The Bill of Rights Does Not Grant Us Anything
Note: I wrote this article upon “waking up” in 2011. It continues to grow ever more relevant as time goes by.
There was a time in this country where people knew their rights. We’ve lost sight of that.
I have always been driven by justice and the fight for truth. Just as there are people who have always been able to draw or play piano, I have always researched, always written.
In 2010, after two years of daily research into crime and the state of criminal justice in America, I received a Master’s of Science degree in criminology. During that time, I worked as a graduate research assistant in addition to being a graduate student. I spent the majority of my time immersed in all aspects of America’s criminal justice system: juvenile justice laws; the Department of Homeland Security and our nation’s post-9/11 security state; the phony drug war; a mountain of failed crime policy theories; and the Goliath American prison industrial complex.
When I “woke up” as they call it to the tyranny enveloping not only America but the globe, it was like something let go of my brain and I was able to comprehend so much — and so much more clearly than before. Many details only crystalized for the first time. Scenes from The Matrix come to mind when I consider my feelings then. That movie is the perfect metaphor to our modern society in so many ways.
Tonight, once again, I got asked that question for the umpteenth time: “Why do you care about this when there is nothing you, as an individual, can do about it?”
Answer: Sure, I’m one person, but I’m one person telling another person: you.
As a criminology major beyond the classroom, I am positive I have stumbled upon what could possibly be THE BIGGEST CRIME IN THE HISTORY OF ALL MANKIND. I’m not kidding. Sure, many will throw out the phrase “conspiracy theorist” before they even let me finish.
Let’s examine the evidence, though, shall we?
Many people mistakenly believe the Constitution and Bill of Rights give us rights. Let us be very clear on this point: the Bill of Rights does not grant us rights. Instead, the Bill of Rights spells out exactly what the government cannot take away.
We have these unalienable rights because we are free human beings. Unalienable, in a legal sense, means these rights cannot be transferred and are not subject to man-made law; in other words, they cannot be infringed upon.
Amendment I
”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.”
Where has this gone? We no longer have the right to peaceably assemble or petition the government for a redress of grievances. Would you like proof? Watch the arrest of a man at the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks who, in a raised yes but calm voice, merely began asking a crowd, “When will we be allowed to know the truth about 9/11?” Within 45 seconds, police officers were pulling him away to arrest him:
In addition, many places require protesters to file a petition to gather and protest. It is hard not to laugh at the irony in the fact that you have to ask permission to exercise your First Amendment right from the very people you are likely protesting against!
(UPDATE: In February 2012, Congress approved a bill making it illegal to protest when government officials are nearby — even if you do not know they are there.)
Amendment II
“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.”
Militias have long been demonized in our mainstream media and by the government in recent decades. Department of Homeland Security’s 58 fusion centers now collect information daily on so-called domestic terrorists. In February 2009, the Missouri Information Analysis Center (MIAC) released a report entitled, “The Modern Militia Movement” which basically laid out the idea that militias are a domestic threat out to overthrow the government, militias hate police and consider them enemies, and any so-called conspiracy theorist is lumped into that group. The report then goes on to say if you watch anti-Federal Reserve films such as Zeitgeist, or you display a Gadsen “Don’t Tread on Me” sticker on your bumper, or even if you merely show a general distrust of the government construct (like I am doing right now in writing this), you are also a potential government threat.
But go back to the original Amendment II and read it again: “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state…”
Let us not forget that, during 2005’s hurricane Katrina, police forced people from their homes and confiscated the weapons they had the right to own. Don’t believe me? Watch for yourself:
(UPDATE: Last month, the mainstream media was caught using the Trayvon Martin shooting to perpetrate racial tension and further divide in our country, but the ultimate target is likely going to be an attempt to further limit our Second Amendment, as even our Vice President has come out against these rights following Martin’s death.)
Amendment IV
“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.”
We have the right to be secure. Does it make you feel secure to watch a five-year-old get stripped searched at the airport?
Were you all worried that little boy might have a bomb in his Spiderman underoos? Does it make you feel secure that the TSA forces a pregnant woman to be felt up just because she doesn’t want to subject her unborn baby to a potentially harmful x-ray body scanner?
Just how reasonable do you honestly think these searches are?
According to Webster’s New World Law Dictionary, probable cause in regard to the Fourth Amendment is defined as, “a reasonable ground to believe that someone is committing or has committed an offense.” So walking into an airport automatically makes everyone in America a crime suspect now?
We are no longer innocent until proven guilty in this country; now we are guilty until proven innocent.
(UPDATE: The National Defense Authorization Act Obama signed last December and the National Defense Resource Preparedness executive order he signed a few weeks ago effectively eat this amendment for dinner. And the Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Amendments, too.)
AND DON’T FORGET —
Amendment X
“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.”
…because apparently everyone else in our government already has forgotten it. (Obamacare, anyone?)
The Tenth Amendment limits the federal government ONLY to what is written in the Constitution and reserves ALL other rights to the States and the people. As Thomas Jefferson said, “In questions of power, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.”
If the federal government can force us to buy healthcare and fine us thousands of dollars if we refuse, that fundamentally changes our relationship to it forever. What is next? Forcing us to exercise because the government says it is good for us, then fining us if we won’t? What’s next after that? And after that? And after that?
Slippery slope does not even begin to describe this 17 trillion dollar unconstitutional bag of fail, and once this door is officially opened on us all, there will always be a “What’s next?” coming down the pike.
Orwell’s 1984 was not supposed to be a operational manual.
Make no mistake about it; America is sliding into a fascist dictatorship police state faster and faster every single day buy backlinks You can try to ignore it if you want to, bury your head in your iPhone and go back to watching your sitcoms and playing your video games, but this country as a Constitutional Republic is being murdered. It may not directly affect you today, but there is always tomorrow. Or the next day. Or the next.
Eventually this tyranny will spread so far and so wide, no one will be able to ignore or deny it anymore.
It would appear the United States Constitution is quickly becoming a suggestion rather than the law of our land and the document our whole country was founded on. So many people seem clueless about what it says, or more importantly, what it means to us as American citizens.
I wonder if that is why it is dying with a whispered sigh rather than a scream.
