An Open Letter To My Fellow Citizens of The United States of America:
(cross posted from (Parenthetically Speaking) because I thought the content appropriate for SEB)
I am sick of the endless debates about the fucking flag. I’m sick of the ribbons and banners. The parades. The fucking holidays. I’m sick of wars that, as Wes Mendell so elegantly pointed out, have their own theme music and logos. I’m sick of politicians who wrap themselves in the red, white and blue, setting themselves up so that any criticism of them or their ideas is a criticism of America itself.
You’re being fucked up the ass with the giant dick of patriotism and all you can say is, “harder, harder.” It’s a distraction, that’s all it is. Magicians call it misdirection. Hey, look over there, so you won’t notice what we’re doing over here.
You think you live in a free country? Bullshit. They’ve been systematically taking away your freedoms for a hundred years and most of you haven’t even noticed. It’s not new and it’s not partisan. It’s all about power.
Take a look at the Constitution. All those rights that you were guaranteed? How many do you think you still have?
The first amendment covers your right to free speech. Take a look, “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.”
The very existence of the FCC blows that one out of the water. Seems somebody decided that if it’s broadcast, it’s not covered. Ask George Carlin, he’ll tell you.
And your freedom of religion? Doesn’t apply if you don’t have one, or your religion doesn’t include a supreme being. At least that’s the case in seven states, where someone who doesn’t believe in the existence of god is prohibited from holding office.
Want to assemble peacefully? You might need a permit for that. Depends on the situation and the law that covers it, even though any law covering such assembly is, well, fucking unconstitutional.
How about the second amendment, the right to keep and bear arms? Would you like to try counting the number of laws that infringe on that one?
The fourth amendment says this, “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 Patriot Act took care of that one. For our safety. I refer you to the words of Benjamin Franklin, “Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”
Do you still think you’re free?
In a free society, you’d have the right to put anything into your body that you chose. Drug laws make that impossible.
You’d have the right to end your own life at the time of your choosing. Sorry, against the law.
Want someone other than the government and corporations to fuck you up the ass? Forget it, sodomy is illegal in 24 states.
And can anyone give me any reasonable justification for the laws against prostitution? As Carlin said, “Selling is legal, fucking is legal, why isn’t selling fucking legal?”
Land of the free my ass.
These laws and many others exist for one reason, to control us. To make us into good little sheep while the powerful live their lives of privilege, content in the knowledge that all it takes to keep us bent over is a little flag waving and a couple verses of the fucking national anthem.
It won’t change. You’ll keep voting for them, supporting them, gladly giving up your freedoms for a little more peace of mind. So when they take away your smokes, your red meat, your candy, don’t worry about it, it’s for your own good.
And when they start banning your games because they’re too violent for your children, well, that’s okay too. After all, we have to think about the children.
Any other freedoms you can live without? Speak up. I’m sure they’re listening……
I’d recommend serving up something other than Kool-Aid then.
I’m sorry to read that. I’m too tired to do the uberpost tonight, but will do so tomorrow.
This thinking is part of the problem. I have been voting Libertarian since I turned 18. Now, I know we are a long way off for putting someone in the white house, but that’s not the point. The point is to get those in power to realize that a enough voters out there feel this way. It doesn’t matter if you have the same beliefs as me, or you’re a hippie green party member. If you show a large enough presence politicians will have to start working with us (those not on the left or right).
It just so happens that the folks at Freedom House actually do attempt to define what freedom is using a number of indicators and then ranks various countries based on how well they manage to meet up with those indicators. Every year since 1972 they’ve published a book detailing freedom in the world and they’ve just released excerpts from the 2007 scores. Here’s their definition for the word Freedom:
Sounds pretty good to me.
I’m with Benior in his perception that, all the negative things correctly cited by KPG aside, its not ALL downhill. These things often oscillate, if you will alow me the technical term. And certainly for many groups (women, gays, blacks etc…) much has improved in terms of legal and human rights in the last 100 years. So don’t assume its a long slide from some plateau of perfection.
Okay, here’s me being the reasonable, moderate voice. Rant on, KPG, for without outrage, nothing gets changed!
I have to say the only reason we lose our rights Is because we give them up. When people stop thinking that the small things matter; they soon lose sight of what is small.
If only people would realize that there is no society with out the person, but there is a person with out society. To paraphrase Locke we lend the right to govern to those we so chose. We don’t derive governace from any divine right, or truth.
KPG,
For starters, let me say that I’m usually on your side. So, I mean no disrespect, personally, in the following posts. That said, it seems to me that your post is based on an ignorance of the law. (Ignorance being a lack of knowledge and is not being used by me to imply any lack of intellectual capabilities).
My understanding of your point is as you articulated it—Rights that you had 100 years ago are gone today, by government intervention. That’s the whole point here. My understanding is that you believe your rights, meaning those enshrined in the Constitution, have been diminished by government intervention.
My response is not going to focus on any definition of freedom. Define it if you like, let the other readers define it. It is immaterial to my point. My point is that we have seen a dramatic expansion of the rights that you mention rather than a loss of those rights, with one exception. The applicable time period you have set is the last 100 years.
The most illustrative examples that I know of to make my point are court cases. So, I will be reviewing with the readers and you cases that discuss and expound upon the rights that you mention and discuss above. It is my hope that with the additional history that: 1) It will be clear there has been an expansion rather than contraction of our the rights that you mention; 2) The “good ol’ days” might not seem so good; and 3) The obvious corollary causes you to question other aspects of your post.
I will be going through each Amendment to the Constitution for the first eight. I will then discuss the impact of the 13th and 14th Amendment. Following that, I will finish with a closing post. I don’t intend to address comments until the closing post. So, please don’t consider it an affront if I don’t respond until I’ve completed the series of posts.
It’s only right that our country should do away with discrimination. It lets us crow about our freedoms, while ensuring that blacks, women, and perhaps soon gays, can be fleeced along with the patriarchal minority of white men.
Before Consi gets out his magnifying glass and buries the whole discussion in legal minutiae, I would like to say that it does seem there is a powerful element in society that is eroding some very basic freedoms while amplifying others out of all recognition.
By using fear as a core principle, they’ve been increasing government secrecy and creating a class of poorly-defined crimes for which one does not seem entitled to any defense. By appointing judges who back their schema, they are reducing any possibility of address of grievance against the government without formally changing the law. By appointing government agency heads based on loyalty instead of competence, they’re undermining the effective outcome citizens expect from their tax dollars. This is visible in the warping of scientific decision-making around ideological ends. It affects policy, education, and of course Fox News, the government’s new agency.
And I can’t figure out what they hell they hope to accomplish with constant deficit spending. Surely these men must know that is not a good strategy in the long run?
But hey, guns, more guns, guns everywhere! Guns are the answer to everything! Would you like guns with that? Perhaps because they know that gun ownership, long thought to be a hedge against tyranny, is pretty much irrelevant to the power of a modern state. It gives citizens a false sense of power and they certainly don’t care if people shoot each other.
Above all the corporation, the military-industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us about, is being elevated to the status of unquestioned good. The government is the plaything of corporations, with tort law and financial law (to say nothing of regulatory structure) a whitewash. Flesh-and-blood humans have far less influence with government than bloodless corporations. All this without changing the appearance of freedom on the surface.
An easily accessible copy of the Constitution may be found http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html
The First Amendment provides:
KPG has addressed the establishment clause, the right to free speech, and the right to assembly. It is his contention that the existence of the FCC, the laws on the books regarding religion, the permit process for assembly, and for some heretofore unknown reason, George Carlin, collectively establish that our rights have been diminished.
To address the establishment clause issue and the free exercise clause issue it is necessary to understand a few things about the Constitution. Prior to Cantwell v. Connecticut http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=310&invol=296
a citizen of the United States could not bring suit against a state, as opposed to the federal government, for a violation of his First Amendment right to the Free Exercise of religion. The Bill of Rights were, up to that point, held as rights that the federal government could not infringe upon. Your local state government, well, that was another story altogether. In short, if a state government infringed upon your right to the free exercise of your religion or lack thereof, you had no recourse. Good ol’ days at their best.
Cantwellchanged that. The ruling held that the 14th Amendments protection against state action fully incorporated the Free Exercise Clause. This allowed a citizen to charge that a state’s action violated her rights with respect to the First Amendment. In doing so, it allowed the Supreme Court review of state laws. The Court and by extension federal courts, had no jurisdiction prior to Cantwell.
That holding of Cantwellalone is a tremendous expansion of the free exercise clause. Without it, there is no recourse in federal courts for a violation of the right. A right without a remedy for the violation thereof is no right at all.
Going further, for KPG’s point to have resonance, the law he cites about being barred from public office must be constitutional. However, it is not. The Supreme Court addressed this issue in 1961 in Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U.S. 488 (See http://atheism.about.com/library/decisions/religion/bl_l_TorcasoWatkins.htm for a brief summary). So, what KPG has done is raise a huge fuss about an unconstitutional law that can’t be enforced. Yet, that same law could have been enforced by the state prior to the Cantwelldecision because there was no incorporation of the First Amendment.
It can’t be argued with a straight face, assuming one has full knowledge of the laws that were in effect 100 years ago and the laws that are permissible in today’s world, to say that the free exercise clause has been diminished at all. To the contrary, it has been expanded and greatly. Furthermore, atheists are in much better position than they ever were to exercise their freedom to no religious beliefs.
Next, freedom of speech and the FCC.
What about free speech 100 years ago? Let’s examine some cases to see what type of speech one could make and what type of speech one could not make.
In Debs v. U.S. 249 U.S. 211 (See http://tourolaw.edu/patch/DebsII/ )the Supreme Court in 1919 recounted the following:
After doing so, the Court affirmed his conviction for violation of the Espionage Act for what he said in that speech. Contrast all that freedom of speech in 1919 with what Les or Elwed has said here or with what was said in opposition to Vietnam. It is clear beyond a doubt that the right to speak in opposition to a war has been greatly enhanced, not diminished.
What about other forms of speech, say comedy? Well, as recently as the 50s and 60s comedians were severely restricted. For a tragic tale that breaks my heart, because it broke his soul you can read about Lenny Bruce. (See http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/bruce/bruceaccount.html ) Today, you KPG may write a post that is available for all to read at any time on Les’s blog that is entitled “Fuck the Flag.” Less free speech rights than 100 years ago? Hardly the case. More? Most definitely.
Next, the FCC.
The Federal Communications Commission a/k/a as the FCC, is the successor organization to the Federal Radio Commission a/k/a the FRC. The FRC was created in 1927 to implement the Federal Radio Act. Later, in 1934, Congress enacted the Federal Communications Act, merging the responsibilities for various agencies into one that was responsible for regulating broadcast and wired communications. (See http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/F/htmlF/federalcommu/federalcommu.htm )
The Supreme Court addressed the Federal Communications Act authroizing the FCC in National Broadcasting Co. v. U.S., 319 U.S. 190 (See http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/comm/free_speech/nbcvus.html ) In that case, NBC challenged the ability of the FCC to regulate it. The Court found that Congress granted the FCC the right to do so and its reasoning was based in a large part on the fact that NBC and CBS were locking up large portions of the broadcast market. In essence, the Court thought that the FCC’s regulation would allow more rather than less diversity in broadcasting.
A portion of the opinion:
It should also be noted that when KPG makes statements about free speech and the FCC, those statements are somewhat fuzzy. It tends to lead one to the belief that individual private speech is somehow being regulated. That is simply not the case. The FCC is regulating commercial speech in the form of entertainment or commercials or whatever that is being marketed to the public. There is a distinct difference, and always has been, between commercial speech and other forms of speech. The FCC does not in any form or fashion regulate private speech.
There are distinct advantages to such an allowance as well. The ability to regulate commercial speech is the reason that there are laws on the books with respect to Consumer Protection Acts in almost all states. Those acts govern the speech of corporations and companies. Normally, under the law, a misrepresentation made by a company about a product would result in simply a fraudulent inducement claim. The damages aspect is minimal, there is no attorney’s fees granted to a plaintiff, and there is no penalty. So, absent the Consumer Protection Acts, it may make good financial sense to misrepresent the product, sell lots of it, settle out those who bring claims, and whistle on the way to the bank. That is what did happen and would again, absent minor oversight of commercial speech.
That being said, those big corporations that engage in commercial speech via the airwaves have less oversight than they have ever had before. There are still words that one is unable to say on the air during certain hours, but that has been tempered in the last 20 years. Certainly, 100 years ago, had such technology even existed the mores of the time would have prohibited brief nude scenes or the vocabulary in use during prime time programming.
Furthermore, if one wants to watch porn, all you have to do is click and select. The cable providers will pump it right into your living room. If one wants raunchy comedy, there is late night comedy programming. If one wants to watch uncut movies, turn to HBO. It’s all there over the airwaves, uncut, uncensored and ready for consumption. It is hard to believe that anybody would think that such products would be readily accessible in any form 100 years ago.
More freedom to view what I want when I want to and where I want to today? Without a doubt.
With respect to the 2nd Amendment, I’m not sure how broad KPG believes this right is. So, without knowing that, I can’t really address the issue with any real thoroughness.
What I can say is this: As of today, I can go to a gun show and purchase any rifle that my heart desires and my pocketbook can afford. I can do the same with a handgun with minimal restrictions.
The restrictions: No silencers, no fully automatic weapons (though I can easily modify certain rifles to make them fully automatic and as long as I shoot them for entertainment value in the middle of nowhere, nobody cares) and no sawed off shotguns.
It is hard to see how my rights have been diminished unless I wanted a silencer or sawed off shotgun. It’s even harder for me to see what legitimate purpose might precipitate a need for such equipment, which is likely why they are reasonable restrictions.
That said, let’s look back to the good ol’ days. I note that On May 21, 1856, the “Sack of Lawrence” took place, in which the Kansas territorial militia, bearing arms supplied by the United States government and under the command of a deputy federal marshal, confiscated the guns of a group of free-soilers. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacking_of_Lawrence for more details)
My simply commentary is that I doubt anybody today would suggest that a federal marshal has the power to confiscate the citizenry’s firearms.
The 3rd Amendment provides:
I don’t see any reference by KPG, so I shall presume that he is not maintaining that his rights enumerated herein are any less than they were at any time previously.
In that case, it would seem that the United States has always been far from exemplary.
The 4th Amendment provides:
KPG maintains that this was eviscerated by the Patriot ACt. He does not set forth how. It is part of his claim that he has lost rights in regards to 100 years ago.
Yet, when we examine the history of the 4th Amendment, we find that evidence obtained in violation of the 4th Amendment was regularly allowed in at a trial.
Weeks v. United States, 232 U.S. 383, 395-396 (U.S. 1914)(Quoting the trial court which was discussing the common law rule that was in effect in NY)
It wasn’t until the Weeks case comes along that evidence obtained in violation of the 4th Amendment was excluded at your trial. Note that this was less than 100 years ago. Furthermore, the Weeks court made a distinction about who obtained the evidence. It excluded evidence obtained by those acting on behalf of federal authority, but did not apply the rule to the local policeman.
The reason the court did not apply the rule to the local policeman was because the courts had not yet recognized that the 4th Amendment applied to state actors such as the local policeman. So, even after the introduction of the exclusionary rule in Weeks, your local policeman could seize items and use them at trial against you whether they had properly obtained a warrant or not.
It is not until Wolf and more directly in Questioned- validity questioned by citing refs. Elkins v. United States, 364 U.S. 206 http://supreme.justia.com/us/364/206/ that we find the Supreme Court stating that indeed there are 4th Amendment protections for a citizen via the 14th Amendment. Note that the date of the decision is less than 50 years ago.
Such protection against unreasonable search and seizures as the exclusionary rule were unheard of only 100 years ago. It is a monumental leap in the enlargement of an individual’s right to be free from unreasonable search and seizures by providing that the evidence obtained is inadmissible.
Diminution of rights from 100 years ago with regards to the 4th Amendment? No. Enlargement of rights/remedies? Yes.
Should read:
I’m utilizing Lexis for my reading and attempting to find free sources for the reader. I copied and pasted from Lexis which included some additional commentary the citation.
I’m going to catch some rays and hit the gym. I’ll finish later this afternoon. It should be abundantly clear with what has been posted thus far, that what I’m addressing are not legal minutia, but rather broad and sweeping enhancements of the rights of citizens of the United States.
None will be taken, this looks like fun.
No worries, I just got up and have to go to work, so I won’t get to this until later this evening anyway…
Strangely enough I’m with Consi on this one. Who would have thought? Even if I agree in part with the sentiment expressed, it doesn’t mean that I don’t think that the specific examples used don’t make an awful lot of muddle instead of sense.
That being said, the fact that certain freedoms and rights have been greatly expanded since the nation’s conception doesn’t mean that conservative portions of society aren’t always trying (and sometimes succeeding) to retract our rights and freedoms for various reasons.
Part of the problem is that total freedom doesn’t exactly guarantee an egalitarian society, in which case you don’t have total freedom at all but the oppression of the majority. To have an egalitarian society then, it seems that you must restrict freedom. It becomes a question on whether or not you desire freedom more than fairness, and how to secure either from nuances that would diminish both to turn into tyranny.
It’s really not an issue of what freedoms you have though, or how egalitarian your society is, at all. Ultimately, the arbiter of success is the same as in any other organization: satisfaction. You can be satisfied and free, satisfied in fairness, and even satisfied (I suppose) in how hard the boot is crunching your cheekbones beneath its heel oppressing you. What this means is “Do you feel free? Does the world seem fair? Are you happy?” It sounds simplistic, but satisfaction is about what you expect, what you want, and what you’re used to.
I think the key problem with American society these days isn’t “freedom”, it’s that you’ve got powerful, contrary, sets of expectations and desires confronting each other for expression in government and no one is getting anywhere near the level of comfort that they think they deserve. That’s an issue all the time, but it’s not being smoothed over by politicians doing their job of making their constituencies happy these days. It’s being used by every camp as a rallying cry, as if the component parts of our society were separate societies. To me at least, that’s a little scary.
Author: Thomas Jefferson
Freedom and liberty are not absolutes, but are dynamic values determined by societies. Luckily, as Consi has so eloquently referenced, the U.S. currently offers an abundance of them. But, as Eleanor Roosevelt has said, the price of liberty is constant vigilance. Those in power need watchdogs, and the internet is proving a great service in this respect. LONG LIVE SEB!
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, in his opening statement my esteemed colleague, Mr. Consigliere, took umbrage with my statement that we are less free than we were 100 years ago, that our rights have been systematically taken apart over the last hundred years. He intends to prove me wrong.
Now, we all know Mr. Consigliere. We know how this is going to unfold. He will sing. He will dance. He will spin. It’s his nature. He will cite case law, in great detail and with great passion. He will dazzle you with bullshit.
No matter how you spin it or how much it sparkles, bullshit is still bullshit. Keep your eye on the ball. After all, that figurative ball represents your freedom. I’ll walk with you through this clever maze of sophistry, brush aside the straw men and cob webs and help you see what lies beneath.
Then you can decide for yourself……
First up:
In the words of the EFF:
The complete text of the decision can be found here. We’ll get back to the FCC in a little while…..
Let’s look at the 14th Amendment.
That’s pretty specific. Most of the Constitution is. “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.” Those privileges and immunities include the 1st amendment. The state government was not allowed to make or enforce laws that infringed on the Bill of Rights.
Some states may have done so anyway. But that falls into the same category as a crooked cop infringing on a suspect’s rights. A law being broken is a very different thing from such an action being officially condoned by the Government. It may have taken Cantwell v. Connecticut to point out that the protection was there, but it didn’t create that protection. The 14th amendment did that, back in 1868.
That’s the point here, Consi. Unconstitutional laws. The books are full of them and many are enforced. That’s why we’ll be discussing the Patriot Act later on.
We’ve already blown the smoke away from the Cantwell decision. It’s irrelevant. And just because the Supreme Court has pointed out that the laws are unconstitutional, that doesn’t mean they can’t be enforced. The only way to do that is to take the laws off the books and that hasn’t happened here.
Tell that to Howard Stern. Oh, yeah, we have to wait till we get to the FCC for that one. Sorry.
This I won’t contest. When it comes to the right to speak against war, we have much greater freedom. I might argue that such speeches lead to the inevitable bread and circuses that the government requires to keep us distracted, but that’s an argument for another time and place.
Lenny Bruce was tried on obscenity charges. Surely you’re not suggesting that obscenity charges no longer exist? Admittedly, most of them are handled by the FCC now, but we still have an abundance of such cases outside the jurisdiction of that illegal body, most stemming from pornography of some sort. In fact, the number of those cases increased greatly over the last three years with the advent of the FBI’s Anti Porn Squad.
Right from the beginning, the FCC has been an unconstitutional organization. The First amendment tells us that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech”. There’s no except at the end of that sentence. It is clear and concise. Congress shall make no law.
I’m sorry, Consi, but that’s simply wrong. I mark no difference between commercial and private speech, because the Constitution marks no difference between commercial and private speech. It’s about speech. Period.
Unless you’re putting on a Super Bowl Halftime show. Or your name is Howard Stern.
Utter crap. Freedom is freedom. If you’re setting up rules about where I can say certain things, I’m not free, I’m restricted. And by the way, HBO can air what they like because they’re not under the jurisdiction of the FCC. Only broadcast networks and broadcast radio fall under their mandate.
The FCC continues to monitor all over the air broadcasts and the continue to levy steep fines against those who they deem to be obscene or indecent, despite the 1st amendment. In recent years, under urgings from the current administration, those fines have become steeper and the enforcement has become stricter.
In closing: shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, and tits.
And in a moment we’ll have the results of that trial…
…and KPG wins. Our friend Consi has put forward a good, solid case, but juror Sadie J. Morrison has cast her ballot for KPatrickGlover’s side.
Thatks for the vote of confidence, Sexy, but unless you want to vote one amendment at a time, we still have a long way to go……
The First Amendment is the best place to start. As I’ve always said, there’s a reason it’s number one.
The FCC may not be the largest censorial agency in the world (greatly doubt that people in China are reading this) but certainly the most annoying to me personally. They pretty much jumped the shark with the whole super-bowl nipple thingie but with government power behind them, can hang on long after their core mission has passed the point of absurdity.
Remedies are only necessary following the abridgment of one’s rights.
The exclusionary rule is a remedy for an unlawful search/seizure. It’s doesn’t prevent unlawful search, nor protect our 4th amendment right to be secure in our persons, houses, papers, and effects. The exclusionary rule can’t keep agents of the state from smashing down your door and searching your home, or from injuring or killing you if you attempt to resist such action.
Instead, it prohibits the state from using evidence gathered from unreasonable searches from being used against a defendant – after the defendant’s 4th amendment rights have already been violated, and only if the search is determined to have actually been unlawful. In addition, if any evidence gained had arisen as part of a secret FISA investigation, the defendant may have no remedy whatsoever.
Now, after letting KPGs rant sink in for a day or so, I’ve been thinking along the lines of Mook – that I appreciate the sentiment of the rant more so than agree with every point. Consi, to his credit, has put together a solid counterargument, particularly concerning 1st amendment protections. I don’t find his conclusion about the 4th amendment protections quite so compelling, however.
I say this in light of the knee-jerk reaction that the Bush Administration had in both proposing and pushing the USA Patriot Act through congress in the days (yes days) following the 9/11 attacks. I also content that, since the Patriot Act has granted numerous sweeping powers to law enforcement and intelligence services to surveil US citizens, there now exists sweeping new potential for abuse of such powers – particularly through the changes made to FISA. Since nobody yet knows for sure if or how such potential abuses might play out against a backdrop of our 4th amendment rights (although there is already some evidence of abuse), we should, in the interest of the common good, demand the highest level of scrutiny over our newly empowered police forces.
The 2nd Amendment:
Very fucking broad. Look, let’s be honest here. The 2nd Amendment has never been about self defense or hunting or any of that sort of nonsense. It exists for one reason and one reason only. To make possible the violent overthrow of the government should it become tyrannical.
Again, I must point out, the phrase “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed” is not in any way vague and it leaves no room for interpretation. Any law restricting the people from owning guns is unconstitutional.
The violent overthrow of the government.
I read through that article, reminded me of something else, what was that place called? Oh, yeah. Waco.
Like a previous example, the Sack of Lawrence is mostly smoke and mirrors on Consi’s part. The action taken was unconstitutional then, just as it would be now. No rights were added to protect us from such things. They didn’t need to be. That was already aptly covered in the Bill of Rights.
Ignorance is bliss.
Speaking from personal experience?
The 3rd Amendment provides:
The 3rd is meaningless unless we have another war on U.S. soil.
The 4th Amendment provides:
Have you read the damn thing? I realize that it’s an imposing document, but with “sections including those that authorize sneak and peek searches, library, medical, and financial record searches, and the detention and deportation of non-citizens without full judicial review”, it’s well worth the read.
The Benjamin Franklin True Patriot Act was a bill put before the 108th congress in 2003, to repeal some of the horrible mistakes of the Patriot Act. No action was taken on the bill. Details from the article about it, highlighted below, show just what the Patriot Act has done to violate our rights….
I’m skipping over the example this time because it’s just another piece of sophistry. As I have said, repeatedly, the violation of a rule, even the repeated violation of it, does not mean that the rule didn’t exist. It just means that people were acting unconstitutionally.
Does it ever rain on your planet, Consi?
Nah. It’s too expensive.
The current Patriot Act is not just a George Bush deal. It’s a response ( CYA ) to remedy our lack of control regarding immigration. ( They are wondering exactly who and what, they have let in the country in the last decade or so…) Not to mention current entry into US Territory illegally. The communication sector be it phone, Internet, or any air wave needs to be monitored. I’m not saying it does not have flaws, everything does. But…
What if another September 11 does happen ?
Some people are going to be mighty pissed that the government did not do all it can to stop the attack.
Yes, actually. It is a great deal easier to perform a questionable duty if you force yourself to remain ignorant, shutting your mind off to the things you see around you that don’t agree with what you’ve been told.
The fact is many people would prefer to have the wool pulled over their eyes when it comes to some truths. Would you rather be told you are going to die from a brain tumor two weeks before your death or five years? Would you rather believe that your wife has always been faithful or would you rather know of the one time, years ago, when she was drunk and lonely and hooked up with an old flame during a moment of weakness? Would you rather know that ten years from now a huge comet will come crashing down and wipe out existence as we know it? That would make life pretty fucking meaningless -why should I study for tomorrow’s exam if the world is going to end next week?
Of course immigration is the socio-economic response to our inflated labor value compared to the rest of the world too. We talk very largely about protecting the American worker, but what we’re really talking about is the high value we earn as American workers compared to elsewhere…which is what makes immigrating to the United States so enticing and outsourcing away from the United States so profitable.
Without immigration we’re basically going to eventually price ourselves out of employment and competition with the rest of the world, unless we continue to spend enough money (and “enough” these days seems to mean “debt”) to pull up the wages of the people we do business with.
I’ve noticed that September 11 happens every year. Personally I’d be more concerned about the year that we didn’t have a September 11.
What if we have another terrorist attack?
So what? What if the 9/11 terrorists had all failed miserably? A small portion of dead people wouldn’t be in New York, a rather large portion of people in Afghanistan & Iraq would all be living, we wouldn’t be bleeding money into bullets in yet another failed attempt at “democracy” overseas, and instead of being a bunch of pussies whimpering over the very notion of someone striking out and hurting us we’d still be walking around with our cocks knocking our knees and be talking about more important issues. You can play the what if game all you want. What if is dumb unless you’re in insurance. The better questions are almost always “what for” and “what now.”
While I appreciate cutting sarcasm, using it on the subject of politics it is a volatile gesture at best.
All things considered, I think Americans are rather lucky in that they have more freedoms than the rest of the world. That said, my concern for this country, and my personal rights, lie in the future of what “could be”; A totalitarian dictatorship using the worlds foremost economy as a self sustaining war engine. I believe the views and fears expressed here in the original article are valid.
The real questions are, “How much is too much? At that point, will it already be too late? What must be done to prevent it?”
I’m not sure.
At best, people would continually evolve and want to know about current events and use their rights in active ways to create progress. An example of this would be boycotting. Money has a very special power in this world and has a much deeper impact than voting ever does. I do not want to see a world and nation torn apart by savage violence, and so, I look for alternative methods to get my point across.
There may come a point, however, where violence is sadly nesasary. I only hope at that point, it’s worth it.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070602/D8PGTE5G0.html is a good example of what is possible without the Patriot Act. No I am not a big fan of George Bush. I am not a fan of the Democrats either. But I believe that even if Gore had been elected, We would still have a Patriot Act. It’s just not his or Hillary’s Ass. So it’s easy to sit back and condemn shit when you don’t have to worry about being blamed.
I was also opposed to the war in Iraq, I was and still am for Military intervention in Afghanistan. The dynamics in Iraq have changed. And even though it was a mistake to go in the first place. We cannot leave until their is some type of resolve. I recommend that we stop using the word Iraq. Use 3 names for the 3 different Countries, and realize that Democracy is not a working concept in the long run for people that cannot appreciate, or care to have it. They seem content to have a benevolent dictator. And let’s be honest, The US is certainly no compass for the way the world should be. The Constitution has become overloaded with amendments that it is no longer a working concept. And it will just get worse over time. Always favoring who has the most money and can purchase the law to favor their own interest.
Sorry about the ” Here ” but here is the link that I meant to post.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070602/D8PGTE5G0.html
All I can say is, I love what little freedom I have left.
Paul, this thread and its original essay have fuck all to do with Afghanistan and Iraq. I have put forth absolutely no opinion on the wars. This is about internal politics and our civil liberties.
You can’t just hold up foiled terrorist plots and say, “See, the Patriot Act is a good thing.” For one thing, it’s possible that the same result could have been achieved with just plain good intelligence work, all within the boundries of the Constitution.
Or maybe some folks would have died. I don’t believe in trading freedom for safety. Tough world.
I’d prefer to no the truth. Everything is meaningless save for the meaning that you give it. If you only have five years to live, best to know you’re time and have the chance to do what brings meaning to you.
why should you study for tomorrow’s exam if the world is going to end next week? The same reason you should study for it if the earth wasn’t going to explode. The thirst for knowledge.
Actually, I think I’ve done a pretty good job of discrediting Consi’s counterargument……
Notable cases that placed more restrictions on law enforcement:
Tennessee v. Garner, 1985: Supreme Court rules that it is not constitutional to use deadly force to stop a non-violent fleeing felon. Example: no more shooting somebody who committed Theft>$300
Mapp v. Ohio, 1961: Exclusionary Rule applies to states. Your statement that prior to this the states were violating existing laws is questionable, given the Supreme Court ruled in Wolf v. Colorado (1949) that the Exclusionary Rule did not apply to states.
Miranda v. Arizona, (1966): Supreme Court rules that police officers must formally warn arrestee of certain rights before interrogation while in custody.
Brown v. Mississippi, (1936): Supreme Court rules that coerced confessions are inadmissible.
However, I guess believing that country with these court rulings, women’s suffrage, legalized miscegenation and sodomy, separatism banned, poll taxes banned, and no more Chinese Exclusion Act, is more free than 100 years ago is being willfully ignorant and blind.
But that’s just from a cosmopolitan minority viewpoint. I’d imagine privileged white males would be a lot less likely to be bothered by a lot of those things.
Benoir, I have never said that no new rights or freedoms have been legally granted us in the last hundred years. The civil rights movement brought us forward in many ways.
What I said was that many of our rights granted in the constitution have been restricted or taken away.
I will not get into a discussion of which rights are more importnat, that way lies madness. I will say this, “more free” is a meaningless fucking term. Freedom is a lot like pregnancy in that respect. You either are or you aren’t.
That could be misused as an argument for becoming a totalitarian fascist state. We could tap all phones all the time, repress all opposition, confiscate all guns, slam the borders shut, deport, well, everyone who doesn’t seem quite right to us. Forget legal protections generally. Reignite the draft and invade at least a dozen countries. Total war! Let’s do all we can.
Of course that wasn’t what you meant, and neither was it what the reps who voted for the patriot act (without reading it) intended to say. But if your algorithm is “do all we can to avoid an attack” that’s where we eventually end up. The algorithm needs boundaries, and those boundaries are spelled out in the constitution, to which our current president referred as “just a piece of paper”. In his view, perhaps, the kind of paper that comes in a roll next to the toilet.
We should be concentrating on doing the right things, the correct things, to prevent another attack. I don’t mean “right” as in “moral” though that applies too, but as in “well-chosen”. We cannot afford to flail blindly against terrorism.
We simply do not have unlimited resources and must choose well how to apply what we have. And, there is always an internal element that wants to use the attacks as an opportunity to seize control, and we should be watching for that threat as well as threats from outside.
See: Eisenhower’s “military-industrial complex” speech. I’d include a clip, but can’t decide where to apply the scissors.
KPG,
I did not intend to address comments, yours or others, before finishing. However, it appears you’ve staked out a position that you perceive allows you immunity from retraction. The exercise in going through with you the Amendments and the history of their development and application was being done by me as much for you as for others. I had expected that you were riled up when you wrote the diatribe and that reason and analysis would, with some time, cause some reflection.
Here is why I say you have staked out a position that you perceive grants you immunity from saying I was wrong. You start with the premise that we have lost a good deal of freedom with respect to rights contained in the Constitution. You admit that the Civil Rights Act, Title IX and subsequent amendments have created new and additional rights that are extremely important to those to whom they were granted. You then maintain that is really not what you are addressing.
You maintain you are addressing those rights conferred primarily in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. When presented with the history of how the amendments were applied by the Courts, you then default to a position in which you say:
With that premise, everything that you want to be unconstitutional is now and always has been, whether it was or not. It’s a position of I’m right about my rights Your only caveat is that our legal system hasn’t both grown up enough with you, and is some instances reverted to older applications to make you right.
Let’s use the 4th Amendment as an example. With respect to the 4th Amendment, the Court was the branch of government that instituted the exlusionary rule. In short, it was troubled by the double standard that existed between state and federal action. It was also becoming frustrated with the continued review of cases that it was seeing where it was called upon to parse out federal action versus state action. See Silver Platter Doctrine and cases associated with it.
So, when I say that your 4th Amendment right has been expanded, it has been expanded by having a remedy. The wording granting us the right has not changed. However, the practical effect is that the violation no longer benefits the violator anymore.
The exclusionary rule being but one example, was unknown at the time of the framing of the Constitution. The sophistry you pass over:
is at the heart of the matter. That was the rule of evidence that the courts applied at the time. The evidentiary rule, whether the evidence was or was not admitted, was not deemed a constitutional violation. The violation was the unreasonable search. It was the court that made the remedy applicable to the violation.
There was and is nothing that makes the admission of evidence against you, if seized by an unreasonable search unconstitutional in the language of the 4th Amendment. That remedy has not always existed. Most of us, had we been around 100 years ago, would have lacked the intellectual firepower to come up with a solution that so dramatically enhances the right, but does so without changing the wording. I stand in awe of the judges that did have the intellectual firepower.
KPG, if you want to make distinctions, then let us make the proper distinctions—The distinction between the right, the remedy and the practical effect of the remedy upon the right. I know if I can do it, it’s so simple that even a caveman can do it.
I do want to make one correction to what you have said in your rebuttal regarding the 14th Amendment though. You point to
as grounds for this:
KPG, it’s not all that important, but I mention it because, well, it’s not the approach the courts have utilized. The privileges or immunities clause, both in the Constitution proper and in the 14th Amendment has had limited application (e.g. right to travel cases). Your view of the clause is that articulated by Justice Black in his dissent in Adamson v. California, 332 U.S. 46 (1947). That has not been the view the Court has taken in overturning the decision in Adamson. It has relied instead upon the due process and equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to hang its hat for incorporation of the Bill of Rights.
Okay, give me a few minutes here. That’s a lot of words to sort through with a hangover……
Okay, we seem to be talking apples and oranges here, so maybe we should clarify a few things and see if it doesn’t leave us with a bit of common ground.
You appear to be saying that, because of changes in the way the court system interprets the Constitution, we have broader rights today then we did before in some areas.
I have maintained that new laws have been passed that unconstitutionally restrict or take away some of our rights.
Both of these statements can be and are true.
And my original essay, while not written in a fit of anger, as you suggest, was very carefully written to evoke a certain response. I am a writer, first and foremost, and my purpose is usually to entertain. Hyperbole can be and often is one of the tools in my box, but I use it judiciously.
I still believe in what I wrote (except the sodomy laws, where a recent legal case ruined my punch line), but I concede many of your points and don’t think they really contradict mine.