The Constitution

And toss in the 18th Amendment while you're at it.

Take a minute and read this.

It's a Conservative Constitution and it's pretty funny.

Today, the House read the Constitution.  Reading is FUNdamental, kids!

They opted to read the current Constitution.  The one without slavery or the indirect election of Senators.  You may remember that some Tea Party candidates were upset with the latter amendment.  Stupid people and their stupid elections.

So, we got to skip the 3/5ths compromise and Prohibition and state legislatures electing Senators.

Which is fine.  The Constitution that they read today is the Constitution we live under.  We don't live under a Constitution that recognizes the legality of slavery.

Here's where the inevitable hypocrisy slips in.

The GOP and especially the Tea Party faction within it are advocates of original intent.  To see what this means, read the link above.  Basically, original intent means that we must live under the Constitution that Moses and Baby Jesus wrote in Philadelphia in 1787.  None of that John Marshall-Earl Warren crap!  Just the pure, original, clear as mud Constitution for us, thank you!

To read the current, amended Constitution is to acknowledge - as any fool should - that the Constitution is a living document.  Madison was hopeful it would last 50 years before needing to be replaced.  Instead, his political (and one time legal) adversary, John Marshall found a way to make the Constitution elastic.  And by making it elastic, he allowed it to stretch to cover the new, growing, changing America.

Certainly, there were times when crises necessitated a change.  The Civil War and Emancipation required three amendments (one, the all important Fourteenth arose in response to the 1857 Dred Scott decision as much as anything).  The Gilded Age and its transgressions required the 16th-19th Amendments, which gave us direct election of Senators, an income tax, Prohibition (wheeee!) and women suffrage.

But for the most part, the Constitution has changed with the times via the Courts - and the Courts deferring to the legislative and executive branches.

By accepting an amended Constitution today, the GOP tacitly acknowledges that original intent is a charade.

But don't worry.  No one will call them on it, or worry about the hypocrisy when they ask why Madison, Washington, Mason and Morris didn't write down that Nancy Pelosi could pass a health care reform bill.

Because there literally is no hypocrisy that the GOP has to worry about.  It is the sea they swim in.