random thoughts

Washington, D.C.- flanked by key members of congress and his administration, president Bush approved Monday a streamlined version of the Bill of Rights that pares dowm its 10 original amendments down to a "tight, no-nosense" six.
A Republican initiative that went unopposed by congressional Democrats, the revised Bill of Rights provides citizens with a "more manageable" set of privacy and due-process rights by eliminating four amendments and condensing and/or restructuring five others. The Second Amendment, which protects the right to keep and bear arms, was the only article left unchanged.
Calling the historic reduction "a victory for America," Bush promised that the new document would do away with "bureaucratic impediments to the flourishing of democracy at home and abroad."
"It is high time we reaffermed our commitment to this enduring symbol of American ideals," Bush said. "By making the Bill of Rights a tool for progress instead of a hinderance to freedom, we honor the true spirit of our nation's forefathers."
The Fourth Amendment, which long protected citizens' homes against unreasonable search and seizure, was among the eliminated amendments. Also striken was the Ninth Amendment, which stated that the enumeration of certain Constitutional rights does not result in the abrogation of rights not mentioned.
"Quite honestly, I could never get my head around what the Ninth Amendment meant anyway," said outgoing House Majority Leader Dich Armey (R-TX), one of the the leading advocates of the revised Bill of Rights. "So goodbye to that one."
Amendments V through VII, Which guaranteed the right to legal council in criminal cases, and guarded against double jeoprady, testifying against oneself, biased juries, and drawn-out trails, have condensed into Super-Amendment V: The One About Trials.
Attorney General John Ashcrofthailed the slimmed down Bill of Rights as "a positive step."
"Go up to the average citizen and ask them what's in the Bill of Rights," Ashcroft said. "Chances are, they'll have only a vague notion. They just know it's a set of rules put in place to protect their individual freedoms from government intrusion, and they assume that's a good thing."
Ashcroft responded sharply to critics who charge that the Bill of Rights no longer safeguards certain basic, inalienable rights.
"We're not taking away personal rights; we're increasing personal security," Ashcroft said. z'By allowing government control over the particulars of individual liberties, the Bill of Rights will now offer expanded persoan freedoms whenever they are deemed appropriate and unobtrusive to the activities necessary to effective operation of the federal government."
Ashcroft added that, thanks to several key additions, the Bill of Rights now offers protections that were previously lacking, including the right to be protected by soldiers quartered in one's home (amendment III), the guarantee that activities not specifically delegated to the states and people will be caried out by federal government (Amendment VI), and freedom of Judeo-Chistianity and non-combative speech (Amendment I).
According to U.S. Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID), the original Bill of Rights , though well-intentioned, was "seriously outdated."
"the United States is a different place than it was back in 1791," Craig said. "As visionary as they were, the framers of the Consitution never could have forseen, for example, that our government would one day need to jail someone indefinitely without judicial review. there was no such thing as suspicious Middle Eastern immigrants back then."
Ashcroft noted that recent FBI efforts to conduct investigations into "unusual activities" were severly hampered by the old Fourth Amendment.
"The Bill of Rights was written more than 200 years ago, long before anyone could even fathom the existance of wiretapping technology or suveillance cameras," Ashcroft said. "yet through a bizarre fluke, it was still somehow worded in such a way to restrict use of these devices. Clearly it had to go before it could do more serious damage in the future."
The president agreed.
"Any machine, no matter how well-built, perioically needs a tune-up to keep it in good working order, " Bush said. "Now that we have the bugs worked out of the ol' Constitution, she'll be purring like a kitten when Congress recovenes in January- just in time to work on a new round of counterterrorism legislation."
"Ten was just to much of a handful," Bush added. "Six civil liberties are more than enough."
-From the Onion(12/18/02), reprinted in The I Hate Republicans Reader, by Clint Willis

cryin', aerosmith