Tea Stains v Original Intent Supremes, the Battle for the Most Bankrupt

Hello, sports fans. Let's have a look at a hotly contested fight in the public realm of the home league, the USA. Two teams have entered today's contest, the Tea Stains and the Original Intent Supremes.


The Tea Stains make an easy target for the opposition, yet still claim to have growing traction and an ardent fan base. The Original Intent Supremes are less well known, but form much of the basis for the Tea Stains' philosophy, such as it is, so we'll take an in depth look at them first.


Probably the best known of the Original Intent Supremes is Antonin Scalia, but he's joined by his intellectual equals, and I mean that in the least flattering way possible, John Roberts, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. Sometimes Anthony Kennedy joins this motley crew, but he's coming in off the bench and is on the floor as a matter of convenience rather than a core member of the team.

What do the Original Intent Supremes believe? Constitutional law questions should be decided on the basis of the intent of the Founding Fathers. Does the First Amendment restriction on government regulation of speech apply to corporations? Of course it does because the Founding Fathers intended that corporations be treated just the same as the average person on the street. Corporations have feelings and will be hurt by the mean, mean government if not allowed to buy as many politicians as possible. Of course, this only works with the corollary that money equals speech, but we all know that the original intent of the Founders was to have the "person" with the most money control the government. That's why the Constitution delineated a system of divided powers. It wasn't to keep the government both independent and less subject to the whims of either mass rule or the will of a few, but to allow those who could accumulate the most money to buy the most players on the board. Way to go Original Intent Supremes! Free guns to everyone, as the Founders intended (because everyone belongs to a militia, you betcha!)


Next on the docket for this team has to be the re-imposition of slavery. Clearly, the original intent of the Founders was to allow for slavery. Slaves were specifically mentioned in the Constitution and counted as 3/5 of a person for census purposes, so the southern states could have their cake (having slaves and not allowing them any rights as people) and eat it, too (counting the slaves in the census to garner more representation in the House). The 13th Amendment, you say? Tsk. Sorry, not a part of the original Constitution or drafted by the Founders in the Bill of Rights, aka the first 10 Amendments.


Surely everyone can see how the Original Intent Supremes have handled the ball? The Founders wanted the US to be a static, unchanging land. The Constitution was drafted not to make radical change difficult but all change impossible. Only what they, a unanimous, unified polity, intended in writing and ratifying the Constitution was intended to govern this land, because the USA would never be anything but an agrarian economy, sparsely populated and bordered by lands largely free of any governance whatsoever. Those great and wonderful, and oh so flawless, men never, ever intended for the the US to change in any way. Why, it's why we live as the Amish today and you're reading this on the pamphlet sold to you on the dusty/muddy streets of your town, after hearing about it from the town cryer.


On the other side of this epic battle are the Tea Stains. Their philosophy is harder to nail down, as they keep changing sports, they have no cut-off to their roster, and there's no one leading the team. Why, this team is often fighting itself as much as it fights anyone else.

Nonetheless, here's what we can glean from their best known games. Government, especially the federal government, is bad. Very bad. All those people in Congress and the President that were elected as representatives just in November 2008? They don't actually represent the majority. They're pointy headed elitists/minorities/traitors who have obtained power by garnering the votes of illegal immigrants and dead people. They are totally illegitimate and usurpers of the power that belongs only to the Real Americans (a name the Tea Stains used to play under but gave up for the far more catchy, if infantile, current nom). Only Real Americans are actually allowed to vote, but all these other illegitimate voters have corrupted the system to bring into effect policies that all Real Americans oppose. Due to the make-up of the Tea Stains, there doesn't seem to be anything they actually favor.


Taking a page from the Original Intent Supremes, the Tea Stains harken back to a beautiful, perfect time at the nation's founding when only the right people were allowed to vote. Somehow the female members of the team have lost sight of the fact that they weren't among those allowed to vote back then, but no one ever said this team was thinking things through. So far the team's greatest accomplishment has been to hurl epithets at members of Congress, though some did manage to follow that up with bricks through windows and threats of violence.


Who wins this contest? What is this contest? It's a contest for the most dishonest philosophy, both morally and intellectually. From an intellectual standpoint, the Tea Stains can't hold a candle to the Original Intent Supremes. For one thing, they can't put together a coherent philosophy (in addition to being the intellectual heirs of the Know-Nothings), while the Original Intent Supremes have a fully thought out, if irrationally reasoned one. On the moral front, though, the Original Intent Supremes are easily overwhelmed by the Tea Stains, with their threats of violence, dishonest call for "starting over" on something they oppose no matter its form, and heavy reliance on racists, separatists, and religious and sexual identity bigots. From this specator's vantage, this game is a tie, though because it's never ending, one team may overtake the other eventually.