Over ten years ago an episode of The Simpsons aired that featured a parody of a Schoolhouse Rock! music video/educational lesson that appears to have foretold of a dark, dark future. Upon listening to the lyrics today it seems easy enough to believe that the writers of the lyrics to “The Amendment Song” must have possessed some crystal ball or wayfront machine into which they jumped, rode to the near-future and recorded what they saw before encoding it into entertainment like Nostradamus. Check these lyrics and compare them to what you see around you today.
“I’m an amendment to be
Yes, an amendment to be
And I’m hoping that they’ll ratify me
There’s a lot of flag burners
Who have got too much freedom
I wanna make it legal
For policemen
To beat ’em
‘Cause there’s limits to our liberties
‘Least I hope and pray that there are
‘Cause those liberal freaks go too far.”
Sound familiar? Long before anyone on earth other Karl Rove ever did anything but laugh at the suggestion that George W. Bush could become President, the writers of the Simpsons foresaw an America in which a man running for President of the United States could actually publicly utter these words: “There ought to be limits to freedom.” And who gets to decide these limits? Duh. (Or should I say D’oh!) The America of today is one in which assaults upon our rights have not just been a daily byproduct of the policies of the Bush administration, but a central element. The freedoms that are constitutionally guaranteed have come under assault from the Patriot Act as well as Bush’s endless illegal eavesdropping programs. That isn’t even to mention the distinctly un-American practices taking place in prisons like Gitmo and the others scattered across the globe. The men Bush has appointed to the Supreme Court are all openly dedicated to the proposition that Americans simply have too much freedom and enjoy an overabundance of civil rights. As for the beating of protestors? Three and a half simple words: Don’t tase me, bro.
“Kid: But why can’t we just make a law against flag-burning?
Amendment: Because that law would be unconstitutional.
But if we changed the Constitution…
Kid: Then we could make all sorts of crazy laws!
Amendment: Now you’re catching on!
Kid: What if people say you’re not good enough to be in the
Constitution?
Amendment: Then I’ll crush all opposition to me,”
Don’t approve of same-sex marriages, but can’t legally outlaw them since it would a violation of constitutional rights? No problem; let’s just rewrite the Constitution to make it legal to discriminate against those we don’t like. The Constitution wasn’t intended to be a book of statutes. Rewriting it to outlaw specific practices didn’t work with Prohibition and it won’t work with same-sex marriage and it won’t work with whatever is the next thing to irritate social conservatives. With a Supreme Court loaded with those who don’t seem to understand this very basic premise of American law, however, who knows what we can expect if someone like Mike Huckabee were ever actually elected.
“Bart: What the hell is this?
Lisa: It’s one of those campy ’70s throwbacks that appeals to Generation Xers.
Bart: We need another Vietnam to thin out their ranks a little.”
This little exchange takes place during the middle of The Amendment Song. It may be the most chilling part of the segment. Is there anybody alive who would have thought in 1996 that within seven years the ranks of young Americans would be thinned due to an unnecessary and unwinnable war? Is there anyone out there who would have believed in 1996 that the lessons of Vietnam could be forgotten and ignored hundreds of millions of Americans? Is there anybody out there who would have believed in 1996 that America would actually re-elect a man who lied to them to get the country into war, who appointed people to run the war who had no experience or idea of how to go about things, and who had never at any point during his tenure even requested that an exit strategy for that war be planned?
You can learn a lot by watching The Simpsons. On rare occasions you can even get a peek into our dark, dark future.
