That Troublesome Constitution

It always does my heart good to find folks who go out of their way to be helpful. How about you? I’m reminded of a friend I had in the Navy. The old boy was from Deer Park, Minnesota, and it was his twenty-first birthday. He wasn’t the brightest bulb in the box. In fact, I imagine he would never have made it to the box in the first place.

A group of us decided to take him out to indulge in a little legal drinking. After all, the better than thou’s, had already been helping him for three years, allowing him the possibility of dying for his country, but not allowing him to drink in it. See, people will be helpful at the cost of your freedom, as often as you allow them to. We spent the night exercising his newly acquired freedom in great depth. At some point, he stepped outside to get a little air.

While stumbling around outside, something across the road caught his attention. He stepped from the curb, only the Old Milwaukee sharing his head did not see the curb. I’ll admit it, the beer was no more helpful that the better than thou’s had been. Stepping from a curb, while not difficult does require you be aware it’s there. His foot hit nothing. It took his mind and its half a case of buddies too long to register something was wrong.

At this point gravity became more helpful than it needed to be and he started for the street, leading with his face. Thanks gravity, why can’t you simply stick to making sure we don’t drift off of the planet? Why must you get involved in things that don’t concern you? See even gravity is pesky and will help you, to death.

This story should end here with a dead thud. But seeing as he was one of my friends, it doesn’t. This old boy wore tight jeans, and he wore jeans tighter than those worn by young girls in search of a husband. As gravity was busy making sure he did not drift off into space, he was twisting, jerking, wiggling and struggling to get his hands out of his tight pockets. Gravity won, and he crashed nose first into the streets with his hands still in his pockets. In fact, he was in the gutter squirming trying to free them, so he could get up.

His nose was broken, and he was covered in blood. Two passersby noticed him thrashing about and being helpful came to his aid. They grabbed him under his arms and helped him to his feet.

“Are you Okay?” The actual words were probably not that helpful.

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Good.”

One of them punched him in his already broken nose as the other was helpful enough to dig his wallet from his tight back pocket. Again he found himself in the gutter. His pants continued to keep his hands warm, just being helpful. It was then that the police arrived. He had no ID or money, and the crooks had only been gone for moments. The police decided they would help him by giving him a warm place to sleep. He decided he needed to verbally thank them for all the help they were not giving.

They did not appreciate his thanks and cuffing him threw him in their back floorboard. They proceeded to drive around all night. Then they decided to be more helpful and not arrest him. They did, however, lock him up for two weeks, keeping no records of it. This made him AWOL which inspired Uncle Sam to be helpful and take away his rank and privileges. I’m telling you, being helpful is catchin.

So now let’s get to the moral of this story. We can barely survive today with all the help we get from our government. They tried to censor the internet recently, and the country screamed in protest. Censorship is simply the people who know everything, bending the rest of us to their will. People who know that whatever they do, is inherently right and what others do is inherently wrong. I’m glad that didn’t pass, considering so many wars have been fought, by us wrong people to protect the few right ones.

Remember we fought the British to protect freedom of speech and other things? Remember banned in Boston? Censorship is simply an attempt to help us understand that the Constitution is ill defined and apparently, wrong. Paypal has become the latest in a long line of companies and people, who know what we as Americans, should and should not read. They are forcing any company online, who sells books, to remove books they deem inappropriate, or they will no longer allow them to conduct business. We should thank them; with their being so helpful who needs that pesky constitution.