The Rule of Law

Nobody asked but …

Yesterday, I was foaming at the mouth about the very idea of a Porsche SUV. Folks, that does not describe the outer limits of our problems. Today, I attended the second of half a dozen Lifelong Learning classes on the Bill of Rights of the U. S. Constitution. After four hours, we students are still on the First Amendment, Freedom of Religion clause. And after 100 years, we citizens are still stuck with the phrase, “clear and present danger.” (Which present are we talking about, 1917 or 2017?)

But a picture is beginning to form in my mind. Imagine the Three Stooges and two boxes of unsolved jigsaw puzzles. After the pieces in the two boxes are mixed together, then Larry, Curly, and Moe begin to put the pieces together in a coherent picture [italics added].  But they do this by picking puzzle pieces at random and cutting off the lobes to make them fit … wherever.

When the tabletop has been covered with this gaga mosaic, Shemp, the fourth Stooge, enters — with a third puzzle! His job is to cram these new pieces into the existing mishmash, pounding them with an oversized gavel if they do not fit (which they certainly do not). Great ghost of Lysander Spooner!

— Kilgore Forelle