Liberal Forum

Roy Moore in 2011: Getting rid of amendments after 10th would 'eliminate many problems'

By Andrew Kaczynski, CNN

Alabama Republican Senate nominee Roy Moore appeared on a conspiracy-driven radio show twice in 2011, where he told the hosts in an interview that getting rid of constitutional amendments after the Tenth Amendment would 'eliminate many problems' in the way the US government is structured.

Moore made his comments about constitutional amendments in a June 2011 appearance on the "Aroostook Watchmen" show, which is hosted by Maine residents Jack McCarthy and Steve Martin.

The hosts have argued that the US government is illegitimate and who have said that the September 11, 2001, attacks, the mass shooting at Sandy Hook, the Boston bombing, and other mass shootings and terrorist attacks are false flag attacks committed by the government.

(False flag attacks refer to acts that are designed by perpetrators to be made to look like they were carried out by other individuals or groups.)

The hosts have also spread conspiracy theories about the raid that led to the death of Osama Bin Laden and have pushed the false claim that former President Barack Obama was not born in the US.

CNN's KFile obtained audio from Moore's two appearances on the show.

In the same June episode, Moore invoked Adolf Hitler in a discussion about Obama's birth certificate.

In a May 2011 episode, Moore told the two radio hosts, who have repeatedly rejected the official explanation for the 9/11 attacks, that he would be open to hearings looking into "what really happened" on that day.

In Moore's June appearance, one of the hosts says he would like to see an amendment that would void all the amendments after the Tenth.

"That would eliminate many problems," Moore replied.

"You know people don't understand how some of these amendments have completely tried to wreck the form of government that our forefathers intended."

Moore cited the 17th Amendment, which calls for the direct election of senators by voters rather than state legislatures, as one he particularly found troublesome.

The host agreed with Moore, before turning his attention to the 14th Amendment, which was passed during the Reconstruction period following the Civil War and guaranteed citizenship and equal rights and protection to former slaves and has been used in landmark Supreme Court cases such as Brown v. Board of Education and Obergefell v. Hodges.

"People also don't understand, and being from the South I bet you get it, the 14th Amendment was only approved at the point of the gun," the host said.

"Yeah, it had very serious problems with its approval by the states," Moore replied.

"The danger in the 14th Amendment, which was to restrict, it has been a restriction on the states using the first Ten Amendments by and through the 14th Amendment.

To restrict the states from doing something that the federal government was restricted from doing and allowing the federal government to do something which the first Ten Amendments prevented them from doing.

If you understand the incorporation doctrine used by the courts and what it meant. You'd understand what I'm talking about."

Moore explained further that the first ten amendments restricted the federal government in certain areas.

"For example, the right to keep and bear arms, the First Amendment, freedom of press liberty.

Those various freedoms and restrictions have been imposed on the states through the 14th Amendment.

And yet the federal government is violating just about every one of them saying that -- they don't they don't -- are not restrained by them."

Besides the 14th and 17th Amendments, amendments adopted after the Bill of Rights include the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery, the 15th Amendment which prohibited the federal and state governments from denying citizens the right to vote based on that person's "race, color, or previous condition of servitude," and the 19th Amendment, which extended the right to vote to women.

Moore's campaign spokesman told CNN's KFile that Moore does not believe all amendments after the Tenth should be eliminated.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/10/politics/ ... index.html