No. 17: The US Constitution

Over the next few weeks I will be performing my own little political countdown. It's more for my amusement than anything else, but I also feel that it's a good way to glimpse into the mind of the average Liberal. Such humorous creatures these Liberals, and yet so mysterious. This is my list of the top 20 things Liberals don't believe. We'll say it's in the interest of understanding one another.

There are few things that anger Liberals more than our governing document. The US Constitution was written with a primary purpose of protecting the rights of individuals from abuse by the government, and limiting the power and scope of government. Every part of the Constitution deals with these tasks in one way or another. The basic concept of that document is that the government must be held in check. Boy do Liberals hate that. No other document (except for the Bible) riles them up more.


Of course, Liberals know how to say the right things. Every single one of them claims to love the Constitution and claims to abide by and protect it all times. They say that, because they know that common sense Americans feel the same way, and saying anything different would risk losing those votes. But deep down, Liberals have a big problem with the Constitution. It’s hard to implement total government authority when the governing document prevents precisely that. The answer? Treat the Constitution as a “living, breathing document”.

What the heck does that mean? Well, common sense Americans would say that words have meaning. Those meanings are concrete and unchanging, hence the whole point of writing a governing document to begin with. The Founders said certain things in the Constitution, they said what they meant and they meant what they said. If they meant something different, or if they meant for their words to be interpreted according to the whims, emotions, political ideologies or psychotic breaks of future political leaders then why have a Constitution at all? What’s the point? Of course, they allowed the document to be modified through the amendment process, which further underscores that they never intended it to be a document open for interpretation. Nope. If something needed to be changed then they built in a process to do just that.

Liberals don’t see it that way. You see, to Liberals the Constitution is similar to the Clintons’ marriage certificate. It’s a document of convenience that doesn’t have any real meaning aside from what they want it to mean. They cherry-pick things from the Constitution that fit their agenda and ignore those that don’t. For instance, the First and Second Amendments may as well be nonexistent in Liberal eyes. And the 10th Amendment? Yeah right.

However, the 9th Amendment is a-okay. That’s the one that says people have other rights that are not specified in the Bill of Rights. To Liberals, that means the right to murder an unborn child, the right to marry, the right to own a home, the right to a job, the right to an education and the right to the labor of a health care professional. They completely ignore the fact that immediately following the 9th Amendment is the 10th Amendment. In other words, the Founders said that people have other rights not specified in the Constitution, and any rights not specified in the Constitution will be an issue for the individual states. Baloney, say the Liberals, we'll keep #9 and toss that pesky 10th Amendment.

Some parts of the Constitution live and breathe so much that their meaning completely changes depending on the specific situation. Most recently, a judge rules that voters can’t define marriage because of the equal protection clause, and that voting down gay marriage amounts to discrimination. Because marriage is a right under the 9th Amendment, 7 million people in California are simply behaving as bigots for denying that right for gays, shame on them and their “moral disapproval”. However, when it comes to taxes, then that equal protection thing goes right out the window. If the people vote down gay marriage they are being discriminatory, but if the government takes a larger percentage of my income simply because I make more money then it’s perfectly okay.

And then there’s Eric Holder, our favorite buffoon attorney. He says that the Constitution grants supremacy to federal law and therefore Arizona violates the Constitution when it tries to enforce federal law. And yet, mention sanctuary cities – those places that ignore federal law in order to grant illegal immigrants a free ride – and suddenly the attorney general knows nothing about the supremacy clause.

Freedom of speech? That depends. If you want to make a pornographic film, or display a painting of Mary covered in feces, well then hurrumph hurrumph that’s protected speech. But broadcast conservative opinion on talk radio or come together as a corporation to voice your support for a political candidate and suddenly you’re a danger to society. See how this leaving, breathing thing works?

And don’t forget about the Commerce clause, that says the government has the power to regulate interstate commerce. To Liberals, this means the government can force all citizens to purchase health insurance. Can you imagine how James Madison would react to this nonsense? The document he helped craft for the purpose of limiting government power is now being used to force citizens to purchase something they don’t want to purchase? Amazing.

So it would be best for the Liberals if the Constitution just disappeared. That way they could stop the charade, and stop the continuous square peg into a round hole stuff. Without the Constitution they could just carry on expanding government power and no one would have a legitimate beef. Perhaps one day, after all they are quite the dreamers. Until then, they’re sticking with the living, breathing thing. It’s been a surprising success.