WALTER
REED NATIONAL MILITARY MEDICAL CENTER
Patient
Medical Record
Patient
name: Constitution, U. S.
DOB: September 17, 1787
Place
of birth: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Location: Intensive care unit
The patient is old and frail and presented
with a number of serious ailments. The fact that the patient is well over 200
years old is remarkable but it appears that it may not survive much longer.
The most apparent sickness has been found
in Constitution’s first amendment. Apparently the patient’s immune system has
weakened to the point where executive attacks on its guarantee of free speech
and a free press can no longer be defended against.
Constitution’s second amendment is also in
poor shape. What was initially a limited right to bear arms has been inexplicably
expanded again and again so that the patient now suffers from an acute
inability to regulate and curtail the use of all manner of weapons.
A thorough examination of Constitution
revealed evidence of some previous medical errors being inflicted on the
patient. For example, it was seriously harmed by something called prohibition
via its eighteenth amendment although luckily that was subsequently rectified
by a twenty-first amendment.
Some past medical procedures appeared to
have strengthened the patient’s Constitution such as the right to vote
irrespective of race or sex (amendments fifteen and nineteen) and to directly
elect senators (amendment seventeen). But little has been done to take further
remedial steps in recent decades as evidenced by the shredded remains of a
failed procedure called the equal rights amendment.
Instead, Constitution has been threatened
with the possibility of harmful amendments to prohibit gay marriage, outlaw
abortion, allow school prayer and insist on a balanced federal budget. The
various attacks on Constitution’s corpus have weakened it so much that recently
a Mr. West even urged the amputation of its thirteenth amendment in order to reinstate
the possibility of slavery.
A detailed examination of the patient’s
body politic revealed a serious growth in clause 2 of section 2 of its article
2, namely a slow-growing cancer that has been eating away at the appointment
process of its Supreme Court. What was once a fairly civilized practice of
advice and consent by the Senate requiring at least sixty affirmative votes has
deteriorated into a highly partisan procedure.
Checking the patient’s medical history
over the last fifty years reveals that a virulent judicial interpretative
strain called originalism has infected the Court. This nasty bug has severely
hampered Constitution’s ability to grow and change over time in order to adapt
to new circumstances that were unimaginable 230 years ago.
In recent years, it appears that
Constitution’s executive powers have grown appreciably beyond what was intended
and have possibly metastasized into a national tumor. The current executive has
become a cancer upon the patient who has been so weakened that it cannot exercise
its inherent self-protective powers to impeach under article 2, section 4 or to
remove under amendment 25.
Sadly, it appears that one major
contributor to Constitution’s ill health is a congenital disorder called the
Electoral College which was there at birth in the form of clauses 2, 3 and 4 of
section 1 of article 2. This birth defect has apparently been exacerbated by
such contagions as voter suppression and gerrymandering. In the patient’s five
previous executive elections, two were won without a majority or even a
plurality of the popular vote.
In the past, the patient suffered through
many trials and tribulations and it was common for political doctors to say
that Constitution had an inner strength and balance that allowed it to always
pull through. Presently the patient is in the intensive care unit and its
prognosis is uncertain. After we run some additional Congressional tests and
surveys, we may have a better picture of Constitution’s possible recovery.
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