"Don't hurt people and don't take their stuff" - Matt Kibbe

3/8/12

The Moribund Constitution and What Comes Next

The progress of the constitutional "death by a thousand cuts" has been irregular over the generations but recently the executioners have become impatient to finish the job.

The list of body parts that have already been sliced off is too long to include here, but I'll mention a few just to give you a sense of how quickly the torture of the document is progressing.

In just the past few years the first amendment was cut off by the "McCain-Feingold" legislation. The fifth amendment (and the property rights described there) was excised by the "Kelo v The City of New London" decision of the Supreme Court. And it's hard to count how many were lopped off by the ill-named "Patriot Act" and the crown jewel of the current king's "accomplishments", "The Affordable Health Care Act."

This article would be too long if it focused on the details of these unconstitutional slices, and I'm afraid it wouldn't matter anyway since no one seems to care even when it's explained to them. You couldn't find a handful of people on the street, (or God forbid on the campus of some institution of so called "higher learning") who have any usable knowledge or even awareness of these events.

If you think that Jay Leno or John Stossel get some blank expressions when they ask people on the street  who the Vice President is, just try asking the same folks what they think about any of the above listed successful constitutional assaults. (They do  know plenty about is who should pay for contraception pills and Rush Limbaugh's name calling of a political activist on that issue though.)

Which brings us to the last two very recent developments in the execution of the constitution:

One of those events was yesterday's news story that the Attorney General of the US, Eric Holder, explained (in a speech at Northwestern University) that any US citizen can be assassinated by the execution branch, er..executive branch of the government, without due process, as long as they are out of the country and the President suspects them of being part of a terrorist group. The explanation was new, but not the concept, since the President already had at least one guy "offed" by an unmanned drone. I'm not sure if that makes it different in their minds, but it doesn't in mine.

The other event was today's news story that another one of  "all the President's men", Leon Panetta, Secretary of Offense, er..Defense, testified before congress that he only needed the permission of groups like NATO and the UN to commit an act of war on another country (this time Syria), but not the permission of congress as is expressly called for in the US Constitution.

So what comes next for the almost dead constitution? (and the rest of us by extension)

Well, just ask yourself what the presumptive GOP presidential nominee is talking about nowadays and see if these issues make the list. Last I checked it was who was calling whom names among Newt, Rick and Ron.

In my mind it may be too long to wait for an election in November. These clowns should be impeached today. But they won't be, particularly since it seems I'm the only one calling for it.

It's starting to look like no matter who is elected between Barack and (presumably) Mitt the death sentence will be fully carried out in the next four years.

Breaking News

Since finishing this piece and posting it about an hour ago, this news story showed up on Fox News. It seems the right of free speech in the form of peaceable protest without violating anyone else's rights is now becoming a thing of the past as well. If this story doesn't alarm you, you might be un-alarmable.

1 comment:

Jim at Conservatives on Fire said...

The oath our elected leaders and appointed judges take means nothing to them and the average voter is so disconnected that they do more harm than good by voting. I find it harder and harder to write posts encouraging people to keep up the good fight. I am grasping at straws and I guess I will until all straw has been blown away.