[neo]

From Capitol Hill Blue
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_7779.shtml
The Rant
Bush on the Constitution: 'It's just a goddamned piece of paper'
By DOUG THOMPSON
Dec 9, 2005, 07:53

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 goddamned 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 goddamned 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 “goddamned 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Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, while still White House counsel, wrote that the “Constitution is an outdated document.”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, for a moment, political affiliation or personal beliefs. It doesn’t matter if you are a Democrat, Republican or Independent. It doesn’t matter if you support the invasion or Iraq or not.  Despite our differences, the Constitution has stood for two centuries as the defining document of our government, the final source to determine – in the end – if something is legal or right.

Every federal official – including the President – who takes an oath of office swears to “uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia says he cringes when someone calls 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 has 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.”  Members of Congress have proposed some 11,000 amendments over the last decade, ranging from repeal of the right to bear arms to a Constitutional ban on abortion.

Scalia says the danger of tinkering with the Constitution comes from a loss of rights.

“We can take away rights just as we can grant new ones,” Scalia warns. “Don't think that it's a one-way street.”

And don’t buy the White House hype that the USA Patriot Act is a necessary tool to fight terrorism. It is a dangerous law that infringes on the rights of every American citizen and, as one brave aide told President Bush, something that undermines the Constitution of the United States.

But why should Bush care? After all, the Constitution is just “a goddamned piece of paper.”

© Copyright 2005 Capitol Hill Blue

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[pattyp]

First, has anyone got their paper per email?

I am not against Bush, however, I am against terrorism. The government changes whatever they need to suit whatever they are after be it republican or democrat. I think the American Civil Liberties Union is a crock. They are a bunch of people that need jobs because they do not have anything to do. Don't we always have some bleeding heart organization wanting to save something or some journalist that jumps on the bandwagon. The media has exploited our troops and the young men and women that serve our country. Bill Clinton was smoking white owls in the oval office and was forgiven, I am sure Bush will be forgiven down the road.

[neo]

The Presidential oath should read,
"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the goddamned piece of paper."

I see no difference between an elected official who takes a solemn oath to protect our freedoms with the limited powers bestowed upon them by that "goddamned piece of paper", which is a defined, limited job description, and a terrorist. If we are saying that the Constitution is an inadequate document for securing our liberty in today's world, then the answer is to construct a new constitution and not to give politicians carte' blanch with whatever power then lay claim to.

The President is the material manifestation of Article II of the Constitution. He is the flesh and blood trustee of the people's voluntary surrendering of limited power to facilitate the collective protection of common rights. If the Constitution is nothing more than a "goddamned piece of paper", antiquated, irrelevant and archaic, then so is its entire offspring; presidential, legislative and judicial. Any bastard office-holding malfeasant acting under the guise of conforming to that "goddamned piece of paper" is a lawless rogue, operating on usurped authority, under color-of-law, and without lawful mandate. Although such bastards may procure the acquiescence of some of the people, their actions are still without law and no better than terrorists. Terrorists act with lawlessness, with limited consensus for their evil deeds by a self-serving few, and with no formal authority.

I don't believe the media has exploited anyone. I think the government has exploited the people, preying on their ignorance, apathy and lethargy, to pursue its own agenda for the armed confiscation of resources and labor for our corporate masters and their political benefactors. The fact that something happens doesn't leave it to be defined by those who created the contrived circumstances. This so-called war has numerous ulterior motives and agendas, none of which seek to conform to any enumerated power defined by the Constitution. If I had enough guns and money, and ran around with henchmen claiming to be the king of Illinois, I'm sure enough people would believe it. Bush, and almost all politicians, uses our military, our flag, and any other patriotic icon as a shield against their criticism.

We're long overdue for a revolution in this country. However, as long as people are mired in debt; fat, dumb and happy with materialism, hedonism and ignorance, then the impetus for taking up arms against our captors will never materialize and we will continue to live our lives in relatively harmonious slavery, placated by our own greed and humbled by our fear of losing that which we really do not own. Bush is right; it is a "goddamned piece of paper." Unfortunately for him, it is that faded, brown parchment that keeps him out of the crosshairs of many a principled patriot; and that which separates him from being a megalomaniacal despot or a beholding servant to the people. Should he abandon that parchment, he abandons his right to exist as president and relinquishes all claim to any authority whatsoever over us, the military or this nation.