For every problem, there is one solution which is simple, neat and wrong. -- Henry Louis Mencken
Friday, May 07, 2004
The Liberal Bill of Rights
Some superlative work by Christopher Kallini (including some recent updating) gives us the Liberal Bill of Rights. Rather, the Bill of Rights as they would be if they had been written by the modern Democratic Party.
Shamelessly stolen from, and with much thanks to, Kevin’s Mind for reposting it.
Amendment I
Congress shall separate Church and State, and ensure that no public agency ever acknowledge the existence of religion. Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, except for such speech as is spoken by white males regarding women or minorities. Religion shall be defined as subjective belief systems with no basis in fact that involve rituals in a church or equivalent sacred area. Subjective belief systems with no basis in fact that do not perform rituals in a church-equivalent shall be the foundation of government policy.
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Amendment II
A National Guard and public Law Enforcement Agencies, to be established at a yet-to-be-determined time within the next two centuries, being necessary to the security of a police state, the right of certain government employees to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
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Amendment III
No woman shall, in time of pregnancy, be barred from killing her child at will, regardless of medical necessity, at any point between conception and delivery. Should a woman kill her children after delivery, while it may be considered a criminal act, it shall be seen as an unfortunate consequence of mental anguish caused by dwelling in a male-dominated society, rather than a heinous crime. Fathers are considered to have no connection to the child, and to be irrelevant to its care, outside of monetary support.
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Amendment IV
The right of the people to pretend to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unwarranted and imagined fears, shall be absolute. Freedoms shall be removed from the citizenry and scary items banned as rapidly as possible to accomplish said goal, regardless of whether this accomplishes true safety, or even decreases it.
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Amendment V
Economic concerns shall be subjugated to environmental concerns, the validity of which shall be determined by emotional and spiritual divinations, rather than scientific endeavor.
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Amendment VI
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to blame his indiscretions on racism and poverty. The victim instead shall accept responsibility for the crime, and for his part in establishing such a hateful society.
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Amendment VII
Progressive taxation shall be the basis of Federal income, which shall hereafter be free from budgetary constraints, so that “The Rich” are not given unfair compensation for their unfairly disproportionately strong contribution to an unfairly prosperous economy.
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Amendment VIII
Of criminals, excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor jailtime prescribed without rapid parole, nor the death penalty imposed, nor access to cable television or the internet hindered, nor punishment inflicted.
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Amendment IX
The enumeration in the constitution of certain rights is flexible, and shall be denied to the people at governmental whim as “times change” and basic human rights become “outdated”.
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Amendment X
The powers not explicitly delegated to the Federal Government by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are assumed to be delegated to the Federal Government anyway.
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Amendment XI
In order to avoid the appearance of “arrogance”, and as the concept of the people deciding their own fate reeks of provincial tribalism, the national interests of the country shall not be decided by its elected representatives, but rather by an organization of unelected representatives of foreign nations.
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Amendment XII
The concept of patriotism or otherwise acting in the interest of the nation shall be considered abhorrent and primitive, although this shall not construed as a lack of patriotism on the part of this constitution’s adherents.
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Amendment XIII
Citizens have the right to pay large portions of their income to provide for the medical care of complete strangers, medical professionals shall undergo years of difficult and intense training in order to have the right to have their work offered to anyone at a price determined by the State, and patients shall have the right to have substandard healthcare rationed out to them at the State’s whim.
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Amendment XIV
Racial discrimination shall form the basis of all educational and hiring requirements, as long as races discriminated against are “white” and “asian”. As this amendment implies that non-asian minorities are incapable of competing with whites and asians in intellectual arenas, and is therefore racist, this amendment is now pending prosecution for hate speech crimes.
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Amendment XV
“Human Rights” shall be defined as only those benefits provided by the State, such as may be funded by taxation. The term “rights” shall not be construed to provide actual rights, such as might exist independent of government control.
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Posted by
Drumwaster at
07:39 PM |
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I am going to disagree….
...with the venerable Steve of Norway, and the highly-respected Dr. Drumwaster.
Bush was right, and Rumsfeld was as well. An apology was a good idea.
Why? Please read below.
"The Buck Stops Here”
Though Bush was not at the prison, and though Rumsfeld wasn’t either, they are the people at the top of the chain of command, and are the ones that have to take the final responsibility.
Are they guilty? No...if my daughter, as a teenager, commits a crime, and is prosecuted criminally, she would be the one that would do the time, not I. However, you don’t think that I wouldn’t want to say something to the affected party? If my daughter stole from someone, and went to jail, I would make an effort to apologize to the people that she harmed.
Why? Because she is part of my family, and even though she may have known what she was doing was wrong, she made my family look bad. Therefore, I have a reason to make an effort to make amends. It’s my family. I am the patriarch, and she is my daughter. What she does reflects on me, because she is one of mine.
Because I think this way, I expect that others will do the same. Do they? No...they don’t. But I have a higher standard, and I know that my family is good, and wholesome, and that my daughters behavior was not indicative of the family as a whole. Therefore, no matter what others do, I need to stand on MY principles, not theirs.
Now, in this case, I realize, fully, that the Leftists in Congress are asstards that wouldn’t press a Democrat to apologize. However, I don’t think that Bush apologized because of the idiots in the Senate. He has shown, over and over, that he has standards that are much higher than those of JFK and his sycophantic lapdogs in the government and the press. Personally, he is bothered by the actions of these fools at the prison, and he has voiced as much.
Again, another parallel, I would not try to keep my child from paying her debt, to society and to the people she had harmed, and Bush is going to make sure that these retard prison guards get punished. He isn’t going to protect them, like the Democrats protected their favorite Presidential lawbreaker, because he is a just man. In my opinion, he is much more apt to do what he thinks is right than what is politically expedient. It’s not that he doesn’t care about winning the election, but I think he cares more about doing what he believes to be right. And, seeing what the man has done over the last 3 years, this is exactly what I thought he would do.
Now, Rumsfeld is also taking responsibility, and he should, even more so than the President. Rumsfeld knew about this, and didn’t tell Bush about it, and that is pretty bad for him. He needs to do everything that he can to make sure that these guards are fully punished as far as the law allows. However, he will stay on, because he is doing things that need to be done in the military (streamlining, raising the technological bar) that weren’t done during the last Adnimistration. He is better than this, and he is showing both his determination to do his job, and his dedication to the President and his mission, by taking the hit for this.
One last thing.....replacing the SoD at this time would be very counter-productive. It would create a power vacuum at the Pentagon that we really don’t need. Rumsfeld has performed superbly to this point, in my honest opinion, and needs to be kept on.
Another point...Iraqis are taking this a lot better than we would believe. The pro-islamofascist networks there (al-Jazeera) are trying to blow this up, but the Iraqis aren’t as upset as Iranians, Syrians, and al Sadr-ites are. Iraqis want these insurgents PUNISHED and EXECUTED. What the US guards did was humiliating, and the Iraqis don’t necessarily mind it. Also, remember that they are used to torturers being promoted, not prosecuted. That also makes them feel better about it.
We have to prosecute, and assure that this isn’t what America is all about. Part of that is a recognition that what happened was wrong. Saying “I am sorry for what they did..” isn’t a mark of weakness, but a show of moral strength, and is proof that our President is the right man, at the right time, for our Nation.
No Nazi would do this, nor would a terrorist, fascist, or communist. However, we would. It is proof of our greatness.
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Posted by
John Cross at
12:20 PM |
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Why us?
Is there some reason why this country has some obsession in regards to apologizing? Our leaders feel the need to apologize for past events, and current events as well.
Funny thing is, I’ve never heard a terrorist say “I’m sorry.” Nor have I heard foreign leaders apologize to us for their wrongs. Never really have heard communists apologize for their mass-starvations or to own up to the fact their economic model is total BS. When is the last time anyone from the United Nations apologized for their pathetic record? Why does the burden of contrition always seem to fall on us?
Once, just once, I’d be happy to get an “Attaboy USA!” or “Great job America!”
For a country that has only been around for 228 years or so, we sure seem to think we’re awful. Then again, that mostly comes from the left, the originators of the self-loathing American model.
Posted by
Drumwaster at
11:08 AM |
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One last bit of proof
The Democrats have lost no opportunity to paint Bush and Rumsfeld with the broadest brush they could in this latest scandal of the troops, with asshats like Charlie Rangel and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi demanding that Rumsfeld resign. And John “Admitted War Criminal” Kerry lost no time in bashing Bush while reminding us that he served in Vietnam (you had heard that, hadn’t you?).
Good for them. Republicans decided to go one better and announce that they were proposing a House Resolution, condemning the behavior. Simple enough, right? Maybe not. Let’s read it:
H.RES.628
Title: Providing for consideration of the resolution (H. Res. 627) deploring the abuse of persons in United States custody in Iraq, regardless of the circumstances of their detention, urging the Secretary of the Army to bring to swift justice any member of the Armed Forces who has violated the Uniform Code of Military Justice, expressing the deep appreciation of the Nation to the courageous and honorable members of the Armed Forces who have selflessly served, or are currently serving, in Operation Iraqi Freedom, and for other purposes.
Sponsor: Rep Hastings, Doc [WA-4] (introduced 5/5/2004)
Seems fairly straightforward, doesn’t it? Seems like the Dems would absolutely POUNCE on this one, doesn’t it? It condemns the bad ones, and praises the good ones, so the Dems should be almost unanimously in favor, shouldn’t they?
Yeah, it seems that way…
Then why didn’t a single House Democrat vote for it? Not one. The final result was 218-201 (with 14 not voting).
For those of you who aren’t fully aware of it, these kind of resolutions are non-binding, and exist just to express the “Sense of the House”. The Senate isn’t even consulted, because this isn’t a law, nor does it require any action on any Branch or Department.
Voting in favor would cost the Dems absolutely nothing, and allow them to put their accusations on the official record. But they didn’t.
I’m just stunned. Not that the Dems are hypocrites, but that they would admit it so conclusively.
Bush needs to apologize!
Again and again and again...oh, in other news, 288,000 new jobs were created in April.
What a terrible economy we’ve got going right now...absolutely terrible, eh John Kerry?
Posted by
Drumwaster at
05:40 AM |
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