I could easily begin this writing by describing my surprise at how so many liberals are buying into the ridiculous hype over this book, but that would be stating the obvious. The gross display of the bandwagon effect and its bus driver (Elie Mystal) driving his passengers further into ignorance of the US Constitution.
Even more obvious is the fact that Mystal simply will not respond to any criticism of his book. His flagrant narcissism and lack of either academic or professional integrity simply will not allow him to admit that he is wrong on so many aspects he put forth in his book. Which makes him entirely incorrigible, shameless, stubborn, and wholeheartedly arrogant. Not to mention bigoted seeing as the entirety of the book is seen and written through the "Cry Wolf" #racism Syndrome.
The following is, in part, my constructive criticism of his so-called guide to the US Constitution. A document he clearly does not understand in its making, design and the entirety of the debates and legislative history that went into its affirmation and the addition of the Bill of Rights (BOR).
Chapter 2 focuses on the 1st Amendment of the BOR, which is clearly premised on "freedom of speech and expression," yet the entirety of the chapter is spent being critical of the "freedom of religion and exercise thereof" clause. The title infers bigotry is illegal even if Jesus orders you to do it. Well, that simply is not true. First off, bigotry is NOT illegal; and by extension neither is hate speech. Notwithstanding, basing the whole of this chapter on freedom of speech but premising it on freedom of religion results in a glowing false conclusion.
Chapter 3, titled "Everything you know about the second amendment is wrong" is likewise based on a false premise, resulting in an equally achieved false conclusion. Within a few sentences he makes a completely false assertion about the events that took place at the Capital on January 6th.
"Instead of using guns, the violent mob beat cops and killed one of them using blunt objects."
No capital officer died that day. In fact, the only people that died that day were supporters of President Trump; specifically Ashli Babbitt.
Mystal then rambles on about self-defense:
"...self-defense is not mentioned once in the text of the Constitution."
Neither is the right of women to have an abortion, yet Mystal is a staunch supporter of it, even citing the Constitution in support of it. But just like this book being seen and written through the prism of racism, he pulls the #racecard during his interview with none other than MSNBCs personal #bigot, Joy-Reid.
Just because self-defense isn't mentioned doesn't mean it isn't intended, because it is in the historical context. In order for the people to defend a nation, we must first be able to defend ourselves. In other words, #selfdefense. Just like how women have the right to an abortion via the right to privacy in their medical status and decisions.
Here is where Mystal really goes off the deep end regurgitating another poorly asserted argument through the prism of racism by Carol Anderson:
"There was an original purpose to the Second Amendment, but it wasn't to keep people safe. It was to preserve white supremacy and slavery."
This is so ridiculous on its face it is almost not worth dignifying with a response or retort, but prudence demands one. The root history of the second amendment can be traced back to free men defending their home, land and family rooted in self-defense (i.e. self-preservation).
"The founding fathers drew from Biblical principles, English and American history, and English common law to present an amendment protecting the individual right of Americans to keep and bear arms. At its center lie two core principles upon which both the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence were founded: the law of self-government and the right of self-defense. The purpose of the Second Amendment was to promote peace, prosperity, and liberty, both by protecting one’s life and property from invaders and by lawfully resisting a tyrannical government."
Mystal then "retorts" the following:
"The Second Amendment is in the Constitution because Patrick Henry and George Mason won a debate against James Madison. Henry and Mason wanted the Second Amendment in there to guard against slave revolts"
Complete rubbish! If that were even remotely true, then the amendment would reflect that in the language and it simply does not. See the above quote and cited links regarding the #TRUE history of the second amendment, which has absolutely nothing to do with "preserv(ing) white supremacy and slavery."
This next statement just demonstrates the sheer ignorance of the intent and purpose (i.e. red herring fallacy) of the second amendment on Mystal's part:
"The Founders didn't know that guns would be used in over half of the nation's suicides."
What do suicides have to do with the price of Tea in China! Nothing! Even back in the days of the Founders people used single shot pistols and even rifles to commit suicide. It is not as if the Founders were ignorant of the capacity for people to take their own life, as human beings have done so for centuries with whatever tools where at their disposal to see it through. This is a not only a non-academic argument, it is also a non-legal argument against the Second Amendment. In fact, it is a rather uneducated one for someone so educated.
Mystal once again goes down the Cry Wolf racism Syndrome path with the following ridiculous notion:
"Gun rights are not about self-defense. They literally never have been. Gun rights are about menacing, intimidating, and killing racial minorities, if necessary."
Reading this it becomes painfully clear that #ElieMystal knows absolutely nothing about the #SecondAmendment. This position, clearly seen and written through a divisive and racial prism is so patently absurd that I am not going to dignify it with my own written response. Rather, I will just cite evidence that conclusively disproves Mystal's victimhood mentality version of the intent of self-defense and the Second Amendment.
"Noting that by the 1850s the perceived threat that the National Government would disarm the citizens had largely faded, the Court suggested that the right to keep and bear arms became valued principally for purposes of self-defense, so that the passage of Fourteenth Amendment, in part, was intended to protect the right of ex-slaves to keep and bear arms."
Chapter 7 is about stopping police brutality, but with other similar arguments on point, he ultimately fails to substantiate it. His (and those like-minded) narrative simply cannot be substantiated given the objective facts disclose an undeniable truth that directly contradicts their narrative. His positions are based solely on claims of racism and pulls out the race card:
"Make stopping people because they're black an "unreasonable search."
"Make shooting people because they're black an "unreasonable seizure."
"The unnecessary destruction of Black Lives would stop."
"But applying the Fourth Amendment as I suggest would make police officers think twice before killing black children."
Where to begin discrediting all this flagrant nonsense. Before I do let me make one obvious truth crystal clear: TRUTH does not equal racism. Truth may hurt, you may not like the truth, but your feelings and/or misconceptions about reality won't ever change the truth. What Mystal proffers in this chapter is pure fiction, as much of the rest of his book is. The following is fact-based truth, like it or not.
Starting with the last quote regarding police shooting black suspects, Mystal's assertion is completely false. Washington State University completed a comprehensive study that demonstratabley proved that law enforcement officers are more hesitant to shoot black suspects versus whites and Hispanics. If and when police do shoot a black suspect, it is because they were forced to due to the actions of that suspect.
"Mattson is guilty of nothing except electing to serve as a police officer during these woke times. He is also the “beneficiary” of slanted and loaded anti-police news coverage: the grist that helps to fuel activist rage. An armed white male shot while charging a police officer would never receive the level of press coverage or have clear-cut video footage of the appropriate dispensing of lethal force continue to be questioned."
And yet Mystal's position on law enforcement and white Americans is that whites "want the police to be brutal," "white people want the police to act this way. They want them violent and unshackled from constitutional restraint." This is so ridiculous and just demonstrates that while he is so educated, he is also so incredibly stupid and quite obviously a bigot towards whites and law enforcement.
The left, which includes some that I have seen on Twitter call Mystal "Black Jesus" refuses to read fact-based truth and accept the reality that Mystal is just wrong. The fact that the emotions interjected in the left's arguments resulting in their aggressive knee-jerk reactions simply will not change the truth. That truth being that they are wrong, that their emotive retorts are not supported by fact-based truths.
"The data on police use of force predominantly reveal professionalism and restraint. Yet, as with so many aspects of America’s criminal-justice reform debate, context and nuance are regularly cast aside in favor of obfuscation and mischaracterization."
A poignant truth about the black community that the left simply refuses to acknowledge let alone accept is the fact that half the black male population (3% of the total 6% total of the black male American population) commit over 50% of the entire nation violent person crimes (e.g., murder, non-negligent manslaughter, robberies, rape, etc.). Black males commit a disproportionate amount of crime in general; and yet blacks consist of roughly 13-14% of the population. Police go where the crime is, not where it is not. Police operate on offender profiling to stop crimes before they happen, or to find those who committed a crime. If a part of that offender profile involves their race or ethnicity, that is an obvious demographic applicable to the profile and has absolutely nothing to do with racial profiling, which has been illegal for decades.
Mystal's statements about stopping people, using deadly force, and the application of the Fourth Amendment is easily debunked here:
"Fourth Amendment Constraints on Searches and Seizures The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution protects “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.” It does not specifically prohibit racial profiling, but courts would not consider stops and searches based solely on a subject’s race to be reasonable seizures because police have identified no individualized reason for suspicion. The Amendment has been interpreted to permit police to detain a person briefly for investigative purposes if an officer has a reasonable suspicion “that criminal activity may be afoot.” A mere “hunch” or inarticulable suspicion does not meet this standard. And “law enforcement officers must satisfy escalating legal standards of ‘reasonableness’ for each level of intrusion upon a person—stop, search, seizure, and arrest.” Courts have held that an officer cannot meet the Fourth Amendment standard by relying on a person’s racial appearance, alone, as grounds for reasonable suspicion. By contrast, the officer may use race, for Congressional Research Service https://crsreports.congress.gov LSB10524 Congressional Research Service 2 example, searching for a person matching a suspect’s description and part of that description is the suspect’s race. That said, an officer’s groundless use of race by itself does not violate the Fourth Amendment; it is performing a search or seizure without individualized justification that violates this provision. As long as they can point to individualized justification, the personal motives of an officer are not a factor in the Fourth Amendment analysis. Police may pull over a driver for a traffic violation, even if they intend to search for drugs. The standard is an objective one. “[T]he constitutional reasonableness” of stops depends on the circumstances, not on the officers’ “actual motivations.”
Now regarding Mystal's commentary about the unnecessary destruction of black lives via law enforcement interactions, it too is easily debunked. While half the black male population commits over 50% of the violent person crimes, of the victims of that violence, the vast majority are other blacks. Blacks also commit violent acts against other races more than vice versa. Blacks kill more whites every year than whites kill blacks. Blacks kill Asians more every year that vice versa. And blacks kill more blacks every year than any other race killing blacks. The only cause of the "destruction of black lives" is from other black lives taking other black lives. As such, the whole "Black Lives Matter" slogan is pure bullshit where blacks taking other black lives are concerned.
Chapter 8 covers the Fifth Amendment and self-incrimination. Mystal believes and asserts the following:
"Confessions should be unconstitutional. They shouldn't carry any force or effect. They shouldn't be used against defendants who recant later at trial."
Even a lay person should read this and react with a face palm. This is just so obviously stupid it is hard to believe an educated person in the law would even make such a patently absurd argument. Gives meaning to how can smart people sometimes be so stupid!?! Mystal's reasoning behind this ridiculous assertion is the claim that confessions are obtained "sometimes coercively, sometimes violently, until they (the suspect) blurt out a statement against their own interests..."
Now I will not deny that there have been some isolated case examples where police and prosecutors have been entirely too overzealous in their effort to solve a crime and hold someone accountable, but it is an exception to the rule. It is also an exception that doesn't just happen to people of color, it also happens to white people too. A recent and rather infamous example of that fact is the case of Steven Avery made notable by the Netflix series "Making a Murderer"
Nevertheless, Mystal and the lefts claims regarding alleged police brutality is pure bunk and easily disprovable.
I could go on and on further debunking Mystal's racist anti-cop narrative, but I believe my point has been made.
Chapter 12 focuses on the 14th Amendment, but one key part stood out for me. One sentence opining on the citizenship clause which is so wrong it is, well, just factually inaccurate.
"Everybody born here is a citizen. Everybody. There are not people who are less citizens just because of where they came from, or how recently they became citizens, or where their parents were born."
Mystal makes a very leftist simplistic argument with no foundation or basis in fact. Let me begin with what the 14th Amendment actually states, then I will explain why he is so very wrong in his interpretation of the citizenship clause.
"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."
"Sen. Lyman Trumbull, a key figure in the adoption of the 14th Amendment, said that “subject to the jurisdiction” of the U.S. included not owing allegiance to any other country."
Jurisdiction is the key word here, and the meaning within the context given, "subject to the jurisdiction thereof." Based on legislative history and existing law prior to the 14th's passage:
"The 14th was just an extension of existing law. In 1866, two years before the 14th Amendment, by U.S. statute Sec. 1992 of U.S. Revised defined who is a citizen:
“All persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power … are declared to be citizens of the United States”"
Allegiance to a foreign power where one was born, or when one renounces their citizenship by declaring their allegiance to a foreign power is what establishes non-citizenship under the 14th where "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" is concerned.
When illegal aliens cross the border, for whatever reason (e.g., travel on a Visa, requesting asylum, etc.), and pop out a child, it is automatically assumed that that child is an American Citizen. Fact of the matter, and as a matter of legislative history and legal intent, that child is NOT an American Citizen. Why? Because its parent(s) are beholden with allegiance to a foreign power, the country that they themselves were born in and are a citizen thereof. Therefore, every single child born to foreign immigrants who entered this country either legally (Visa, Passport for vacation, etc.) or illegally, they child born on US soil simply is NOT an American Citizen. But Democrats have ignored the 14th Amendment and have, by political fiat, granted unjust and unearned citizenship to children born to aliens who are under the jurisdiction (political allegiance) to a foreign power/country.
So, it does matter where a child's parents are born where the 14th citizenship clause is concerned. As for the rest of the "less of a citizen" or "how recently they became a citizen" (i.e., naturalization) nonsense, Mystal is just babbling nonsense here. He's just flat out wrong. He has demonstrated in this chapter he has absolutely no comprehension of the history or intent of the 14th Amendment and how one becomes a citizen of the United States of America.
Chapter 14 is titled, "Reverse Racism is not a Thing," and begins with the following rant:
"Speaking just for me, I'm prejudiced against dumb people...who have had all the education and knowledge thrown at them, only to see it bounce off their information-resistant brains."
This is about the only passage in the book I found hilarious simply because it just oozes irony on the highest point on the Richter Scale. Again, for someone supposedly so well educated at Harvard College and Harvard Law School, he is incredibly dumb when it comes to the US Constitution, and his book proves that fact beyond any reasonable doubt.
While Elie Mystal claims the Constitution is "kind of trash", well, it is not; but his book is most definitely trash! It is pure fiction. It is bigoted. It is racist. It is narcissistic. It is self-serving. It is not scholarly. It is not authoritative. It's pure rubbish. And anyone who believes anything in this book is as dumb as Mystal. In fact, they are dumber. But then again, it is easy to dupe the masses happily lining up to buy the snake oil from grifters like Mystal. Idiocy is contagious, and elitists like Mystal know that. It is exactly how race hustlers stay wealthy while those they profess to represent continue to suffer. Shame on Mystal. Shame on anyone buying into his bullshit criticism of the greatest document every produced in the world, the U.S. Constitution. The very document that gives him the freedom to trash talk it without any repercussion. Try that in China, Elie.
*Initial Draft