5 Crazy Scenarios You Didn't Know The Constitution Allows

But before Einstein could pimp-slap Godel's paperwork away, he was witness to the philosopher's official citizenship interview. The conversation went perfectly fine, but at the end of the interview, Godel casually remarked to the immigration official that, during his studies, he had found a loophole in the Constitution that could allow the country to become a full-blown dictatorship. With the late '40s not being the greatest time to question America's dedication to freedom and democracy, Einstein had to step in and save Godel's ass. He was given his citizenship, and neither Einstein nor Godel ever revealed what this supposed loophole was.

Of course, ever since, Constitution nerds have been trying to figure out Godel's Loophole. As best as anyone can guess, the answer might lie in Article V, which deals with amending the Constitution. One thing the article forgot to do was add a clause exempting itself from being amended, meaning the Constitution could be entirely rewritten if someone managed to amend Article V. Currently, it takes a two-thirds majority of votes both in Congress and among the states to change anything about the document, but if one party could ever get those numbers for even a second, they could vote to change about anything, turning us from a thriving democracy into the kind of Ancient Roman nightmare where some God-King makes his horse the junior senator of Maine.

Of course, the fact that no one has managed to decisively figure out the loophole might mean that the story isn't true, or that Godel merely said what he did to be a badass. But we prefer assuming that instead of warning people, Einstein and Godel used their science brains to make a time machine and tell the Founding Fathers to cut that shit out.

Instead, you wanted to go legit and obtain a letter of marque, a license issued by the government deputizing you to capture, destroy, and plunder in the name of your country -- i.e. privateering.

And because the government has gotten allergic to giving up power, Congress never repealed this article. So with its blessing, you and your buddies could absolutely lease a yacht and start broadsiding ISIS. No, seriously. During the Second World War, the Goodyear blimp Resolute was awarded a letter of marque authorizing it to hunt submarines off the Los Angeles coast. And as recently as 2009, Ron Paul was suggesting to commission boat people to hunt down Somali pirates and reclaim their treasures.

The 25th Amendment is remarkably clear about its crazy premise. It allows, under the right legal circumstances, for the president and vice president to switch places, Freaky Friday-style, at any point during their time in office. If the president volunteers, he can transfer his power and duties to his vice president without needing to ask those squares in Congress for permission -- and vice-versa once the new president figures out his new VP left him to hold the bag for something.

Now, before any of you start seriously debating in your head whether you prefer being ruled by the devil or the deep orange sea, know that the 25th wasn't intended to allow for a permanent switch. In fact, it has been used as a temporary measure several times throughout U.S. history, such as when George W. Bush transferred power to Dick Cheney whilst he was undergoing a medical procedure. The amendment was never to be used as a tool to win voters over, whereby a party could treat their VP as a possible usurper in case their base liked to see a change. But it could work that way. According to this hypothetical scenario, there's no rule against the presidential and vice presidential candidates double-pinky-swearing in public that they're going to switch places at some point during their first term and just, like, doing that. Simply have both Coke and Pepsi on the menu. Why has no one ever thought of this before!?

Except there's a line in the 1845 Joint Resolution, which was approved and signed by Congress, that kinda sounds like they already did, albeit unintentionally. As it states:

New States of convenient size not exceeding four in number, in addition to said State of Texas and having sufficient population, may, hereafter by the consent of said State, be formed out of the territory thereof.

So without interference from those Washington carpetbaggers, Texas can go all mitosis and break up into five full-fledged states -- "not exceeding four in number, in addition to said State of Texas." How would that help Texas? It wouldn't, but it would severely hurt the political status quo. That was true in the North-South division days (giving more votes to the pro-slavery part of the country), but it's still true today. Nobody can completely predict which way these hypothetical new states would vote if they suddenly popped up, so the resolution has basically given Texas a gun to hold to current ruling party's head and say, "Do you feel lucky? Do ya, punk?"

The closest that Texas has ever come to divorcing itself was in 1847, when Henry Van Zandt (the man responsible for the "four states" clause to begin with) ran for governor of Texas on the sole platform of breaking up the state. It's only because he died of yellow fever that his plan was never carried out. The rest of the attempts to trigger a #Texit have been less professional. In 1852 and 1868, there were proposals to split Texas in two, but those failed because neither side was willing to give up even the tiniest sliver of Texan identity to the other ("Which state would yield the emblem of a single star?" "Who will give up the bloodstained walls of the Alamo?"), or even figure out where to draw the demarcation lines. Mostly, the rule helps Texans feel big and important while probably never being able to pull anything off anyway -- and we have a sneaking suspicion that was Congress' plan all along.