A Modest Compromise Or Two

AG Eric Holder wants to modify the Miranda requirement rules and maybe not do it so much anymore. The reason? To get more terror info out of terrists that he can then still put through the justice system. He considers the issue of world Islamic jihad against the West a matter for the courts and not the War Department.

Senator Lautenburg wants to deny gun purchasing permission to anyone that finds themselves put on the secret Terrorist Watch List, maintained by unaccountable faceless bureaucrats. To heck with the fact it’s a mystery how you get on the List, and nigh impossible to get yourself off if mistakenly entered on the Roll Of Terror-Shame (sorry Ted Kennedy… sober now for 9 months!) Due process? Never heard of it. A right enshrined in the Constitution? Speak up, you’re mumbling.

So that’s what? The 2nd 4th and 5th Amendment kicked to the curb? This is getting too hard to keep track of without a program or playbill.

I have a better solution, and an alternative. They are modest proposals:

1) Make it a felony to be Muslim, and consider any Muslim not currently in custody to have jumped bail. Just make it a blanket declaration. That way it only violates the 1st Amendment, as the Authorities (or Dog the Bounty Hunter, think of the extra employment for him and other bounty hunters in these hard economic times getting commission for skip trace!...) can search you at will and also deny felons the ability to legally purchase guns. All without trodding on the other parts of the Constitution. You may need to push through a quickie Amendment to pull this solution off, but I bet the votes are there.

2) Or, if that idea makes you too squeamish, just assign an army combat soldier as a ‘minder’ to every Muslim and ‘other’ terrist suspect’s household in the country. A 24/7 custodian since you can’t trust a terrist to have a gun, get on a plane, or have a gallon of gasoline and a book of matches. A minder can prevent that. To alleviate the expense, the gummint could require the subjects of round the clock personal monitoring to provide their minder food and shelter. It’s only fair. Of course, to some people’s perception, this might be a violation of the 3rd Amendment of the Constitution. But you may not have to ram through a corrective as there is precious little case law on the 3rd. A decent lawyer for the administration could keep this all tied up in the courts for years and ears. By the time SCOTUS gets it, hopefully the war or police action or Administration’s term will over.

Note: Neither is a GOOD solution, but it is better than the currently contemplated patchwork violations of our founding principles. Sacrifice one amendment to save the rest. It is Constitutional triage to try to preserve its principles, and so we can pretend the document actually MEANS something.

What? Preserve ALL the principles? Pff! That’s hard! Whoever heard of such a thing?

if yer britches are in an extra big bunch, look up 'satire' in the dictionary