273

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Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, while still White House counsel, wrote that the “Constitution is an outdated document.”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.”


Dear President Bush; about that "goddamned piece of paper."

“Stop throwing the Constitution in my face,” Bush screamed back. “It’s just a goddamned piece of paper!”

Let us start out with the fact that the Constitution is actually written on parchment, not paper. A trivial point, I grant you, but one that reveals (along with your inability to correctly pronounce the word “nuclear”) a shocking lack of education in a head of state.

But to get to the point, the Constitution is not the parchment itself, but the ideas written upon it; ideas which form the foundations of our nation, ideas which would carry equal weight if written on stone, glass, metal, or even paper. These ideas are the soul of the nation. They include the recognition that the people of this nation have certain rights, rights which the government does not have the authority to remove. These rights include freedom of speech, to say what we think about the nation at any and all times, to write that opinion down and share it however we choose to. These rights include the freedom to worship as we choose, free from coercion. These rights include the right to privacy, in our homes and businesses, free from government intrusions other than in very specific and well-defined circumstances.

Maybe those rights are inconvenient to you, as such rights are always inconvenient to tyrants, but you are not allowed the choice which rights you will abide by or not. That too is spelled out explicitly in the Constitution.

The Constitution isn’t just a piece of paper or parchment. It’s a contract; the original contract with America. It’s the contract you yourself swore an oath to preserve, protect, and defend against all enemies both foreign and domestic. You attached your name to that promise. You swore that oath before a judge of the United States Supreme Court, with your hand on a bible. That isn’t just scenery for the cameras. Swearing an oath before a judge carries legal obligations with that oath, and legal penalties for breaking that oath.

The election process by which you claim authority is defined in that Constitution. And as you claim authority by Constitutional process, so too are you limited by Constitutional process. If you act outside the limits of the Constitution, you are no longer acting as the President, but as a private citizen abusing the powers with which you were trusted. A government that acts outside the Constitution ceases to be the legal government of this land.

The Constitution exists not only to tell the government what it may do, but more importantly what it may not do. You, as the President, are not allowed to declare wars without the US Congress. You, the President, are not allowed to seize people at random and send them off to be tortured. And most of all, you, the President, and not allowed to lie to the people and to the Congress.

Every President before you, including your father, swore that oath to preserve, protect, and defend that Constitution. Millions of Americans died in wars in the firm belief that the form of government describes on that parchment was worth such a sacrifice. To state that the Constitution is just a “dammed piece of paper” is a slap in the face of every American who ever donned the uniform of the military forces of this country.

Go over to Arlington National Cemetery. It’s not that far from where you live. Look at those tombstones. By your statement, you have written across and every one the words, “Died for a goddamned piece of paper.”


at this point, i think impeachment is too good for bush… rather like how i felt about nixon as well… if he has so little regard for his “contract with america” that he’s capable of calling it a “goddamned piece of paper,” – or so little education that he doesn’t know the difference – someone ought to just shoot him now and put all of us out of his misery.

8 thoughts on “273”

  1. i haven’t really paid that much attention to the various O.T.O.s other than to note the fact that there are more than one of them, and they can’t really agree amongst themselves who was really left in charge after crowley died, and apart from what’s available in the publically available canon, i don’t really know that much about the A⁂A⁂ i came to know of crowley about 10 years ago, after almost becoming a Christian minister, and then messing around with egyptian mysticism, jewish mysticism, buddhism, islam and hinduism for about 15 years, so i get the distinct impression that i came to crowley through the back door, so to speak. but at the same time, crowley’s writings, particularly The Book of Lies speaks to me in a way that no other book has…

  2. Everything needed to find out what’s missing is offered in Crowley’s publicly available canon. For that reason and other reasons we likely share in common I as well don’t belong to Crowleyesque orgs. Though were I to I’d scower the goble to study under what remaining initiates are left in Germer’s A.’.A.’./O.T.O. fusion. The latter of course being symbolic of the former and thus the way Crowley himself intended. That the ‘populist’ O.T.O. is now a non-Working Order, well, I’m certain you get the gist.

    In any event good to know of you, and I appreciate you adding me to your fl.

  3. i haven’t seen any evidence that he made things up yet, but that’s what the edit “edit” button is for. so far i haven’t seen anything negative about thompson other than another LJ user saying “I trust Capital Hill Blue about as much as I trust The Drudge Report“, and i’ve actually got some good information from them in the past, so i’m going to keep an open mind about it for the moment.

    yeah, i listed a whole bunch of crowley-related interests, and A⁂A⁂ is one of them, but i’m not formally connected to any of crowley’s “organizations” (such as they are) for reasons i go into elsewhere… i’ve friended you as well.

  4. I get the impression Doug Thompson has more dirt aside from the either fictional or factual dirt referenced and is with the want to feign and trick-screw the clench. The lack of a stated privacy clause for the three unnamed, alleged witnesses to me seems telling.

    It could’ve been a coincidence but yesterday I heard a soundbyte on CNN that liberals and conservatives alike, though obviously a minority, voiced vehemenent opposition to the addendums of the Patriot Act provisions, claiming they infringed on the rights of the American people. Of course no further information was offered.

    Incidentally, in case you were wondering, I found and friended you as a result of an A.’.A.’. interest search. The gesture needn’t be returned; and if you should be opposed to my friending you I’ll without hard feelings promptly remove you from my fl.

  5. i agree… at this point it seems sort of dubious. but at the same time, bush has pulled far goofier things out of his ass (the war on iraq, WMDs, etc., etc.) that i’m going to leave it up until i find more reliable sources that support or deny my original assertion.

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