Warning! Constitution Ahead! Proceed With Extreme Caution!

Wilder Publications received some unwanted notoriety this week when it was discovered that the company placed the following warning in copies of its reprinted collection of the Constitution of the United States of America, The Declaration of Independence and The Articles of Confederation:

 “This book is a product of its time and does not reflect the same values as it would if it were written today.  Parents might wish to discuss with their children how views on race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity and interpersonal relations have changed since this book was written before allowing them to read this classic work.”

If you are like most Planet Moron readers, you are outraged that anyone would have chosen Quisp over Quake.  

Also, that a publisher would feel compelled to warn parents against allowing their children to read our nation’s founding documents absent a suitable chaperone.

Sure, views on race, gender and ethnicity have certainly evolved, but those have been addressed though amendments and thus are now considered every bit as much a part of the Constitution as the original document.  Sexuality didn’t earn a topic heading and “interpersonal relations” aren’t even addressed, beyond perhaps the obvious relation between the American colonies and Great Britain (“we’re just not that into you").

Having momentarily misplaced the bottle opener and so experiencing a period of uncommon clarity, we decided to look into this further and found that Wilder Publications places this warning on all the classic books it publishes including:

The Prince

The Iliad and The Odyssey

The Book of Tea

The latter no doubt offensive for its alarming ignorance regarding issues of fair wages and sustainable agricultural.

Wilder is so manic not to inadvertently offend potential readers, even the Communist Manifesto fails to escape its lawyers’ inoculation:

You know you live in strange times when not even Karl Marx is politically correct enough.

Although that does kind of explain why progressives are so upset with President Obama.

J.