My original intention tonight was to sit around the house, watch “The Closer” on TNT, maybe do a little light reading before the heavy reading begins in earnest next week….
But I got a call from Bill, the bartender at the watering hole that I often visit with my buddy, the United States Constitution.
Apparently, the document, known as “The Constitution” (sort of like “Jersey Shore’s” The Situation, except he’s got a brain to go with that six-pack) went to the bar and found himself face to face with Tea Baggers, people bent on religious persecution, and some of the other dumbasses that have been giving him a hard way to go of late.
In fact, according to Bill, the word dumbasses was the word that started the fight.
You see, Constitution was at the bar after a long, hard day of being the law of the land. He’s used to working hard. He did manage to survive the Bush Administration, USA PATRIOT Act notwithstanding.
But he thought that he’d get a break with President Barack Obama, a dude who was a Constitutional Law Professor, in the White House.
He was wrong.
A group of Tea Baggers, anti-immigration folks, and folks bent on religious persecution came into the bar and started touting their recent successes. In Tennessee, California, and Kentucky, mosques are facing zoning challenges. Protestors bragged about interrupting Friday Ramadan prayers. A dude from Florida bragged about the knucklehead from his state that put a pipe bomb near a mosque in hopes of blowing it up. Arizona was heard from in the form of the anti-immigration folks who want to rip apart the 14th Amendment so that the children of illegal immigrants won’t enjoy the citizenship rights that their birth in this country grants them.
But between the announcement from a Florida church has declared Sept 11 “International Burn a Koran Day” and the phrase “Ground Zero Mosque” Constitution had heard enough.
Sitting in his condo near the National Constitution Center (where he hangs out by the way. You knew he was a Philadelphian, right?) Constitution poured himself another Jack Daniels (straight, no ice, no nuttin’) and told me how he tried to patiently sit and listen as folks planned their “Burn a Koran Day” activities and bragged about how they were going to get the Islamic Cultural Center, which is actually going to be located two blocks away from the former World Trade Center, moved.
He couldn’t take it anymore.
“I said, listen you dumb asses! My boy the First Amendment says that this religious center can stay right where it is. It doesn’t matter if you think it should be there. It doesn’t matter whether or not you like the religion. It’s the law of the land. If you don’t like it, you can kiss my ass you dumb sons of bitches!”
The folks didn’t care that this was the Constitution, otherwise known as the law of the land, saying this. They took him on.
For awhile, he was able to hold his own.
But by the time that i got there, the fight had gotten to the point where torches had been pulled out and lit, and when you’re a 222-year-old piece of paper, give or take a few amendments, that could be a very, very bad thing. I got him out, thanks to the help of some of the other folks in the bar, including ACLU and People for the American Way.
I bought them a round before we left. They were pretty understanding. They were catching some of the same hell that Constitution was going through.
I get where they’re all coming from. It’s bad enough that my homeboy has to deal with crazy assed Orly Taitz and the lawsuits she keeps bringing that say President Obama is a “secret” Muslim that was born in Kenya and Sarah “It’s considered an obstruction of the Constitution if the FCC thinks its uncool for a pop psychologist to say the word “nigger” for five minutes on her nationally syndicated talk show” Palin.
But should he also have to deal with people who want to dismantle the very essence of his first born because they’re scared, racist, stupid, or some combination of all three? He’s 222-years-old for God’s sake! Can somebody show him some love and tell these knuckleheads to pound sand!?
I finally got my buddy up to bed. He’ll sleep the evening’s activities off and he’ll try again tomorrow
But if we don’t help him out, the Constitution is going to have a nasty case of cirrhosis of the liver.
Let’s give him a hand…..or send him to AA, whichever comes first.
The Mad (Political) Scientist 