Constitutional Russian Roulette

Welcome to the politics corner where I weigh in on this or that or the other thing that deals with the goofballs running our country and the loud mouths that are after our votes. Let it be known that I am registered a Democrat, but I have voted Republican. Anybody remember Kathleen Kennedy Townsend's run to become Maryland's governor – yeah, voted against her.

Our politicians are losing their minds—some collectively, others individually. Heck, we have politicians all over the place right now. We have progressives wanting everybody to be as progressive as they are. We have the tea talkers out there drumming up lots of hoopla about how we must return to conservatism. We have congressmen and senators picking and choosing which amendment to embrace and which ones are not exactly what our Founding Fathers meant. It's a bloody mess.

And when I said bloody, I mean the potential for terrible things to happen. Shoot, there's that Tea Party candidate out in Nevada (I will paraphrase this) – who understands how some citizens resort to second amendment solutions with the government.

WTF! Doesn't she hear what she's saying? She is talking about guns and bombs and ugliness. Yep, that's the second amendment – the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. Maybe she got confused. Maybe she thought it was the Right to Keep and Arm Bears.

I don't mind a person who owns guns. It's allowed under the constitution. I've never understood the need to collect anti-aircraft weaponry, but if you got the cash, who am I? Still, do we want our politicians going – okay, I understand the people who might go shoot the members of Congress they don't like. *Shaking my Head*

Let's take a look at the Fourteenth Amendment next. Recently, so many people have been screaming to repeal the Fourteenth Amendment. Other than it would take forever to actually repeal a constitutional amendment, this is one of the most important amendments to the country as a whole. This amendment includes not only the hot button 'birth right' clause which states children born here are automatically US citizens, but it also includes the equal rights under the law clause. Yep, we're talking civil rights here. So, if the people who want to repeal this amendment actually get their way, civil rights also dies. That doesn't sound very smart to me.

Last but not least is the First Amendment. Holy Macaroni, Batman – that's the First Amendment. The one that defines the most basic of rights – Speech, Religion, Assembly – that would be that amendment.

I get it. I so get it, that the Ground Zero Civic Center is a big deal, but seriously folks, there has been a Muslim Prayer Center in Lower Manhattan for forty years. It's still there. Our congressmen and women who speak out against it aren't doing it because it's only two blocks from WTC (considering the established prayer center is almost the same distance). They're doing it to stoke a fire and divide the country more. Come on. It's a Community Center. It's not about sensitivity to the victims. This is really hate-mongering. When you start saying a building a tenth of a mile off the northern corner of a property is an insult, you aren't doing it for any other reason than to rile people. Hell, you'd have to go out of your way to just fine the building they are tearing down. Yep, you'd actually have to leave the street on which the WTC will be rebuilt to get there.

We can lay the Ground Zero Civic and Prayer Center in the realm of, if you really want to be insulted then walk the tenth of a mile and be insulted but you can't see it from the site and it cannot see the site due to the buildings in its way. What are these people who want to stop this do for an encore? Tell the Muslim families who visit Ground Zero to pray for their son or daughter, husband or wife who worked in the WTC that they have to cease and desist because it's offensive to all the other victims' families and friends? Really? Is that what the next act will be?

I'm not insensitive to any one of the victims who lost their life in 9-11, but I can't see the point in the outrage or the proposed solution – Put the Mosque (which it isn't) somewhere else. The First Amendment allows them to build wherever they want to as long as the building meets ordinance.

This comes down to a simple truth – you can't pick and choose what amendment works for you. Our government shouldn't either.

 

Am I off base? You tell me.

 

Bella