I just read both an article in _Scientific American_ and a book review in _Mathematical Intelligencer_ on a new biography of the mathematical logician, Kurt Godel, he of the famous Incompleteness Theorem. Apparently when he was examined to become a US citizen in the late 1940s (Albert Einstein and Oskar Morgenstern were present to shepherd the extreme eccentric genius through), they had to repress him from making an extended speech about contradictions in the US constitution that he perceived when the examining judge asked him what he thought of that particular document. Barkley Rosser -----Original Message----- From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Date: Friday, May 21, 1999 6:12 PM Subject: Re: gun control
>Catherine Driscoll wrote:
>
>>Does being in the Consitution of the United
>>States (the wording is probably disordered) make it intrinsically good,
>>ethical, virtuous, valuable, right, fair, just, and so on.
>
>You've touched on one of the founding myths of the U.S. - the weird
>fetishized sacredness of the Constitution and the wisdom of its Framers.
>Arguments from the Supreme Court on down to barstools are typically made by
>appeal to its authority. Conservatives will say "federal aid to education
>is wrong because constitutionally it's a state and local responsibility."
>Liberals will say "Abortion should be legal because of constitutional
>guarantees of the right to privacy." It serves a unifying function similar
>to myths of blood and nation in other countries. To become a "naturalized"
>citizen or president you swear loyalty to the text. I think the Mormons
>treat the U.S. Constitution as literally scriptural. Most Americans do, but
>not so explicitly.
>
>Doug
>