It's Time for a Burn the Constitution Day

For the last few months, we've been besieged with stories about the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States.  The argument as I see it is rather simple, everyone in the United States, regardless if it is legal or wise for them to have a gun, should be able to find legal ways to buy guns.  Any attempt to keep people who are legally barred from owning guns due to past crimes, or any attempt to identify persons not mentally stable enough to own guns is somehow a serious threat to the Second Amendment.  While I can't follow the chain of logic while sober, I can understand concern over protecting our rights.

I'm straining to hear and scouring the media for cries of outrage over the rest of our rights and I hear silence.  Worse than the silence are the demands that several other rights guaranteed to all citizens of the United States by The Bill of Rights, be completely obliterated.  The truly confusing part of this is the people who were frantic over the Second Amendment, when it was in no way threatened are the same people who are screaming that we throw out the First, Fifth, Sixth, Eight and Fourteenth  Amendments.  If we're going to throw out so many rights, rights so important, the Constitution would not exist without them, then maybe it's time to throw everything out.  We can make it so much simpler by replacing the entire Constitution with "In God and the Republican Party We Trust".  After all, between the two, our best interests are certain to be protected.  I foresee Utopia.

Sadly, even President Obama feels it's okay to suspend some rights, although he hasn't gone all in on this lunacy.  At this point, Dzhokar Tsarnaev is still hospitalized in serious condition and not well enough to be illegally interrogated.  Perhaps someone will come to their senses before he recovers, and maybe pigs will fly.

Within minutes of the capture of Dzhokar Tsarnaev in the Boston area, Senator Lindsey Graham was urging he be classified as an enemy combatant.  Senator Graham has now been joined by Senators McCain and Ayotte and Representative King.  In addition, there have been demands to investigate the citizenship process.  Apparently there is a belief that Tsarnaev, who was nine years old when he came to the United States, might have already been a terrorist that we somehow overlooked.  Before we start questioning the motives of a 9 year old, who fled conditions most of us can't begin to imagine, lets look at our own 9 year olds.  How many times has a 9 year old said "I hate you!" ,"I wish you were dead!", "I wish I had never been born!" and so many other awful statements?  They say such things to friends, siblings, even their parents, yet the vast majority go on to live normal, productive lives.  And some children, who are model students, never act out, never talk back, never have a violent outburst, go on to commit atrocities.  Maybe we need to subject all children to an annual waterboarding session.

By classifying Dzhokar Tsarnaev as an enemy combatant, he is no longer protected against self-incrimination, nor protected against incarceration without due process of law.  So long Fifth Amendment.  Also, he is not allowed access to legal representation, he does not have to be informed of his rights and he is not guaranteed a speedy and public trial.  Who needs the Sixth Amendment anyway?   He can also forget about bail, or about being protected from cruel and unusual punishment, but then again, isn't cruel and unusual punishment more interesting?  Trash that Eighth Amendment and let's get unusual.  Since much of the Fourteenth Amendment is clarification and extension of earlier Amendments, including the Fifth, it will have to go.  I almost forgot the most important part.  Since completely disregarding all these Amendments violates the Tenth Amendment, but do we really want to keep the government from having unlimited power?

Potentially more alarming is something making the rounds of social media, a simple picture with the caption "Kick Islam Out Of America".  Is the First Amendment no longer of any value to us?  Any time a crime is committed, should we be demanding the criminal's religion no longer be allowed in this country?  You may want to rethink that position.  To date, no religion has shown any evidence whatsoever their beliefs are the one and only true religion.  Until that happens, kicking out religions seems like a bad idea.  What if the one you kick out turns out to be the right one after all?  Boy, Sarah Palin is going to be livid!

As terrible as the Boston Marathon bombing was, now isn't the time to start throwing away our rights through some misguided need for retribution.  Now is the time to allow our legal system to do its job.  The good news is, the legal system has been much more effective at prosecuting terrorism suspects than the military tribunal system.  Why not go with what works?