This is Constitution Day. The National Archives is holding a celebration in which children can stop by and sign a “faux Constitution.” George Bush issued a statement earlier this week proclaiming:
America is grateful to those who have worked to defend the Constitution and promote its ideals. During this observance, we also recognize the profound impact our Constitution has on the everyday lives of our citizens, and we call upon all Americans to help uphold its values of a free and just society.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim September 17, 2006, as Constitution Day and Citizenship Day, and September 17 through September 23, 2006, as Constitution Week. I encourage Federal, State, and local officials, as well as leaders of civic, social, and educational organizations, to conduct ceremonies and programs that celebrate our Constitution and reaffirm our rights and responsibilities as citizens of our great Nation.
Bush is right. The Constitution is vital. It is also vital for Americans to find important contemporary ways to celebrate its anniversary.
In this Age of Bush, here are a few ideas for properly commemorating the event:
1) Wiretap your neighbor. If he discovers it and complains, ask him whose side he is on and what does he have to hide. Send the tapes of all conversations to the local FBI.
2) Capture and torture an illegal immigrant. If he confesses, turn him in. If he doesn’t confess, try new methods to extract the truth.
3) Notify your mortgage company that you appended a secret “signing statement” when you signed the mortgage. Thus, you are relieved of any duty to continue monthly payments.
What are other appropriate Bush-style ways to celebrate the anniversary of the Constitution this week?
Also be sure to track down former employees who used to do your dirty work and involuntarily force them back into your employ.
While you’re at it, you should also sue your neighbors for various and sundry reasons; when asked for evidence, insist that national security would be compromised if you had to present evidence, and be sure to add further that any insinuation that you would need evidence is a direct threat to American liberty.
You should work for the White House Office of Event Planning. Those are great ideas.
Write a letter-to-the-editor outing your neighbor as a secret CIA agent. Then, when the letter is published, write another letter in which you excoriate the newspaper for “aiding the terrorists” and accuse the newspaper of treason.
And another great idea!
Anyone who writes those two letters – in the proper sequence, of course – would stand a pretty good chance of getting his own talk show on the Fox News Network.
When the bank calls to insist you honour your mortgage committments, send them letters that are purportedly from your neighbours, supporting your decision. All the letters will be word-for-word identical, and some of the neighbours, when contacted, will be confused and not know what the bank is talking about.
If that doesn’t teach the neighbors to support the Constitution, nothing will.
Scott Horton over at Stress blog has another to celebrate Constitution Week – “4) Provoke a neighbor into a fight, and then kill him and his whole family.” http://thestressblog.com/2006/09/17/its-constitution-week/
I posted a question at Scott’s blog, asking him to clarify how many cousins should be taken out in this operation in order to make sure that peace is perpetuated.
Arrange for Bush’s capture, transport to a secret prison and torture with the objective in mind of getting him to sign a secret finding eliminating Dick Cheney by any convenient means and then resigning.
One potential problem with this proposal is that I am not sure if it would be legal.
It might be legal in certain cases – we cannot know what Bush has secretly authorized regarding the disposal of threats to the American way.
On the other hand, perhaps there is an asterisk on all of Bush’s secret orders on renditions and interrogation that exempts all Republican political appointees.
But, if not….
Accuse your neighbor of being involved in drug use and confiscate his property claiming that his property is not entitled to due process of law. Tell him he can have it back if he can prove that he is innocent. Make the process of proving his innocence more expensive than the actual property is worth.
This is just a legacy-building ploy. It was a managed event to lay a turd in the history books, so that amidst the flood of criticsm future historians will lay at the grave of this evil administration, revisionists can argue that Bush was one of the “staunchest defenders of American liberty” because he was the president that declared a day in honor of the Constitution.
This is narcicism at its most sinister.
Good Afternoon, James –
Bush has already stated his position on the Constitution and, as a corrollary, what the document means. His quote:
“It’s just a goddamned piece of paper.”
What else does anyone need to know that ANYTHING Bush says about the document in a positive light is a lie? After all, Caesar does not like being contained by the freedom of his “lessers” that such a document is supposed to afford.
After calling our founding document that assures our freedom a “goddamned piece of paper”, how dare Bush refer to ANYONE as a Fascist, unless, of course, it is a case of taking one to know one.
Bush is a disaster to us and the world.
Kirk A. Hayes
So are you opposed to police departments being able to raise funds (via confiscating property) for their recreation activities, or what?
Unfortunately, almost everything that the government does regarding alleged narcotics violators has been exempt from the Constitution since about 1986.
Or maybe 1989.
Jim,
This august day is also the anniversary of the WW II “Market Garden” and the War for Southern Indepence battle of Sharpsburg. (known to my Northern brothers as “Antietam”) Do you suppose the Bush administration will take heed?
Damn! I’m going to have to drink another beer to mark the occasion of Constitution Day and to the dead.
Blub…blublub…blublublublubblublub!
Bush Constitution Day Celebrations:
1.If a known Pedophile moves into your neighborhood,but is a weightlifter and is hard to find at home in the daytime and so a little intimidating, identify a couple lesbians on the block and attack them, burn down their house and tell your neighbors that you saw the Pedophile Weighlifting Evildoer at the Lesbians house and the Lesbians were about to try and kidnap everyones daughters and give them to the Pedophile.
2. If you come to a stop sign driving your Hummer and don’t really feel like stopping but a late model Toyota Compact is coming down the street, don’t think twice about rolling over the Toyota, particularly if it is driven by some illegals. Then when the cops show up, proudly tell them you don’t need no stinken ticket because you executed a signing order when you signed your driver’s license and it releases you from following any laws you don’t want to because you’re trying to keep the roads safer.
3. Carve Eddie Haskells Head on Mt. Rushmore
4. Use the Original Signed Constitution to line yer Pork Rind Drawer in the Oval Office and issue a new one that simply sez “We think the President is Grand and Praise the Lord that he is here to Protect us and he can do whatever he thinks is right …lookout over there, a snake…booooo!”
5. Make a “Cool Naploneon Hat” out of the Funny Pages and invite yer friends over to hit a Camel Pinata filled with cluster bomblets but watch them do it from a safe and remote location. Film it so you can watch the carnage over and over
and howl like a Bonobo in Heat.
6. Have yer eardrums removed
7.Tell everyone around you that they are morons and then Gibber and Gawk like a Chimpanzee on Ritalin
8. Beat up the 3 smallest kids in the neighborhood while shaking your fist at everyone else.
9. Place books on yer front porch and tell people you are reading them while actually just making a few statements about yer readin from Cliff notes provided by those smart jerks in yer administration before going out to take another ride on yer Mtn. Bike in Crawford 100 degree heat , doing circles around your staff who jog in the heat in order to join some junior high club of self-torture you dreamed up one night after an early morning nightmare involving yer parents.
10. Wallpaper yer Powder Room with photos of you in yer ridiculous Mission Accomplished Pose.
11. Along with Condi Rice and Karl Rove, announce to the public that you just changed the name of the country to the United States of Junior High and our new motto “Amateurs R Us” will replace “e pluribus unum”
12. Pass new tax legislation that makes anyone with a higher IQ than your own (this may include most smarter mammals) pay a Special Smart Tax so that you get more money and hopefully get even smart people to start acting dumb to avoid the tax. Redefine “Intelligent” in the Websters Dictionary as “Evildoer”.
What if you had to answer a time-limited, skill-testing question before you were permitted to vote? We can’t say “take an IQ test”, because that would make it discriminatory against all those who are not particularly bright, and tend to believe incuriously in what they are told over and over. So, let’s make it sound like a contest, and if you answer correctly, you can vote!
That’d eliminate about half the Base, right off the bat. The other half are the deeply religious bunch, who only care that the preznit be sufficiently “churchy”, and not particularly whether or not he’s a good leader. There’s no way to reach those who are convinced Bush is the Messiah, come to sweep them all up to Heaven in his golden Hummer.
Mark – literacy tests for voters were prohibited by the feds in the 1960s.
It is a shame that we cannot impose a literacy or knowledge test for members of Congress and Bush’s political appointees.
And if they failed the test… maybe send them down a gauntlet of taxpayers.
And if they made it through… send it down the line again.
get busted breaking the law
get congress to “redefine” the law
so what you did is no longer criminal
Well, if you are going to go to all that trouble, don’t fritter it away for a misdemeanor.
Constitution? What stinking Constitution? Why would Bush sign some “quaint outdated” piece of paper? The “cjosen” son and communicator with god has no need of paper, well, maybe to get his jind end wiped off, but then maybe he don’t like a clean rear.
Bloddy hell, I can be damned sarcastic
Take a large percentage of your neighbor’s income and then give a small percentage back and say it’s a refund.
And make sure that the neighbor is properly “schooled” so that he thanks you for the refund.
Ideally, persuade him that giving you the bulk of his income is the cost of his freedom, but that because he does it voluntarily, it proves he is free.
The argument seems to unravel about this point, and yet it still holds together well enough to persuade the editorial writers at the Washington Post.
Real Americans should celebrate Constitution Day by doing their part to fight the war on terror in their own neighborhoods.
First, identify that neighbor whom you suspect may pose a gathering threat. Things like facial hair, unusual schedules, and bringing in unknown materials in shopping bags are sure signs that something is up.
Next, notify all the other neighbors that the suspect neighbor is a madman who is building bombs in his home to kill everyone in the neighborhood.
Then, go to the suspect neighbor’s house and ask to look around. If he resists or if he refuses to let you rip up the floors in his house, it is obvious that he must be hiding something.
Finally, wait until the suspect neighbors go to sleep, blow up their car, set their tool shed on fire, break out their windows, enter their home, tie them up, make them take off their clothes and put bags on their heads, play a Spinal Tap CD really loud, and interrogate the family until they admit to their evil plans.
In the event these people don’t talk, drive them over to your cousin’s house and tie them up in his garage and have him interrogate them from time to time.
Meanwhile, be sure to report to your Neighborhood Association how you have made the neighborhood safe, but not completely safe.
Repeat the process with a new suspicious neighbor.
Tom – This sounds good — but how can a person be sure that their cousin would be a good interrogator? That’s the linchpin. Or the failsafe. Or whatever.
The local neighborhood associations around here would probably cheer such actions…. esp. if the targeted individual/family had ever failed to mow their grass twice a week in July.
We must not forget that all citizens who actively participate in these new ‘Constitutional Commemorations’ must also be given the obligatory ‘Presidential Medal of Freedom’ to reward them for their erroneous pseudo-patriotism and gross incompetence.
Maybe the Bush administration can start having the Presidential Medals of Freedom coined like pennies, passing them out to everyone and thus proving that Americans are more patriotic than ever before.
When asked about giving financial or personal information, invoke the “states secret” privilege.
That’s a great idea!
I’ll use it the next time a State Trooper asks how me fast I think I was driving.
“3) Notify your mortgage company that you appended a secret “signing statement” when you signed the mortgage. Thus, you are relieved of any duty to continue monthly payments.”
And if that does not work, just print the money you need to pay your mortgage. The Federal Reserve does it, so why can’t you?
Personally, I celebrate “Constitution Day” by ignoring the Constitution.
Kirk: Bush has already stated his position on the Constitution and, as a corrollary, what the document means. His quote: “It’s just a goddamned piece of paper.”
Well. Isn’t it just a goddamned piece of paper?
Kirk: After calling our founding document that assures our freedom a “goddamned piece of paper”, …
You count on the United States Constitution to assure your freedom? Really? How’s that been working out for you lately?
Jim: Unfortunately, almost everything that the government does regarding alleged narcotics violators has been exempt from the Constitution since about 1986.
If they passed a Constitutional Amendment that would make it constitutional for the narcs to arbitrarily harass, search, seize, beat, restrain, storm the houses, and confiscate the property of people in order to carry on the War on Unauthorized Drugs, would that make it somehow O.K., or even one jot less evil?
“… whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain — that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist.” — Lysander Spooner (1870)
Start a Neighborhood Security Administration (NSA, like TSA). Install a metal detector on your block, that everyone has to go thru each time they want to use their own rest room. Ensure that they cannot carry anything into their homes which is a liquid. Uh oh, that means no water at home! Well, never mind, no sacrifice is too much when it comes to neighborhood security. We will all have to learn to do without water, what with the bad guys using liquid to endanger our neighborhoods. Then, go around with a bull horn proclaiming loudly that you are hard at work protecting the neighborhood.
That didn’t work for me, JQ. I thought it would be a wonderful idea to run around the neighborhood with my bullhorn blasting at 1 AM today, but eventually found myself incarderated for committing an Act of Terrorism! The local police told me that the Constitution is ‘on hold’ right now. Go figure! Now I’m in a place called Diego Garcia, surrounded by brand new friends who all just happen to have olive-colored skin, orange jumpsuits and thick Arab accents. Is there a lawyer in the house? Oh, wait! I AM a lawyer! Never mind!!!
You need to quit calling Bush the “Commander in Chief.” According to the Constitution, Congress is the commander-in-chief except in a declared war. It gives him too much credibility.
Just finished your great A.D.D. book. Should be required reading in all our schools. Oh wait, that would require approval by the U.S. Department of Education. Damn!
Ross – thanks for the kind words on ADD!
Ya, I don’t think the Education Department would approve. I hear they are prejudiced against writers who use colons.
AmericanIntifada – I hear that there are great tropical drinks available in Diego Garcia.
Keep your eyes open for any B-52s heading for Tehran.
JQ – if people followed your suggestion, it would only be a question of time until the government began licensing bullhorns.
Or else insisted on a monopoly on bull.
Jim – I can quaff down hundreds of B-52s, but I don’t think they’re considered ‘tropical’ drinks! If you mean the band, I can listen those particular Georgia-based rock-n-rollers all night long! If you mean the actual bomber, I think it is obsolete now and has been replaced by more stealthy weaponry of mass destruction! Thanks for the tip, though, and I will see you soon in the Gulag! You’ll recognize me for sure because I’m the old, fat, bald, white guy with a tortured look on my face!!!