Proposed Constitutional amendments

Ideas for a New Constitutional Convention

by Hunter
Fri Oct 19, 2007 at 11:00:22 AM PDT

Many thanks to Larry Sabato for publishing his series looking at the options for a new Constitutional Convention. I admit to being wary of the idea at first, but the more I consider the possibilities, the better I like it. There are whole rafts of Constitutional adjustments that I think should be forthcoming, and which I believe better reflect modern American needs -- may I suggest a few?

Amendment 28: The House of Representatives shall be abolished. At this point, it is clear that there is no hope of finding a full 435 Americans who are intelligent enough to run a country. The Senate has less people, and is therefore proportionally less crazy. Also, Senators are also generally older, which doesn't necessarily mean that they say less crazy crap, but it at least takes them longer to say it.

If we cannot abolish the House, then there are still other things we can do. We can make it like Survivor, and vote the two most obnoxious House members out of office every week of the session. If it's good enough a system for television, surely it's good enough for the government of a country obsessed with television.

Amendment 29: We institutionalize the Thunderdome. Any American or foreigner who wants to can enter the Thunderdome and beat the crap out of anyone else there. Waterboarding and other "enhanced" interrogation, butchering people with advanced weaponry, whatever you like -- no laws, anything goes. The only catch is that anyone else in the Thunderdome can do the same to you.

The advantage of this plan is that it is one of the few strategies for planetary depopulation that self-selects for both violence and stupidity.

Amendment 30: From now on, "pro-life" has to mean what any reasonable person thinks it means, or you don't get to call yourself that, upon penalty of being beaten senseless with seafood. If you spend your time blustering about how we're going to kick some Iraqi ass, or which cities or religious hubs need to be bombed into a "sheet of glass", or explaining how children don't really need healthcare, if their parents had the blinding audacity to get jobs someplace that refuses to offer it, you forfeit the term.

Similar punishments will be meted out for abuse of the terms "compassionate", "patriotic", and "news".

Amendment 31: All members of Congress will be drug tested three times a day, every day. Anyone who thinks this is an invasion of their privacy will be assumed to be guilty and fired. All conservative foreign policy think tanks will also be drug tested, because there just ain't no freakin' way these people drew up the "plans" for Iraq without being wasted on something.

Amendment 32: From now on, all wars and police actions will be authorized not by Congress but by direct vote of the population. The results will be binding, but any required draftees will be taken from the pool of voters who voted "aye".

Amendment 33: All wars will require calling up the aforementioned draftees. You don't have to go fight, but you at least have to sit in an Army base cleaning tank treads for the people who do.

Amendment 34: For national census purposes, Rush Limbaugh will henceforth count as three-fifths of a person.

Amendment 35: Each network in America shall devote at least one hour a night to discussing whether Lou Dobbs is attempting to retake America's desert southwest via an intensive self-breeding program.

Amendment 36: Canada shall be annexed. If they're going to send all their goddamned wingnuts down here to opine to us about the horrors of immigration, then they can damn well give us some of that oil and timber while they're at it.


Hey, couldn't hurt. Except the Thunderdome thing, which certainly would. But I think the pay-per-view revenues on that one would more than pay for national health care, a carbon-neutral energy program, and resculpting the moon into a perfect replica of Al Gore's shiny new Nobel Prize. We'd be fools not to do it.