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Vail Valley Voices: Pick on me instead

Michael Cacioppo
Vail, CO, Colorado

The repeated written nonsense by elitist attorney Henry Bornstein gets old, like my wonderful friend Dick Gustafson. Because my friend suffers from a debilitating disease and is moving around much slower these days, I will defend against Mr. Bornstein’s argumentum ad hominem attacks on former county commissioner Gustafson.

Bornstein, or BoringStein, as I have grown to call him, is the epitome of the person who repeats the same old incorrect rhetoric, hoping that the uninformed will read it enough times and begin to believe it.

Bornstein wrote, in his Aug. 16 diatribe to the Vail Daily, that “It is obvious that Gustafson has zero knowledge of the Constitution historically or legally.”



Mr. Bornstein, Mr. Gustafson has produced historical CDs, performed one-man shows of our beloved President Lincoln and is one of two men who are primarily responsible for the successful Eagle County Regional Airport and construction of the Eagle County Building.

Who is Henry Bornstein, and what have you ever done for Eagle County, except to send repeated letters to the Vail Daily espousing your desires of what you wish the Constitution says rather than what it actually says? In 37 years of living here, I have never had the displeasure of seeing you or meeting you.

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Once and for all, Mr. Bornstein, the First Amendment of the United States Constitution does not call for a “separation of church and state.” Any eighth-grade-level reader can understand the plain-meaning words of the First Amendment. It says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof …”

Nowhere, and I mean nowhere, does the constitution call for a separation of church and state. It simply says Congress can’t establish a religion. The last time I checked, Congress hasn’t established a religion – ever. If it has, Mr. Bornstein, please tell us which religion Congress has established.

If the majority of the founders, not just Jefferson, had meant that they wanted a separation of church and state, they would have written that into the Constitution.

In fact, the “prohibiting the free exercise thereof” portion, to we common people, means just that. Bornstein, and his elitist ilk, cannot legally disallow the free exercise of religion anywhere. That means people get to pray in school. That means school boards can rent their facilities to church groups. The U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that the words “In God We Trust” can remain on our money and that “under God” can remain in the Pledge of Allegiance. Sorry, Mr. Bornstein, I hate to confuse you with the facts!

Of course, Bornstein and his ilk want to take those rights away from us. They claim that they, the “graduates of Columbia University and Harvard Law School,” referring to President Obama, or other Ivy League schools (as if those credentials continue to be valued in this country), grant them the power to strip away our rights under the First Amendment.

I would point out that our country is not only broke but broke and deeply in debt, thanks to elitists such as Bornstein who advocate legislating benefits for themselves and take from others to do it. Every nonsensical attempt to legislate or unlegislate creates more earning capacity for lawyers such as the retired Bornstein. Bornstein now appears to have nothing but time on his hands to help continue to destroy our country with his nonsensical writings. This is my opinion, and I am entitled to it!

Bornstein actually believes that court precedents, which are not described in our Constitution or granted to our courts by the Constitution (a power that many courts have wrongly usurped), grant them the ability to overturn, willy-nilly, the plain-spoken words of our Constitution that Mr. Gustafson consistently backs.

Mr. Bornstein doesn’t seem to like Article 5 of the Constitution, which requires that any amendments to the constitution be ratified by three-fourths of the states to amend the Constitution. No, Mr. Bornstein would much prefer to have lawyers and judges of his ilk strip our Constitution by wrongly usurping that power.

Mr. Bornstein, why don’t you personally attack me instead of my friend Mr. Gustafson? I am ready, willing and capable of verbally taking apart your nonsense any day of the week. Bring it on!

Michael Cacioppo is the publisher of The Business Briefs Newspaper.


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