U.S. Constitution is just a piece of paper

Ladies and Gentlemen,…

the President of the United States - George W. Bush

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wmc60JmaLbE[/youtube]

From Capitol Hill Blue

By DOUG THOMPSON
Dec 9, 2005, 06:39

Last month, Republican Congressional leaders filed into the Oval Office to meet with President George W. Bush and talk about renewing the controversial USA Patriot Act.

Several provisions of the act, passed in the shell shocked period immediately following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, caused enough anger that liberal groups like the American Civil Liberties Union had joined forces with prominent conservatives like Phyllis Schlafly and Bob Barr to oppose renewal.

GOP leaders told Bush that his hardcore push to renew the more onerous provisions of the act could further alienate conservatives still mad at the President from his botched attempt to nominate White House Counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.

“I don’t give a goddamn,” Bush retorted. “I’m the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way.”

“Mr. President,” one aide in the meeting said. “There is a valid case
that the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution.”

“Stop throwing the Constitution in my face,” Bush screamed back. “It’s just a god-damned piece of paper!”

I’ve talked to three people present for the meeting that day and they
all confirm that the President of the United States called the Constitution “a god-damned piece of paper.”

And, to the Bush Administration, the Constitution of the United States is little more than toilet paper stained from all the shit that this group of power-mad despots have dumped on the freedoms that “god-damned piece of paper” used to guarantee.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, while still White House counsel, wrote that the “Constitution is an outdated document.”

Put aside your political affiliation for a moment. It doesn’t matter if you are a Democrat, Republican or Independent. Whether you support iraq or not should also not matter. Despite political differences the Constitution has stood strong for over two centuries. It is the last line of defense in a war against American democracy.

The President swore to “uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States.” That responsibility belongs to the executive branch!

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia says he cringes when people call the Constitution a “living document.”

“Oh, how I hate the phrase we have-a ‘living document,” Scalia says.

“We now have a Constitution that means whatever we want it to mean. The Constitution is not a living organism, for Pete’s sake.” As a judge, Scalia says, “I don’t have to prove that the Constitution is perfect; I just have to prove that it’s better than anything else.”

President Bush proposed seven amendments to the Constitution over the last five years, including a controversial amendment to define marriage as a “union between a man and woman.”  The President is not alone: members of Congress have proposed some 11,000 amendments over the last decade, including eliminating the right to bear arms and banning abortion.

Scalia, on the danger of tinkering with the Constitution, says:

“We can take away rights just as we can grant new ones.”

“Don’t think that it’s a one-way street!”

The White House hype that the Patriot Act is a necessary tool to fight terror is questionable, at best. It is a dangerous law that infringes on rights of American citizens. As one brave aide told President Bush,  “it runs the risk of undermining the Constitution of the United States.”

But why should Bush care? After all, as Bush once shouted:

the Constitution is just “a god-damned piece of paper!”

Fred Soto is an Attorney and Entrepreneur from the Silicon Valley.
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