The Constitution, Revised and Updated

In the final week leading up to the midterm elections here in the US of A, the level of uncivil and utterly uninformed noise is getting to the unbearable end of the BS detector (click to see the animation) ...

It's bad enough that many of the candidates rely on odious ads that attack their opponents rather than on ads that explain their own positions, but even more distressing are the hot air and BS generators that wrap themselves in their own interpretations of the Constitution - a document few of them appear ever to have actually read and understand.

Many of the Tea Party shouters are particularly noteworthy for their breathtaking reinvention of the Constitution. What changes might they make to the founding document of our national form of government if they had the opportunity? This is how the Preamble to the Constitution actually reads:

We the People of the United States, 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, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

And here are a few of the edits they'd probably like to make, with the rationale therefor:

1. Change "United States" to read, "Loosely-affiliated States." Rationale: "United" is too strong a term to use for a government that tramples on the rights of the individual states, ignores individual rights, and wants to sell the country to the UN, anyhow.

2. Change "Union" to read, "Aggregation." Rationale: Use of the term “union” permits excessive influence of lobbyists representing the interests of workingmen’s benevolent associations.

3. Delete the phrase, "Insure Domestic Tranquility." Rationale: Insurance of domestic tranquility is the responsibility of husbands and wives. Delegation of this responsibility to the government constitutes an unwarranted and illegal arrogation of rights legitimately belonging to individual citizens.

4. Delete the phrase, "Promote the General Welfare." Rationale: Makes the country attractive to the legions of destitute illegal aliens who are flooding the borders in search of government handouts, to the detriment of taxpaying citizens.

5. Delete the phrase, "Blessings of Liberty." Rationale: Use of religious imagery contravenes the language of the First Amendment which prohibits establishment of religion. Can be retained only if it is changed to specifically state that this country is a 100% Christian enterprise.

Those changes are adapted from a gag gift I wrote for one of my co-workers who was a master of reviewing and commenting on documents: he could generate ten pages of comments on a five-page document, and I imagined how he might have commented on the preamble to the Constitution if he'd been in a position to review it at the original Constitutional convention. Little did I know at the time that it was more accurate than I thought.

Have a good day. Read the Constitution and understand what it says before you start shouting about it. You might be surprised at what it really says.

More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

P.S. - Update on my running survey of election-related flyers in my local congressional race: three more glossy ads attacking Republican candidate Keith Fimian have arrived, all paid for by the Democratic Party of Virginia (you can find this information in tiny boxes in distant corners of the flyers). As before, not one of them mentions the relevant positions on those issues taken by Democratic incumbent Gerry Connolly (although I have received another copy of the single flyer which gives reasons to support Connolly). The overall score is now:

Democratic Material (favoring Connolly or opposing Fimian): 18. Of these:
Supporting Connolly: 2 (actually, two copies of the same flyer)
Opposing Fimian: 16

Republican Material (favoring Fimian or opposing Connolly): 7. Of these:
Supporting Fimian: 2
Opposing Connolly: 5

B.