I hate to sound like a Tea-Party nutbag, but I really love the United States' Constitution. As I've mentioned before, I'm a free-speech fanatic. I love the Constitution's sharp focus on individual liberties, its emphasis on the rights of the accused, and that grade-school-civics favorite, the checks and balances of power. I despair when these ideals meet real-life sacrifices, especially glaring ones like, oh, the utter lack of Congressional declarations of war since WWII. I also don't like to sully the document's purity with excessive amendments, interpretations and adaptations. No Defense of Marriage Amendment, please, but while you're at it, no marriage at all (it violates the establishment clause, you see). But don't call me a Scalia-esque strict constructionist. If I could, I would copy-edit the otherwise brilliant Constitution and correct a centuries-old omission with no qualms: I would give the United States a monarch. It probably seems unamerican, undemocratic and all-around anti-freedom-y to propose that we foist an unquestioned figure to the crown of government. It probably sounds old-fashioned, all uppity and needlessly symbolic and European. I know it does. It's exactly my point.