magna_carta/translation.html
and it’s apparently on exhibit at the National Archives.
One of the maroons behind this IS one of the birther legislators.
I saw the last remaining original copy of the Magna Carta once. It was in Ross Perot’s office in Dallas in ’92.
“Tiny mental Jesus” – heh!
tiny mental jesus.
wow. nailed it.
that may be the most concise explanation of the tea party world view. ever.
Not to mention I don’t think I’ve ever heard a better band name.
Next up from the New Hampshire GOP:
“THEREFORE, be it resolved, that each Member shall wear Silly Hats procured (at own expense) at the Renaissance Fair; AND FURTHERMORE that each Member will Sign all official documents with comically-oversized Quill Pens.”
Wait a week, they’ll come up with something.
All the gooper candidates in NH this week should be asked if they support the bill.
You write stuff like this just to make the rest of us ABLC bloggers look like novices, don’t you? How are we supposed to compete with brilliance like this, hmmmm?
The 1215 version of Magna Carta had relatively little impact after a confederacy of rebellious barons forced it on King John. The 1297 do-over was much more significant. What’s really puzzling though is why they don’t just go back to the Charter of Liberties issued by Henry I in 1100. Could it be that the New Hampshire GOP are crypto-modernists?
So I’m reading through the magna carta translation linked above and arble garble, stuff about knighthood, your existing chattels will suffice, a free man is not to be amerced, socage and burgage. sounds legit. right?
wrong.
there is some questionable stuff in there that would definitely not fly anywhere in the modern world, especially here at home.
stuff like free men can’t be bankers, and women can’t report crimes except those committed against her husband.
FREE MEN CAN’T SELL LAND!!!
that is of course (unless the residue of his land is sufficient to render due service to the lord of the fee as pertains to that fee.)
scary stuff.
someone should tell these people how stupid they are.
someone should tell these people how stupid they are.
I think this might be Angry Black Lady’s reason for living.
So she will have reason to live and thrive for as long as she so chooses.
ABL — live like her!
truth!
Oh, let them pass it. Then just attached random quotes to any legislation.. If they question how it justifies the law, just say ‘because it does’. It’s not like these guys are master debaters.
The thing is … if you go back to the time of King John, that opens up a whole ‘nutha can of worms – the Crusades and Robin Hood. And we know how conservatives feel about Robin Hood, don’t we? ;-)
I found this passage rather amusing…
“(54) No one shall be arrested or imprisoned on the appeal of a woman for the death of any person except her husband.”
I always hate it when women accuse me of murder. It’s such a hassle.
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/magnacarta.asp
Funny and great writing all in one! Thanks ABL!
… okay, fuck you GOP. Fuck you. I thought I had you pegged when I said you wanted to roll back 150 years, but now you want to roll back 800 fucking years? What the fuck? No seriously, fuck you GOP, I can’t fucking keep up.
For my part, when I saw what this was really about, the first thought I had was, “Damn. They are trying to get to the purest white origin document they can get to. In this case it is one that applies to the segment of the original population they like to think they came from. I say “like to think they came from” because the descendants of the noblemen who won the concessions detailed in the Magna Carta were not at all likely to have been among the Puritans or others who emigrated. It is, however, also true that the Anglo descendants in this country (and wannabes) obviously let neither fact nor historical reality stand in the way of their political wet dreams.
I bet they had their eye on this little gem:
“(21) Earls and barons shall be fined only by their equals, and in proportion to the gravity of their offence.”
1%, baby!
I know why you’re pissed ABL
They want you to give up your Welsh hostages, and I know you’ve worked hard to keep them, but its time to send them home
But this is bullshit, they use old English law when it suits them, but when we site high speed rail and single payer, they dont want to be like that Europe, they want to make us feudal, they dont want to repeal the 20th Century, they want to bring us back 13th….
This is a surprise?
This is almost frighteningly modern for a group that wants to enact the Bible – well, their version of the Bible which is just a few verses from Leviticus about bashing teh ghey – as law.
You know what the big advantage of the Magna Carta is (from their perspective)?
No pesky 14th Amendment.
indeed!
I saw an incredibly awful movie on Netflix over the holiday break. It was a dramatization of what happened when King John tried to renege after signing the Magna Carta. I can’t remember the name of the movie; it was dumb and gratuitously violent — a real turkey in which Paul Giamatti had somehow been persuaded to play King John. Anyhoo, my theory is that a random NH GOP yahoo saw it and came up with this idea. Really. It’s probably as simple and stupid as that.