Some guy named Doug Thompson took a cheap shot at Ron Paul recently in an incoherent article titled “The Constitutional hypocrisy of Ron Paul.” From what I could gather, Thompson’s claim is that Ron Paul supports nullification and the 10th Amendment, therefore Ron Paul is a racist because a document published in 1956 called the Southern Manifesto once alluded to nullification.

No mention of the Virginia or Kentucky Resolutions, or of Thomas Jefferson.

Thompson did acknowledge that

Nullification has also been used to fight slavery but I find it odd that a strict Constitutional advocate would push for support of only those parts of the document that fit with his philosophies.

But that’s the strange part. Nowhere in his rambling diatribe does Thompson say what part of the Constitution Ron Paul or his son Rand don’t support.

The only specific part of the Constitution that is mentioned at all is the 10th Amendment.

Those who support nullification point to the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution to support their claim that states have the right to “nullify” laws.

Thompson goes on to cite a “constitutional expert” named Edward Lazarus, who says of the 10th Amendment:

It is hard to know what to make of the fact that a bunch of opportunistic politicians are now holding out a tarnished artifact of constitutional history as a serious interpretation of the Constitution and of our national structure.

So, according to Thompson’s scholar, the 10th Amendment, which last I checked has not been repealed, is a “tarnished artifact” of the Constitution that may be ignored at will by the federal government, but Ron Paul is the selective hypocrite? Right…

As Thompson himself states at the end with an utterly misguided rhetorical flourish

Trying to find ways around the Constitution is why George W. Bush left office as one of the most unpopular President in history.

If that’s true, then why do Thompson and Lazarus and a host of “experts” and politicians on both sides of the aisle (basically everyone except Ron and Rand Paul) try so hard to find a way around the 10th Amendment, the very “foundation” of the Constitution according to Jefferson, and the best weapon against centralized power?

Oh, wait, I just answered my own question.

The 10th Amendment

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

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