Episode #284: Constitutionally Catatonic Conundrum of Chuckling

Every American's new number one favorite document to hotly debate about, is a home grown creation that promises more chills, spills and mega thrills than any measly book written by the same English author that gave us a dystopian novel about an animal farm.

This week's blog post came to me much like the bulk of my previous posts: during a bout of self-inflicted stupidity, in which I actually decided to open the pictured book and actually browse the pages.

Among the various sections that I had skimmed, one really stood out to me: Amendments Proposed But Never Ratified.

Did you know that since the inception of this wonderful country, more than 10,000 amendments have been proposed, and that the Constitution has been changed a grand total of 27 times, giving us a grand total of 27 Amendments, with the 27th being approved 203 years after it was proposed (1992 changes to congressional salaries). If you're wondering about the 26th, that was approved in 1971, and it lowered the voting age from 21 to 18.

Any ways, I thought I would share with everyone a short list of proposed amendments that got seriously rejected by Congress, along with some enlightening commentary by yours truly. 

1. (1876) Abolishment of the US Senate: can you imagine the chaos if the Senate was abolished? Laws would actually be passed and a whole category of elderly people would actually have to become gainfully employed and have no real power.
2. (1876) The forbidding of religious leaders from holding a government office or receiving federal dollars: All NGO's would have to be secular. Even worse, they would have to perform continuous fundraising, and just about the only fundraising that the American public likes to participate in, is the purchasing of Girl Scout cookies.
3. (1878) An Executive Council of Three to replace the office of the President: a great way to legitimize bribery and corruption in the Executive branch. 
4. (1893) Renaming this nation to "The United States of the Earth": precursor to The Gulf of America.
5. (1893) Abolishing the US Army and Navy: no more of those pesky football games and definitely no more being the world's policemen. But hey, we can be protected by those stunningly brave social justice warriors, right?
6. (1894) The Constitution needs to recognize that the almighty Father and his Holy Son are the absolute authorities to human affairs: who needs separation of church and state when the church is the state and the state is the church.
7. (1912) Making marriages between races illegal: reality check, the unwritten/written law was declared illegal in 1967 with Loving v Virginia, which was affirmed by SCOTUS on appeal.
8. (1914) Finding divorce to be illegal: another reality check, spouses, usually female, aren't chattel that can be used and abused. They are living, breathing individuals who demand and deserve respect.
9. (1916) All acts of war should be put to a national vote. anyone voting yes is automatically drafted into the army: we could theoretically wind up with the largest perpetual peacetime army in the world. Of course, no one will respect us in the morning...or afternoon...or evening.
10. (1933) Limiting personal wealth to $1,000,000: adjusted for inflation, in today's dollars it would be $24.7 million. Can you imagine the outrage within the US Senate and House of Representatives that their personal wealth will be capped at $24.7 million? They wouldn't be able to...enrich themselves with all of those highly questionable (for us) financial maneuvers. I think I need to clutch my pearls tighter.
11. (1936) A variation of #9, with the difference being a majority rule affirming/denying that we should go to war: To be honest, while I'm neither a dove nor a hawk (realist perhaps?), this sounds like a happy compromise that neither side would like.
12. (1938) The forbidding of drunkenness in the US and all of its territories: this one is so far out of touch with reality that it should be written into an episode of the Twilight Zone or Night Gallery. Oh wait, this was written as an episode of the Twilight Zone, except that it dealt with the banning of being pretty/pleasant to look at and people got sent to a modern day reeducation camp.
13. (1947)  The income tax maximum for any individual should not exceed 25%: the earliest proposal for a flat tax, which of course would send one party into an absolute meltdown, because this means that they would actually have to stick to a budget. What a novel concept, sticking to a budget. I think I can actually hear the loud thump of jaws dropping to the ground.
14. (1948) The right of citizens to segregate from others: back then we as a nation were trying to desegregate ourselves and we eventually succeeded. Fast forward nearly 75 years, and we've sadly come full circle, as college/university campuses have now self-segregated themselves to the point where at some campuses, there are separate graduation ceremonies for each ethnicity attending.
15. (1971) American citizens should have the alienable right to live in a pollution free environment: yes. we do. Will it happen? not in mine or my children's lifetime...unless both sides find a realistic compromise that each side can live with.

So as you can see, some of those proposed amendments were so far fetched that they got seriously torpedoed by whichever legislative body they were introduced in. While others, even though they make minimal sense now, were just too radical to be passed by hypocrites on both sides of the aisle.

I know the above list seems to be a genuine exercise in obtuseness, but those were the people we voted for back then, because unlike today, the reps were a microcosm of their constituents. Which meant they proposed bills/amendments that accurately reflected the viewpoint of the people who elected them.

Reality is always conceptual when it comes to politics these days, because more often than not, the people we elect often present a facade of what they think will get them elected. Once elected, the facade drops and we're left with someone who doesn't truly represent us because they have an agenda that, more often than not, does not coincide with their constituents agenda. Once entrenched, they're almost impossible to get rid of.

Happy whatever day of the week you happen to be reading this post. I sincerely hope that this post gives you the briefest of chuckles to brighten your day, and makes you think about the people who represent you on whatever level, and ask yourself, do they align with your values, and if not, what are you going to do about it?

{c} 2025 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved