Inspired by The Da Vinci Code, our old friend Professor Dr. Mike Adams, Ph.D has been sifting the Constitution in search of the secret codicil to the Bill o’ Rights, those long-rumored, myth-shrouded “Asshole Amendments.” And as it turns out — funny story — they were there all the time, right under a crumpled-up Burger King wrapper and Dr. Mike’s copy of The American Indoorsman’s Guide to Hunting Your Own House Pets.
Not long ago, I was having a gathering of about eight people at my house. The last guy to show up walked right into my kitchen and then protested because he couldn’t find any bottled water in the refrigerator. Next, he complained that we ate all the snacks before he showed up thirty-five minutes late. When he finally came into the living room to sit down, he asked what we were talking about. I told him we were talking about economics, which involves not just demand but supply. I joked that he wouldn’t have to demand any bottled water and snacks if he’d remembered to supply some, too. That drew a laugh from one of our mutual friends.
I actually don’t know which part of this paragraph is hardest to believe — that Dr. Mike has friends, let along eight of them, or that anybody actually laughed at that joke. To be fair, the part about him being a dick to one of his guests is probably true, and he never does actually claim that the “gathering of eight people at my house” is made up of friends, or even people he’s ever met. For all we know, it could be a home invasion, or a CSI team sampling his carpet fibers and testing those odd moisture stains on the basement floor.
Anyone watching the 2008 presidential race has doubtless seen a similar dynamic among supporters of Barack H. Obama. Most of his supporters have been talking about rights without any mention of the notion of responsibilities … For example, I have a 2nd Amendment Right to Bear Arms that the government cannot simply take away from me on a whim. But I also have a responsibility for everything that occurs between the time I discharge a bullet and the time the bullet comes to its final stopping point.
“Once it lodges in his liver, though, then it’s that damn Trick or Treater’s problem…Little bastard’ll think twice before he shows up on my doorstep wearing a mask…”
But aside from disowning his bullets once they leave the porch, Dr. Mike has been busy chatting with those smug feminists and patchouli-scented liberals that only he can see…
But consider the following list of “rights” that supporters of Obama have recently told me that we all have:
Everyone has the right to a college education. I can’t imagine what it will be like as a college professor once Obama implements this one. I’ve been teaching to the occasional unqualified black and the occasional unqualified athlete for years.
I commend the chair of the UNC-Wilmington Criminology Department on her efficient use of resources.
Everyone has a right to breathe clean air. This is a really bad idea for the Obama campaign. If everyone starts to enforce his right to breathe clean air in the presence of swarthy young Muslims, Obama might lose an important part of his electoral base.
Hey, these are the jokes, people, come on! If you want to be invited back to one of Dr. Professor Mike’s literary salons, you’re gonna have to keep up! And bring your own snacks and bottled water.
Everyone has a right to demand that the rich pay taxes in proportion to their ability to pay taxes. … When someone says we have a right to tax the rich “in proportion to their ability to pay” they mean “tax them until they can no longer pay” or “tax them until they are bankrupt.” Many people who hold this view were not actually alive during the Carter Administration. But they have taken history classes from people who assure us that he was really not such a bad president.
At least he was better than that “dedicated, conscious agent of the communist conspiracy,” Eisenhower, who thought a 91% income tax bracket was perfectly reasonable.
Every gay man has a right to feel comfortable.
No, no, it’s “every gay woman has a right to comfortable shoes.”
I heard this one from a first-year law student at Yale. He actually informed me thrice that his right to be comfortable as a gay man trumps the First Amendment. I guess they don’t teach constitutional law until the second year of the Yale law program. But the question is: How did this sissy get into Yale Law School?
Well, I imagine his first step was to escape from your nightmare — you know the one, where you’re trapped all alone in a pink room with a six foot party sub? After that, he would have had to somehow become flesh, and then do really well on the LSATS and write a killer essay.
After spending only a little time listening to followers of the Dali Bama I have concluded that, in Obama’s America, everyone gets to declare at least one new fundamental right regardless of whether it is written into the constitution. And so, naturally, I am going to declare first that I have a right to unlimited rights.
First, I believe that I have a right to demand that you show me a copy of the U.S. Constitution every time you demand a new right. And if you cannot identify the constitutional basis of your proposed right, you forfeit that right as well as your right to vote in 2008. And, of course, I get to cast the vote you forfeited.
Wow, if Dr. Professor Mike had only thought of this vote-multiplying scheme a year ago, just imagine how different the world would be today. To start with, Sanjaya would have won American Idol!
So, those of you prone to simply announce fundamental rights without any constitutional basis should beware that this could soon deprive you of the right to vote. Until now, it’s only deprived of you the right to sound intelligent.
I can’t help it, I just think it’s so darn cute the way Dr. Mike addresses his columns to the very people who would never actually read them. And I suspect it’s a technique he finds useful in the majority of his offline conversations as well.