Monday, September 14, 2009

The Pete Morin News Service--Issue #20

News flash from Washington, DC, September 13, 2009---

The United States Constitution is dead. Its bloated remains having been discovered by security personnel at the National Archives on Saturday evening, September 12, 2009 next to the case that held the aged document. An autopsy is expected, but it has been believed that the Constitution expired from an advanced case of bloated irrelevance. Further speculation by informed sources indicate that death may have come on the evening of November 4, 2008. These same sources offer an explanation as to the exact causes and a brief encapsulation will be presented here.

1) Judicial activism--Over the years the Constitution has ingested an inordinate amount of judicial activism which, by itself, would not necessarily cause its demise, but would contribute to a much expanded waistline. Starting with Marbury v. Madison in 1803, Griswold v. Connecticut in 1965 to Roe v. Wade in 1973 the Constitution blithely consumed much more of the peoples freedom than it should have. Impervious to the warnings of conservative scholars, the Constitution consumed more legislative authority than any prudent individual would properly try to do.

2) Imperious Presidents--Abraham Lincoln suspending Habeas Corpus during the Civil War; Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal legislation during the Great Depression; Harry Truman and his attempt to take over the Steel Industry during the Korean conflict; Dwight Eisenhower and the Federal-Aid Highway Act of the mid fifties. With these and many other examples of absconded power by the executive branch the Constitution walked a crooked path of inebriation.

3) Social Security and Medicare--although these are examples of well intentioned programs meant to alleviate the pain of an economic collapse and an aging population requiring adequate healthcare, the weight of these massive programs caused irreparable harm to the Constitution’s body. Originally set up as a trust fund (and rather low on calories according to FDR), Social Security was nothing more than a transfer tax that would prove to be especially difficult to modify or repeal. In fact the substance of this bill had become so uncorrectable that the Constitution would no longer be able to stand without the aid of a walker. Medicare had also become to large a portion for the Constitution to consume. An ironic twist of Medicare is that scooter chairs are available at no cost to the populace, but the Constitution could not afford one, nor even place its huge frame in the seat of a single chair!

4) The election of Barack Obama--On the night of November 4, 2008, the Constitution walked with great difficulty along the streets of Washington; its breathing labored and its heartbeat irregular. As the final returns came in, it was apparent that the ‘living, breathing’ document that has been an inspiration to so many around the globe for so many years would not last the night. True to that premise, Barack Obama has made sure that all semblance to the original document that has so honored the National Archives with its presence, would expire a quiet, lonely death. When the news reached the new President elect of its death, Obama raised his hand in a toast to the new Democratic Republic and brought forth his brand of nightmarish legislation. From bank bailouts, the automobile industry takeover, to The American Clean Energy and Security Act and the proposed healthcare legislation, Obama had finished the job of extinguishing the last, best hope of mankind for self rule. Couched in new terminology of socialist dreams and Marxist connotation, Obama had laid the Constitution low. Even the leadership of congress heaped a large portion of dietary offal on the bloated body of our once great parchment until, at last, it has been found lifeless and cold.

As stated earlier, the autopsy will be forthcoming, but truth be told, the death of our hallowed United States Constitution begins and ends with us. We the people could not keep it; we could not protect it; we could not preserve it. May the ages judge us harshly. May our posterity wish that we were men of character. THE CONSTITUTION IS DEAD-LONG LIVE THE CONSTITUTION!

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