Warning! Warning! Warning!

      I was watching The Glenn Beck Show the other day (I know, you don't have to tell me, I already know I'm one of those foaming at the mouth, right wing radical Tea Partiers) and he brought up an interesting bit of information. There is a small publishing company out there that is selling copies of the U.S. Constitution, but it comes with a disclaimer that reads:

      I find this unbelievable. Sure, at the time it was written it contained material that would not be considered "right" in this day and age. At the time, there was a huge battle over slavery, because a lot of people believed, even then, it was wrong.
     For a very interesting read on the writing of the Constitution, pick up the book "The Summer of 1787" by David O. Stewart and read it. It's a easy read, not technical at all.
        The Opening paragraph of a New York Times review of Stewart's book:


As delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1787 put their signatures to the document that would become the charter of the infant nation, Benjamin Franklin pointed to the carving of a sun on the back of George Washington’s chair and observed that he had often looked at the carving “without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting.” With months of often contentious debate behind them and the Constitution finally assented to by the delegates, however, Franklin pronounced his satisfaction, declaring that he now had “the happiness to know that it is a rising and not a setting sun.” After all, the delegates had succeeded, with just a few thousand words, in inventing a new form of government that would prove stable enough and flexible enough to sustain the nation — and its liberties — through more than two centuries of social and political change.

      To the best of my knowledge the Constitution has not been amended to say it can't be amended. At the time it was ratified, the thinking was not the same as it is today even if it was wrong according to today's standards. Unfortunately, nobody has yet invented a time machine that would allow us to go back to the time of our founding and show the Founding Fathers that they were wrong based on today's standards. They were right based on the standards of their time. As The United States has gone through it's history, we have amended the Constitution to bring it in line with current thinking. The 13th Amendment which banned slavery, and the 19th Amendment which gave women the right to vote are clear examples. If you want to start a campaign to amend it to provide that the President should be appointed by aliens from outer space, go for it! It can be done, if you can get the support. The Founders were absolutely brilliant in the way they put together the way the Constitution controls the Government and how it can be changed.
     My point is that while it was written by a bunch of "Old, slave owning, white guys in whigs", it can be changed at any time to agree with any kind of thinking. Putting that type of disclaimer on copies of the Constitution is about as outrageous as it gets. Think a bunch of whacked out lefties might run Wilder Publications. Nah, I didn't either.