The women of The View just gave McCain an awesomely hard time, asking things everyone should be asking and really working to make him answer (though not always succeeding). My favourite bit, though, was Whoopi Goldberg demonstrating the power of a good reductio ad absurdum. Discussing Roe V Wade, McCain said (after Whoopi pressed him for clarification) he would appoint justices who interpret the constitution as the founders intended it. Without missing a beat, she asked if that meant a return to slavery. Go Whoopi! I want her moderating the debates. I’m serious.
6 thoughts on “Whoopi Goldberg Nails It”
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Feminist Philosophers 
Actually Whoopi just showed how constitutionally ignorant she is. She just dosen’t understand how it’s supposed to work. McCain could have answered it much better but I guess he either didn’t know or didn’t want to go there.
The founders always intended the Constitution be changed/updated as the country evolved. That’s why they included an “amendment process”. 2 of the greatest moral stains/mistakes our country has made were corrected and settled the proper way-a constitutional amendment. 1.) Slavery was/is completely outlawed by the 13th amendment. Additonal protections against discrimination were added by the 14th amendment. I’m suprised Whoopi does not know this-pretty basic US history. 2.) Woman’s right to vote-corrected and granted by the 19th amendment.
You didn’t quote her correctly – she actually asked if she should worry about becoming a slave AGAIN (emphasis mine). It showed pretty clearly that she’s a dimwit who doesn’t realize that she was never a slave
Brilliant.
the fact that people can still think that the constitution must be exactly right as the founders interpreted it always bothered me.
MM: wasn’t that the reductio?
DJ: There are more plausible hypotheses. One is that Whoopi was seeing herself as speaking for her race, which is how lots and lots of people see individual members of a race. Secondly, she might have a strong emotional identification with the victims of slavery. Thirdly, she just mispoke.
GNZ, if I took these words at face value, I’d wonder how one knows what “the founders” intended. Did they agree on everything? Should later amendments be ignored? Does it mean anything less that two centuries old is out of the scope of the constitution?
The constitutionally savvy might read that phrase as a call for textualism. Which is usually close to interpreting scripture, as in selectively picking things out of context and ignoring others to support a predefined opinion.
Speaking of context, this phrase is just a code for “ban abortion”. That’s why a judge can be channeling the founders while standing against the separation of church and state, or supporting the unitary executive doctrine that considers the balance and separation of powers obsolete.
MM, do you think McCain should have told set her straight by telling her slavery is not acceptable, but that a return to Jim Crow sure is?
I don’t thing abortion prior to quickening was considered illegal in many places (and even if it was then not ‘murder’) at that time anyway. Maybe that was the point of roe vs wade.
Actually, I am one step further, I’m as a non American I’ve never been sold the idea of having a constitution. It seems to, in part, make the US very late in passing progressive legislation like banning slavery, unable to deal with a multitude of issues such as guns and unable to have a particularly representative representatives.
I don’t expect that sort of view to be very acceptable to most Americans, since your debate doesn’t usually even get into that space, and I rightly don’t have a vote anyway :)