This Land Is Your Land

I've been playing catch-up with the news and came across this editorial
by Robyn Blumner, a fellow atheist. She is reacting to the recent Supreme Court decision of McCreary County vs. ACLU of Kentucky which addressed the presence of the Ten Commandments in two Kentucky courthouses. I was aghast at this excerpt from Antonin Scalia's dissent:

"With respect to public acknowledgment of religious belief," Scalia wrote, "it is entirely clear from our nation's historical practices that the Establishment Clause permits this disregard of polytheists and believers in unconcerned deities, just as it permits the disregard of devout atheists."

Well, at least I know where I stand with him and the rest of the Xtian nutcases out in Far Rightland. They think I'm scum and would marginalize me with their myths and dogmas. Methinks we should give the Constitution a revamping. I mean, let's clarify things. For Scalia, the Constitution is a "dead" document, i.e. - we should accept its meaning as that which was instilled in it by the Founding Fathers and they never meant for each generation to cull from it their own meanings. Fair enough. Then we have been lax in our duties of amending it appropriately as our "standards of decency" evolve. Rather than advancing the notion that the Establishment Clause means the Ten Commandments are or are not appropriate for display in a courthouse, let's amend the First Amendment to indicate what it is exactly that we want it to read for a nation of roughly a third of a billion people of various colors, ethnicities, religions, backgrounds, etc. I think we need to clarify many things for ourselves. Either atheists are citizens deserving of every right and privilege or we aren't. Either gays are citizens deserving of every right and privilege or not. The same for women, non-whites, transgendered folks, asexuals, or whatever minority. Either non-male, non-WASPs are equal to male WASPs or not. There can be no some are and some aren't. The litany of complaints that is our Declaration of Independence can be summarized by saying that arbitrary rule sucks donkey dick. Let's change things so our collective will is obvious. Either the Establishment Clause is inclusive of non-monotheists or it isn't. If it is to be inclusive, then let's change it so that this is glaringly obvious.

Scalia made a good point in a speech given in 2002 when he said:

There is plenty of room within this system for evolving standards of decency, but the instrument of evolution - or, if you are more tolerant of the Court's approach, the herald that evolution has occurred - is not the nine lawyers who sit on the Supreme Court of the United States, but the Congress of the United States and the legislatures of the fifty states...

Let's make the appropriate laws and changes to the Constitution to make things perfectly clear. I feel particularly frustrated now because I'm tired of people like Scalia and their delusions that there's an old white man with a long beard up in the firmament who get his kicks by watching children drown in tsunamis which somehow makes him superior to me. But I'm also already sick of hearing women on various news shows explaining how O'Connor's replacement must be "fair" and whatever other innocuous words they use when they really mean that the next justice should not be willing to overturn Roe v. Wade. For them, fairness and impartiality are equivalent to holding their ideology. This is little better than Bush's Dred Scott reference in that presidential debate. Everybody hates activist judges who rule contrary to how they'd like. Yet everyone likes activist judges who rule in accordance with their views. How about judges who interpret the law? If Scalia had his way and Roe v. Wade were overturned, it would then become an issue for Congress and the states to decide. Heaven forbid lawmakers actually make the laws.

The climate of our nation was very different when the Constitution was created than it is now. The United States is larger, much more populated, more diverse, and dealing with issues completely unforeseen by the founders of this country. Perhaps we ought to stop quibbling over 18th century verbiage and update the thing to make it current with the 21st century. At some point, we’re going to have to shit or get off the pot. The lives of waves of feminists hinge upon whether the word “person” includes foeti in the context of the Constitution. Rednecks across the country hate city-folk because we as a nation are struggling to interpret the Second Amendment and they fear that they’ll be jailed for engaging in their favorite pastime of getting drunk, parking their truck on the side of the road, and shooting at deer in fields. And non-Christians waste time, energy, and precious lucre trying to have nativity scenes removed from public property. Let’s amend the Constitution to explicitly say whether or not it addresses abortion. If so, then let it take a stand. Let’s amend the Constitution to say explicitly if we the people are allowed to possess guns and, if so, why. Let’s amend the Constitution to say whether or not it is to be a secular document.

This is the Information Age, remember? We’re used to highlighting text and whisking it away with a single keystroke. Why are we so afraid to amend the Constitution?