CGI's Swami: Some Of You Still Don’t Get It
Posted By: Susoni [Send E-Mail]
Date: Wednesday, 27-Feb-2013 16:56:48
Some Of You Still Don’t Get It | Neal's
Soapbox
http://www.zombie-slayer.com/neal/?p=932
Posted on February 24, 2013 by neal
Just fair warning, this one is a tad bit long,
even for me.
My last article garnered a comment from
someone I know that proves that I was right when I said that most people
couldn’t name even five of the rights protected by the Bill of Rights. This
person, who I won’t mention, but who knows who they are, said that I was nuts
because we can still exercise all our rights. So I asked them to name five of
the rights, just as the article said. The first thing they said was freedom
of speech, followed by a long pause. So I prodded, what else? Then they
blurted out I plead the fifth. To which I replied, you ought to before you
make a bigger fool of yourself than you already have. Of course that didn’t
go over too well, but it proved my point that most people CAN’T name the
rights which our Founders felt were so important that they listed them
individually in the Bill of Rights.
If people aren’t capable of telling you which
rights the Founders specifically listed in the first ten amendments to the
Constitution, how in the hell are they capable of telling you if they have
been infringed upon? On top of that, I don’t think they understand, no matter
how many times I have tried to explain it, what the word infringed really
means. So let me try and make this as simple as I can.
Okay, say you have a television in your home.
You can watch whatever you want, for as many hours a day as you want to, that
is your right. Now say someone passes a law which says that you can no longer
watch certain channels, or that you can only watch your TV for a certain
number of hours every day. Your ability to exercise your right to watch
whatever, and for how long, has been limited. That is infringement.
Although watching TV is not a right protected by the Bill of Rights, I think
that SHOULD help explain what infringement means. Therefore, as that applies
to those rights protected by the Bill of Rights, any law, ordinance, or code
which LIMITS a person’s ability to exercise a specific right is an
infringement, and has violated the Constitution.
It does not matter if 99.9% of the people
support a law which limits, [infringes upon], a person’s ability do exercise
one of the unalienable rights protected in the first ten amendments to the
Constitution, such a law cannot legally be passed.
I know I have used this quote probably
hundreds of times before, but I will keep doing so until you get it. In 1943
the Supreme Court, specifically Justice Robert Jackson, ruled, making it a
legal precedent, “The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw
certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place
them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as
legal principles to be applied by the courts. One’s right to life, liberty,
and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly,
and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to a vote’ they depend on
the outcome of no elections.”
In his Second Treatise on Civil Government,
John Locke argued that our fundamental, or natural rights, predates
government, that is they have existed since man first walked the earth and
that no form of government may interfere with them. In fact, Locke also
argued that any government which does limit a person’s ability to freely
exercise their rights loses all legitimacy. Locke wrote his treatise in 1690,
long before the thought of independence ever crossed our Founders minds.
It was almost 100 years later that James
Madison would write his Memorial and Remonstrance, in which he said, “The
preservation of a free government requires not merely that the metes and
bounds which separate each department of power be universally maintained but
more especially that neither of them be suffered to overleap the great
barrier which defends the rights of the people. The rulers who are guilty of
such an encroachment exceed the commission from which they derive their
authority and are tyrants. The people who submit to it are governed by laws
made neither by themselves nor by an authority derived from them and are
slaves.”
This principle applies to government in
general, be it federal, state, or local. Any governmental body which
therefore passes any law which limits, in the slightest, a person’s ability
to exercise ANY of their rights is therefore tyrannical.
Our liberty depends upon how freely we are
able to exercise our rights without some law which limits our ability to do
so. As Thomas Jefferson said in a letter to Francis Gilmer, in 1816, “Rightful
liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn
around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of
the law’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it
violates the rights of the individual.”
So, as it seems that many people in this
country do not even know what their rights are, and are therefore unaware
that they are being infringed upon, Therefore it seems to have fallen upon my
shoulders to enlighten these people as to how far their rights have been
infringed upon.
Our rights are not granted us by the Bill of
Rights, they are insured by it. That document merely states that these rights
exist and that NOBODY can pass a law, or ordinance, which limits our ability
to exercise them. Therefore, to explain how our rights have been in
infringed, I felt it was best to go through the Bill of Rights, amendment, by
amendment, and explain what they meant, and then, how that particular right
has been limited.
The First Amendment lists 5 rights which it
was intended to protect; the freedom of religion, freedom of speech, of the
press, of the right of the people to peaceably assemble, and to petition
their government for a redress of grievances.
As it is written, it says, “Congress shall
make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free
exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the
right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for
a redress of grievances.”
I guess the best way to do this is to take
each right in the order they are mentioned in the Bill of Rights. So the
first of these rights is the freedom of religion. It was NEVER intended that
the First Amendment limit a person’s ability to worship as they please. This
wall of separation between church and state comes from a letter written by
Jefferson to the Danbury Baptists. This wall of separation that Jefferson
mentions was to keep government from interfering in the affairs of the
church, and the church from interfering in the affairs of government. It was
in no way intended to limit the right of the people to worship aso place
them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as
legal principles to be applied by the courts. One’s right to life, liberty,
and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly,
and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the
outcome of no elections.”
In two landmark cases, Engel v. Vitale and Abington School District v.
Schempp, the Supreme Court basically banned prayer in public schools. There
are certain people, among them renowne government may not prohibit the
expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive
or disagreeable.”
To limit a person from expressing themselves,
be it through their speech, their ability to create what they consider to be
art, or through their ability to read Scripture or pray, is censorship, and
it was never intended that our government was to be allowed to censor the
people in these areas. This does not simply apply to the government enacting
laws, it also applies to how the courts ruled on these laws. As I have used
before, in the case of West Virginia Board of Education vs. Barnette, Justice
Robert Jackson ruled, “The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw
certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place
them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as
legal principles to be applied by the courts. One’s right to life, liberty,
and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly,
and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the
outcome of no elections.”
In two landmark cases, Engel v. Vitale and Abington School District v.
Schempp, the Supreme Court basically banned prayer in public schools. There
are certain people, among them renowned atheist Michael Newdow, who have made
it their personal crusade to see religion completely banned from outside the
home and churches. For the most part the courts have ruled in the favor of
these groups who say that for students to pray in a public school, funded by
taxpayer dollars, violates that wall of church and state.
If a group of students, of their own volition,
decide to pray before a ceremony or sporting event, it is their choice, not
the schools. To deny them the right to do so is to censor them, and a
violation of the First Amendment. It does not matter if by them praying you
are offended, as upheld by Texas v. Johnson. The First Amendment does not
protect your right to not be offended, if we take one step upon that slippery
slope, where are we to end, when all speech is restricted because it offends?
Which leads us to the next right protected by
the First Amendment, the freedom of speech. Do the phrases hate speech and thought
crimes ring a bell? If freedom of speech, a byproduct of thought, be banned
by legislation, how can they say that we have full freedom of speech? Listen,
there will always be people who hate, you can’t legislate it away. By making
certain words, phrases, or even thoughts, a crime, you have, however,
infringed upon a person’s right to freely speak, which IS protected by the
First Amendment. For a person to speak openly of their hatred for something
should NOT be a crime. However, if they take action based upon their beliefs,
that is a different story, as then they would be guilty of violating
another’s rights.
I will not spend much time on freedom of the
press because that is another subject which I have previously written on. Let
it be enough to say that our press has been bought up and is controlled by
the same people who control our government. So while we do not have too many
clear cut violations of the freedom of the press by government, we do have a
biased and controlled press which only tells us what certain people want us
to hear.
Next up is freedom to assemble. Look at the
word freedom, what are the first four letters? Free, that is freedom, when
you have freedom to do something, it is FREE. Now tell me, when you need to
obtain a permit to hold an assembly, and that permit costs you, or is granted
at the discretion of some bureaucrat, can you honestly say you are free to
assemble? What about laws which make it illegal to protest within so many
feet of the president, as did HR 347. Under HR 347 it becomes illegal to
protest on any grounds which are ‘restricted in conjunction with an event
designated as a special event of national significance.’
So, all the government, or Secret Service for
that matter, has to do is declare a rally, and this could be a campaign
rally, or any other speech given by any government official, as an event of
national significance, and the people would be banned from assembling in
protest.
And finally, what about the freedom to
petition the government for redress of grievances? Have you tried petitioning
them? How about writing them to voice your concerns over an issue? What have
you gotten in response? Most of the times I get form letters, probably sent
out by some intern or low level staffer whose job it is to answer the mail of
the representative they work for. Do you honestly think the person you write
ever sees your letters? If anything, all that is happening is a file is being
created for you and your name is being added to some sort of watch list as a
potential trouble maker, or terrorist threat. Does this sound like a
government who listens to, and cares about what the people they represent has
to say? Not unless of course it is pleas for help or more governmental
micromanagement of our lives. Then they are more than willing to oblige. But
if you protest ANY of their actions, you are ignored, even if you provide
irrefutable evidence that those actions have violated the Constitution.
So, in my opinion, the First Amendment is
dead, no longer protected by government. So, let’s now move on to the Second
Amendment, which states, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the
security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms,
shall not be infringed.”
When asked, most people will tell you that we still
have the militia as described in the Constitution, in the form of the
National Guard. But, is that what the Founders meant, and is that what the
law says? Title 10, Section 311 of the United States Code says the following
about the militia:
(a) The militia of the United States consists
of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in
section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a
declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of
female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.
(b) The classes of the militia are-
(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval
militia
(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who
are not members of the National Guard or Naval militia.
So, there we have it, there are TWO categories
of militia, and one of them is composed of members of society who ARE NOT
members of the National Guard. As Founding Father Tenche Coxe once said in an
article in the Pennsylvania Gazette in 1788, “Who are the militia? Are they
not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man
against his own bosom. Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords,
and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an
American… The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the
federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain,
in the hands of the people.”
In the time of our nation’s war for independence, who was it that first
rallied to halt the British confiscation of arms at Lexington and Concord? It
was the militia, organized of simple men responding to threats posed, not by
external forces, but threats against their rights by their government.
Although it may sound treasonous now, that is the purpose of the militia, to
protect the people in the enjoyment of their liberty from threats posed by
government. If you don’t believe me, just read what Alexander Hamilton said
in Federalist 29, “…that standing army can never be formidable (threatening)
to the liberties of the people, while there is a large body of citizens,
little if at all inferior to them in the use of arms.”
To once again quote Tenche Coxe, “As civil
rulers, not having their duty to the people duly before them, may attempt to
tyrannize, and as the military forces which must be occasionally raised to
defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow
citizens, the people are confirmed by the article in their right to keep and
bear their private arms.”
Yet I don’t need mention how many laws have
been written which prohibit us from owning and carrying arms publicly. As I
have said, if a right is limited in any way, it has been infringed, and it
matters not if the courts uphold the law, it is a violation of our rights.
You can argue otherwise, but the facts state that it is our right to own
weapons, with no mention of any limits as to the type, number of rounds fired,
or whether they be single shot, semi-automatic, or fully automatic weapons as
such carried by a standing army. So yes, our Second Amendment is well under
way to being completely annihilated by government.
The Third Amendment remains pretty much
intact, as it states, “No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any
house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner
to be prescribed by law.”
Now the Fourth Amendment, that is a different
story altogether, as it has come under unrelenting attack, especially after
the events of 9/11. The Fourth Amendment states, “The right of the people to
be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable
searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue,
but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly
describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
The Fourth Amendment was written, in part, to
guarantee the right of privacy to the people when it comes to searches of
their persons, their property, and their homes. In 1780 Massachusetts enacted
its own Declaration of Rights. Article XIV of that document states, “Every
subject has a right to be secure from all unreasonable searches, and seizures
of his person, his houses, his papers, and all his possessions.”
In 1914, the Supreme Court, in the case of
Weeks v. United States, ruled, “In Adams v. New York, this court said that
the 4th Amendment was intended to secure the citizen in person and property
against unlawful invasion of the sanctity of his home by officers of the law,
acting under legislative or judicial sanction. This protection is equally
extended to the action of the government and officers of the law acting under
it. To sanction such proceedings would be to affirm by judicial decision a
manifest neglect, if not an open defiance, of the prohibitions of the
Constitution, intended for the protection of the people against such
unauthorized action.”
Ever since George W. Bush declared his war on
terror, the Fourth Amendment has come under vicious attack. Beginning with
the passage of the Patriot Act, the growth of Homeland Security and the
expansion of powers granted the TSA, our rights, as protected by the Fourth
Amendment have basically been erased.
You don’t believe me, try boarding a plane
without passing through some sort of scan or body search, then ask them to
see the warrant stating probable cause for them searching you. Under the war
on terror every American is a suspect and that is reasonable cause enough for
the agencies of the government to invade the privacy of your person, your
home, and your belongings.
On top of this, the ATF has been known to
provide falsified data to obtain a warrant, and then invade the home of persons
suspected of violating gun laws, confiscate all their records and firearms,
and only later is it discovered that the warrant was issued under false
pretenses.
So you tell me, do we still enjoy the protection of our right to privacy as
outlined by the Fourth Amendment, or has it also fallen by the wayside?
The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution
states, “No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise
infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except
in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in
actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be
subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor
shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor
be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor
shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”
This amendment covers way too much to be
covered in one article alone, so I will confine my talks to the very last
part, “… nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process
of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just
compensation.”
As I mentioned in the discussion of the Fourth Amendment, how many times have
agencies such as the ATF raided a person’s home and confiscated their
records, their computers, their guns, without due process of law and without
compensation? Too many times for me to count. And does GITMO mean anything to
you, or the NDAA, the fact that your government may now declare YOU to be a
terrorist, or a threat, and indefinitely detain you without trial and without
your right of habeas corpus?
You think mass detentions wont’ happen really
need to look back no further to World War II when American citizens of
Japanese descent where incarcerated because our government feared they were
loyal to Japan and not America. History can, and does have a habit of
repeating itself and that is why we have the Fifth Amendment.
So, just from what I’ve seen, the Fifth
Amendment has also come under attack and the rights it protects are not as
secure as they were supposed to be. We’re not doing too good are we? Halfway
through the Bill of Rights and only one Amendment seems to be intact.
The Sixth Amendment states, “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall
enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the
State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which
district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of
the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses
against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor,
and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.”
In his Commentaries on the Laws of England,
Sir William Blackstone writes, “Upon these accounts the trial by jury even
has been, and I trust ever will be, looked upon as the glory of the English
law. And, if it has so great an advantage over others in regulating civil
property, how much must that advantage be heightened, when it is applied to
criminal cases! But this we must reafer to the ensuing book of these
commentaries: only observing for the present, that it is the most
transcendent privilege which any subject can enjoy, or with for, that he
cannot be affected either in his property, his liberty, or his person, but by
the unanimous consent of twelve of his neighbours and equals.”
Furthermore, John Jay, who was to become our first Chief Justice of the
Supreme Court, once wrote, “The cause of America is now the object of
universal attention: it has at length become very serious. This unhappy
country has not only been oppressed, but abused and misrepresented; and the
duty we owe to ourselves and posterity, to your interest, and the general
welfare of the British empire, leads us to address you on this very important
subject.
Know then. That we consider ourselves, and do
insist that we are and ought to be, as free as our fellow-subjects in
Britain, and that no power on earth has a right to take our property from us
without our consent.
That we claim all the benefits secured to the
subject by the English constitution, and particularly that inestimable one of
trial by jury.
That we hold it essential to English liberty, that no man be condemned
unheard, or punished for supposed offences without having an opportunity of
making his defence.”
This, then, is the nature of the Sixth
Amendment, that we cannot be held without a trial and our property cannot be
seized without just compensation. But, ever since 9/11 we have had bills
passed, such as the Military Commissions Act which would place us at the
mercy of a military tribunal if we be accused of being a terrorist, and now
the NDAA which Obama has said may apply to American citizens.
So, from my perspective, if the government wants you out of the way, the
Sixth Amendment is not going to get in its way.
Well, well, we have found another amendment
which for the most part, seems intact, the Seventh, which states, “In Suits
at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars,
the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury,
shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than
according to the rules of the common law.”
However, the Eighth Amendment is a different
story. The Eighth Amendment states, ” Excessive bail shall not be required,
nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”
Before I continue, let me tell you something
Thomas Jefferson once said. Jefferson once wrote, “It behooves every man who
values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the
case of others: or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his
own.”
Therefore, just let me say two things; Abu Ghraib and water boarding. I’m
sure that inside the many penitentiaries that dot our nation there are other
instances of cruel and unusual punishment, but those two should be enough to
prove that in regards to the right of a person to be free from it, the Eighth
Amendment has also been violated.
Fret not, where almost done. The Ninth
Amendment simply states, “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain
rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the
people.”
This simply means that just because the Bill
of Rights does not specifically say that you may eat cabbage, that you do not
have the right to do so, or to own a 4-wheel drive vehicle, a flat screen TV,
or a whole slew of other rights. In fact, in Federalist 84 Alexander Hamilton
clearly explains the very reason for which the Ninth Amendment was written,
“I go further, and affirm, that Bills of Rights, in the sense and to the
extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the
proposed Constitution, but would even be dangerous. They would contain
various exceptions to powers not granted; and on this very account, would
afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted.”
It seems simple enough, but are those many
unlisted rights still protected? What about if you want to purchase a toilet
that uses 25 gallons per flush, can you do so? What about if you want to buy
a 125 watt incandescent light bulb, can you do so? Our government has passed
so many laws limiting what we can and cannot do that it has taken upon itself
the role of micromanaging our lives. I would say that although you can choose
between McDonalds and Burger King does not prove that your Ninth Amendment
rights are intact. But that’s just me.
Finally, the Tenth Amendment. The Tenth Amendment states, “The powers not
delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to
the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
To understand this amendment you MUST
understand what powers the Constitution grants the government. But, let it
suffice to say that the federal government HAS overstepped the boundaries of
its powers and infringed upon the rights of the states.
The Civil War is a perfect example of this.
The states agreed to the Constitution, creating the federal government. If,
at any time, the states decided that the Union was no longer something they
wished to be a part of they had the right to declare it, and secede. That is
the very principle our nation was founded upon, as written in the Declaration
of Independence. Yet the federal government not only denied that principle,
it went to war to prevent it.
I could go on and on with examples of the
federal government overstepping the boundaries that separate its powers from
those of the states, but I will just mention one. What about when a state
passes a law legalizing marijuana, and the feds intervene? Where in the
Constitution does it grant the federal government the authority to
criminalize the usage of marijuana. Go ahead, I’ll wait while you go look.
But be forewarned, you won’t find it.
With that said, the federal government has
become lord of master of all, subverting the states from co-sovereigns to
mere members of a union who are beholden to the federal plantation master.
So, yeah, the Tenth Amendment is dead.
So, how did we do? Two out of ten still
standing. Not too good America. I’m sure your ancestors would be proud. In
fact, were our Founders alive today they would probably say, as did Sam
Adams, “If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude
greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We
seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that
feeds you; May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget
that ye were our countrymen.” In fact I know that’s what he’d be saying,
because it is the same thing I say all the damn time.
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