Smith replies to Jore's charges

Editor,

Rick Jore, running for House District 12 as a Constitution Party candidate, claims that my recent letter to the Leader contained numerous errors and untruths in arguing that the Constitution Party is far outside the American political mainstream.

Yet Mr. Jore admits his opposition to the federal social security system, to the Children's Health Insurance Program, and to direct citizen election of U.S. senators. He never challenges my assertion that he wants to outlaw the right of women to have an abortion even for victims of rape and incest.

Mr. Jore says that he doesn't want to abolish public education, but only wants to eliminate federal involvement in public education. However, his position on education, as stated on his own website, would clearly devastate our public schools. In every legislative session in which he served, Mr. Jore sponsored bills to repeal Montana's compulsory education law. He has said that "Government should simply get out of the child care business." He is one of the CPOM activists who signed the petition supporting the Alliance for Separation of School and State, a national organization pushing for parents to remove their children from public schools.

I did err in stating that the Constitution Party favored abolishment of "the 14th amendment, which abolished slavery." Actually, the 13th Amendment abolished slavery. The 14th Amendment, which the CPOM does indeed want to abolish, was essential in making the abolishment of slavery meaningful. Passed in June 1866, it was designed to grant citizenship to and protect the civil liberties of recently freed slaves. The amendment has long been despised by defenders of segregation in the South who have asserted "states' rights" as the supposed moral basis for their opposition to civil rights laws.

I have never claimed that Mr. Jore or the Constitution Party favor slavery, but they do oppose an amendment that was crucial in dismantling that terrible system. The Constitution Party also opposes the Voting Rights Act of 1964, recently renewed by the U.S. Senate on a vote of 98-0.

Mr. Jore says it is impossible to be both pragmatic and also guided by clear moral principle. Yet that is a pretty good description of the framers of the Constitution, who unlike Mr. Jore, recognized the complexity and difficulty of building a good society. That's why they so broadly framed the basic purpose of the Constitution: "in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity."

The first thing they did after its adoption was to pass 10 amendments, which we know as the Bill of Rights. The framers were not perfect, and they knew it. They allowed slavery, they did not allow women to vote, and they did not grant Native Americans citizenship. But they expected us, the "posterity" to whom they refer, to make the Constitution even better, to continue the project they began of forming "a more perfect Union."

I respect Rick Jore for thinking hard about important political matters and for adhering to his deeply held beliefs. I simply disagree with his view of things, and the clearly extreme agenda of the party he represents. Let's support and defend what the Constitution really says.

Thompson Smith

Charlo