Over time, I’ve discovered something: if you want to instantly get people behind your belligerent opposition to the government, snag a copy of either the US Constitution or the Declaration of Independence. Either one, it hardly matters.

I found myself reading this article about a man at what I assume is a teabagger rally reading the Declaration in its entirety. The other day, as I was driving to a fireworks display, I found a similar rally for a red-coat candidate and heard a man quoting the Bill of Rights, specifically the 2nd amendment.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Both documents are damn important, and political wonks of both stripes should embrace them. Yes, that means we libs should even love that 2nd amendment. But the truth of the matter is, reading these documents is a lot like reading the Bible. Thanks to general vagueness, particularly in the case of the Declaration, almost anyone can take whatever they want out of the things.

For eight solid years, liberals howled and wailed about the Constitution and how Bush was shitting all over it. Then as soon as Bush is out and Obama takes over, conservatives start screeching about how Barry-O is wiping his ass with the documents our founding fathers spilled blood to write, etc. Doesn’t matter who’s in power, the people who aren’t can use it as a painfully generic “those guys suck” backdrop.

This isn’t a coincidence, either. The Declaration was, surprise, just a declaration. A rallying cry about the need to rise up and said “I’m mad as hell and can’t etc…”, so pretty much anyone can grab that and hold it up, whether your free hand is holding a Budweiser or a Mochaccino.

As for the Constitution, well let’s not forget that our founding fathers weren’t exactly lockstep in their ideals. That’s how we got things like the Great Compromise, because some guys wanted to favor larger states, some didn’t. There were strong federalists and strong anti-federalists. Some, such as Alexander Hamilton, were even concerned that the Bill of Rights was a bad idea, since it would imply that the people had no other rights.

Hold up either of the papers, focus on the parts you like, and anyone can start a big ol’ hullabaloo that ends with “this is why we need change in Washington”. Go by popular rhetoric and there has never been a president that followed the desires of our founding fathers.

Again, it’s similar to religion. Peaceful zealots argue with violent ones, both quoting from their book of choice, and both doing so quite accurately. Both are also claiming to know the intentions of writers who were born and died long before the people on the soapbox were alive.

Maybe the lesson of all this is that we do need to read the documents more. But when we do, we need to read the whole things, and not just find the bits we like. And then take that and apply it.