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Although the Bill of Rights may be in jeopardy in Washington, you have to give our state legislature credit for trying to do the right thing.
Earlier this year, the Colorado General Assembly adopted
House Joint Resolution 91-1032. The resolution notes that
On December 15, 1791, the state of Virginia became the
necessary eleventh state to ratify the Bill of Rights to
the Constitution of the United States.
Thus, Dec. 15, 1991 will mark the 200th anniversary of the formal adoption of the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution, and the legislature has declared it Bill of Rights Day.
The Colorado General Assembly encourages each school
district within the state of Colorado to participate in the
celebration of Bill of Rights Day by establishing a program
whereby the Bill of Rights of the United States
Constitution is read to or by each student within the
district on that day, or such other program as may be
deemed appropriate in commemoration of Bill of Rights
Day.
Great idea. There's just one problem. Dec. 15, 1991, happens to fall on a Sunday. Did they put some extra money in the school equalization fund so that schools can afford to hold an extra day of class that week, in order to celebrate Bill of Rights Day?
Maybe that won't matter anyway. Given the current trend
of the U.S. Supreme Court, it is entirely possible that by
December, the Bill of Rights will be nothing more than an
obscure example in history class: Once upon a time,
Americans rode when they traveled, women wore hoop skirts
and couldn't vote, and people were secure in their persons,
houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches
and seizures. Now, let's talk about something important --
multi-cultural appreciative parameters in the affective
domain.
Now it comes out that the latest sortie in the Bush assault against the Bill of Rights, the Hon. Clarence Thomas, smoked a little pot when he was in college.
When George Bush was running for President in 1988, he
said he had no problem
with the zero-tolerance
approach to drug enforcement.
Now he has no problem supporting a judicial nominee who,
like millions of Americans, has smoked a joint. Granted, in
all of recorded history not one person has died from a
marijuana overdose, but I've read the enlightening stuff
that the kids bring home from their Just Say No
and
DARE programs.
Isn't Thomas wheezing from respiratory impairment? Didn't it lead to permanent addiction, degradation, enslavement? How has he compensated for the inevitable and irreversible brain damage which comes from any exposure, however small, to cannabis fumes?
Never mind. The major honchos of the U.S. Senate have already decreed that Thomas's youthful indiscretion is a non-issue.
If you're looking for evidence of brain damage, there's a man in the White House who a appoints a black conservative to the Supreme Court, and then says, with a straight face, that the appointment was based on merit, not race, and that he has no ideological tests for judges. There is also our General Assembly, which can't read a calendar. And there is a populace which keeps electing such people to positions of public honor and trust.
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