Warning: The Constitution Can be Hazardous to Children!

On your next trip to the bookstore, you can play a little game. Determine what the following have in common: music with offensive lyrics, R-rated movies and the Constitution.
 
Give up?
 
Everyone knows that the first two items — certain CDs and DVDs — have contained warning labels for years. But, thanks to Wilder Publications in Virginia, the Constitution now comes with its own warning label!
 
In its Foundations of Freedom, this publisher has reprinted the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and many other founding documents.
 
But Wilder warns readers that this book, containing these documents, “is a product of its time and does not reflect the same values as it would if it were written today.”
 
The disclaimer goes on to warn parents that they “might wish to discuss with their children before allowing them to read this classic work.”
 
One wishes this negative warning label was just an attempt by Wilder to use reverse psychology as a means of getting kids to actually read the founding documents. One can just picture Johnny hiding with his flashlight under the covers, surreptitiously reading his contraband copy of the Constitution.
 
Unfortunately, Wilder Publications’ warning is serious — and people are outraged. Reviews at Amazon.com call the warning label “ridiculous,” “ignorant,” “insulting” and much worse.
 
Most of the reviewers call on people to boycott the publisher — one saying that “there should be a warning label to not buy from this company.”
 
Another reader notes that, according Wilder’s webpage, they publish the Communist Manifesto as well. The reviewer ponders: “I wonder if they put a warning in that one?”
 
‘Dissing’ the Constitution leads to bigger government and gun control
 
It’s certainly an irony of our times that the very document our President, Congressmen and Justices swear to uphold is now thrust into the same category as offensive speech.
 
As one Amazon.com reviewer sarcastically noted,
 
I can understand why Wilder chose to put a disclaimer on this publication. Reading it will make you question the current state of government in this country, and really “get it” that the Federal Government is 20 times the size it should be.
 
Advocates for big government have long tried to minimize the impact of both the Constitution and the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. 
 
For example, the new health care law that President Obama signed in March will allow the ATF and FBI to troll through a massive health care database and disqualify millions of Americans — who are suffering from PTSD and other similar conditions — from buying firearms.
 
But where’s the authority for these gun restrictions or for any of the other requirements found in the 2,000 page ObamaCare monstrosity?
 
Many congressmen have been asked this question, and the results have been quite telling.
 
* When asked by a reporter last November what language in the Constitution allows Congress to require individuals to purchase health insurance, Sen. Roland Burris (D-IL) pointed to the part of the Constitution that he says authorizes the federal government “to provide for the health, welfare and the defense of the country.”  Unfortunately for Sen. Burris, the word “health” never appears in the Constitution.
 
* When Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC) was asked about the constitutional authority to regulate health care delivery, he retorted: “There’s nothing in the Constitution that says that the federal government has anything to do with most of the stuff we do.”
 
* And then there’s Congressman Phil Hare (D-IL) who was asked the same question this year regarding the authority to pass ObamaCare. Rep. Hare’s responses — which can be viewed on YouTube using a search for “Hare” and “Constitution” — are very enlightening.
 
“Hare-raising” comments on the Constitution
 
The conversation between the Illinois Congressman and his constituents went like this:
 
            “Where in the Constitution ?”
 
Hare: “I don’t worry about the Constitution on this, to be honest …. I care more about the people that are dying every day that don’t have health care.”
 
“You care more about that than the U.S. Constitution that you swore to uphold?”
 
Hare: “I believe that it says we have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
 
“That’s in the Declaration of Independence.”
 
Hare: “It doesn’t matter to me.”
 
Wow! A congressman who has taken an oath to uphold every word of the Constitution says that it doesn’t matter to him what’s in the document or not.
 
In fact, this Congressman has probably never read the Constitution! But then why should he? It’s an outdated document, according to Wilder Publications.
 
How ironic that the Library of Congress’ official website is named “Thomas,” after our third President, because it was Thomas Jefferson who said:
 
In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.
 
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if our Congressmen actually revered the words of the man they claim to venerate?