Whoops, there goes my favorite example!
I'm fond of pointing out that every part of the 1787 "constitution" is routinely violated, EXCEPT for the obsolete bits that nobody would bother to do nowadays. I always point to this passage:
The Congress shall have Power ... To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
All three pieces of this sentence are obsolete. We no longer declare war, we just make permanent universal war all the time against every nation that displeases Saudi and Israel. We no longer grant Letters of Marque because the concept went obsolete a long time ago. The same applies to rules about captures. We don't use rules and laws.
Whoopsie! Letters of Marque are back in fashion again!
Via ZH:
Now in a display once again illustrating just who the actual menace is to global peace and stability, the British have openly – even proudly – hijacked a ship carrying Iranian oil allegedly bound for Syria.
As to why the UK believed it was justified to hijack the Iranian tanker – the article would cite “sanctions against the regime of Bashar al-Assad” the UK and EU placed on Syria – which are in themselves illegal and an act of war.
In other words, we issued a Letter of Marque encouraging Britain to hijack Persian ships for our benefit.
We were founded by pirates and smugglers and tax evaders. That's not a conspiracy theory, it's a plain open fact. Every aspect of our "noble and glorious" revolution was explicitly designed to enable piracy and smuggling and tax evasion.
Hix, debunking Yankee myths as always, gave us a
lively dramatization of how the Letters of Marque worked. After the revolution we thrived on "official" piracy against Britain. (Start at 7:10 in the clip.)
Labels: Shared Lie