Authored by John & Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,
“We the of us are the rightful masters of every Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Structure however to overthrow the males who pervert the Structure.”
– Abraham Lincoln
Of us that gave us the Structure and the Invoice of Rights believed that the authorities exists on the behest of its voters. It’s there to current safety to, defend and even enhance our freedoms, not violate them.
Sadly, even though the Invoice of Rights turned adopted as a fashion of sustaining the of us in opposition to authorities tyranny, in America at the present time, the federal authorities does regardless of it desires, freedom be damned.
Within the 22 years since the US Patriot Act—a broad 342-web impart want guidelines of expanded powers for the FBI and CIA—turned rammed via Congress within the wake of the so-called 9/11 apprehension assaults, it has snowballed into the eradication of every essential safeguard in opposition to authorities overreach, corruption and abuse.
The Patriot Act drove a stake all through the middle of the Invoice of Rights, violating not decrease than six of the ten standard amendments—the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Amendments—and presumably the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments, as well.
The Patriot Act additionally redefined terrorism so broadly that many non-terrorist political actions equal to exclaim marches, demonstrations and civil disobedience are actually conception to be probably terrorist acts, thereby rendering any particular person dangle in gracious First Modification expressive actions as suspects of the surveillance exclaim.
The Patriot Act justified broader home surveillance, the logic being that if authorities brokers knew additional about every American, they’d presumably distinguish the terrorists from law-abiding voters—no query a reflexive impulse shared by dinky-metropolis police and federal brokers alike.
This, consistent with Washington Submit reporter Robert O’Harrow, Jr., turned a fantasy that “had been brewing within the legislation enforcement world for a really extended time.” And 9/11 outfitted the federal authorities with the appropriate excuse for conducting far-reaching surveillance and accumulating mountains of information on even essentially the most law-abiding citizen.
Federal brokers and cops are actually approved to habits covert sunless purchase “sneak-and-peak” searches of properties and workplaces whereas you are away and confiscate your non-public property with out first notifying you of their intent or their presence.
The legislation additionally granted the FBI the beautiful to comprehend wait on to your exclaim of employment, predict of your non-public information and quiz your supervisors and fellow workers, all with out notifying you; allowed the federal authorities purchase precise of entry to to your medical information, school information and virtually each non-public yarn about you; and allowed the federal authorities to secretly predict of to mediate about information of books or magazines you’ve checked out in any public library and Web websites you’ve visited (not decrease than 545 libraries obtained such requires within the predominant 12 months following passage of the Patriot Act).
Within the title of combating terrorism, authorities officers are actually approved to show display screen spiritual and political establishments and never using a suspicion of felony wrongdoing; prosecute librarians or keepers of every other information in the event that they account for any person who the federal authorities has subpoenaed information linked to a apprehension investigation; show display screen conversations between attorneys and customers; search and assign People’ papers and results with out exhibiting possible motive; and jail People indefinitely with out a trial, amongst different points.
The federal authorities additionally made liberal allege of its distinctive powers, particularly all through the allege (and abuse) of the sinister nationwide security letters, which permit the FBI to foretell of personal purchaser information from Web Service Suppliers, financial establishments and credit score firms on the mere command-so of the federal authorities agent in charge of an area FBI exclaim of commercial and with out prior court docket approval.
Indubitably, since 9/11, we’ve been spied on by surveillance cameras, eavesdropped on by authorities brokers, had our property searched, our telephones tapped, our mail opened, our email correspondence monitored, our opinions questioned, our purchases scrutinized (beneath the US Patriot Act, banks are required to research your transactions for any patterns that carry suspicion and to mediate about everytime you happen to are related to any objectionable of us), and our actions watched.
We’re additionally being subjected to invasive patdowns and entire-body scans of our contributors and seizures of our digital units within the nation’s airports. We’re capable of’t even need positive wintry medicines on the pharmacy anymore with out it being reported to the federal authorities and our names being positioned on a mediate about guidelines.
On this mannequin, “we the of us” proceed to be disturbed, traumatized, and tricked precise right into a semi-permanent exclaim of compliance by a authorities that cares nothing for our lives or our liberties.
The bogeyman’s names and faces dangle modified over time (terrorism, the battle on treatment, illegal immigration, a viral pandemic, and additional to comprehend wait on), nonetheless the stay consequence stays the the identical: within the so-called title of nationwide security, the Structure has been progressively chipped away at, undermined, eroded, whittled down, and normally discarded with the reinforce of Congress, the White Dwelling, and the courts.
A recitation of the Invoice of Rights—area in opposition to a backdrop of presidency surveillance, militarized police, SWAT workforce raids, asset forfeiture, important area, overcriminalization, armed surveillance drones, whole physique scanners, cessation and frisk searches, vaccine mandates, lockdowns, and the flamboyant (all sanctioned by Congress, the White Dwelling, and the courts)—would understandably sound additional fancy a eulogy to freedoms misplaced than an affirmation of rights we really dangle.
What we’re left with at the present time is however a shadow of the robust yarn adopted greater than two centuries previously. Sadly, numerous the harm has been inflicted upon the Invoice of Rights.
Proper here’s what it method to stay beneath the Structure, with the nation tranquil struggling blowback from the everlasting exclaim of emergency led to by 9/11 and COVID-19.
The First Modification is presupposed to current safety to the liberty to debate your thoughts, assemble and exclaim nonviolently with out being bridled by the federal authorities. It additionally protects the liberty of the media, in addition to the beautiful to cherish and pray with out interference. In different phrases, People must not be silenced by the federal authorities. To the founders, all of America turned a free speech zone.
No matter the particular protections conceal within the First Modification, the freedoms described therein are beneath fixed assault. An growing variety of, People are being persecuted for exercising their First Modification rights and speaking out in opposition to authorities corruption. Activists are being arrested and charged for daring to movie cops engaged in harassment or abusive practices. Journalists are being prosecuted for reporting on whistleblowers. States are passing legal guidelines to muzzle reporting on cruel and abusive firm practices. Religious ministries are being fined for trying to feed and residential the homeless. Protesters are being prance-gassed, overwhelmed, arrested and compelled into “free speech zones.” And beneath the guise of “authorities speech,” the courts dangle reasoned that the federal authorities can discriminate freely in opposition to any First Modification mission that takes exclaim inside a so-called authorities dialogue board.
The 2nd Modification turned supposed to ensure “the beautiful of the of us to assign and endure arms.” In level of fact, this modification turned presupposed to current the citizenry the way to resist tyrannical authorities. However whereas gun possession has been recognized by the U.S. Supreme Courtroom docket as an individual citizen beautiful, People stay powerless to defend themselves in opposition to crimson flag gun felony pointers, militarized police, SWAT workforce raids, and authorities businesses armed to the enamel with navy weapons higher useful to the battlefield.
The Third Modification reinforces the principle that civilian-elected officers are estimable to the navy by prohibiting the navy from coming into any citizen’s home with out “the consent of the proprietor.” With the police an growing variety of teaching fancy the navy, performing fancy the navy, and posing as navy forces—whole with rigorously armed SWAT teams, navy weapons, assault autos, and much others.—it’s miles particular that now we dangle what the founders feared most—a standing navy on American soil.
The Fourth Modification prohibits authorities brokers from conducting surveillance on you or touching you or encroaching in your private property besides they’ve proof that you just simply’re as a lot as one thing felony. In different phrases, the Fourth Modification ensures privateness and bodily integrity. Sadly, the Fourth Modification has suffered the biggest harm lately and has been all however eviscerated by an unwarranted enlargement of governmental police powers that embody strip searches and even anal and vaginal searches of voters, surveillance (firm and in every other case), and intrusions justified within the title of combating terrorism, in addition to the outsourcing of in every other case illegal actions to personal contractors.
The Fifth Modification and the Sixth Modification work in tandem. These amendments supposedly make sure that you just simply’re innocent until confirmed accountable, and authorities authorities cannot deprive you of your existence, your liberty or your dangle home with out the beautiful to an felony skilled and an attractive trial ahead of a civilian decide. Nonetheless, within the distinctive suspect society whereby we stay, the place surveillance is the norm, these essential options have been upended. Indubitably, if the federal authorities can arbitrarily freeze, assign or lay allege to your dangle home (cash, land or possessions) beneath authorities asset forfeiture schemes, you dangle not any lawful rights.
The Seventh Modification ensures voters the beautiful to a jury trial. However when the populace has no notion of what’s within the Structure—civic schooling has just about disappeared from most college curriculums—that inevitably interprets to an ignorant jury incapable of distinguishing justice and the legislation from their dangle preconceived notions and fears. Nonetheless, as a growing alternative of voters are coming to admire, the vitality of the jury to nullify the federal authorities’s actions—and thereby wait on stability the scales of justice—is not to be underestimated. Jury nullification reminds the federal authorities that “we the of us” assign the vitality to in the end resolve what felony pointers are correct.
The Eighth Modification is equivalent to the Sixth in that it’s miles presupposed to current safety to the rights of the accused and forbid the utilization of cruel and atypical punishment. Nonetheless, the Supreme Courtroom docket’s resolution that what constitutes “cruel and atypical” must be looking on the “evolving requirements of decency that tag the occasion of a maturing society” leaves us with cramped security within the face of a society missing in morals altogether.
The Ninth Modification offers that different rights not enumerated within the Structure are nonetheless retained by the of us. Normal sovereignty—the notion that the vitality to control flows upward from the of us in exclaim of downward from the rulers—is clearly evident on this modification. Nonetheless, it has since been turned on its head by a centralized federal authorities that sees itself as supreme and which continues to circulation an growing variety of felony pointers that prohibit our freedoms beneath the pretext that it has an “essential authorities passion” in doing so.
As for the Tenth Modification’s reminder that the of us and the states assign each authority that is not in every other case talked about within the Structure, that assurance of a scheme of presidency whereby vitality is break up amongst native, exclaim and nationwide entities has extended since been rendered moot by the centralized Washington, DC, vitality elite—the president, Congress and the courts.
Thus, if there’s any sense to be made out of this recitation of freedoms misplaced, it’s miles merely this: our individual freedoms have been eviscerated in snort that the federal authorities’s powers could be expanded.
It turned no indolent happenstance that the Structure, which turned adopted 236 years previously on Sept. 17, 1787, opens with these three important phrases: “We the of us.” Because the Preamble declares:
We, the of us of the US, in account for to invent a additional appropriate Union, put justice, insure home tranquility, present for the frequent safety, promote the not modern welfare, and real the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, attain ordain and put this CONSTITUTION for the US of America.
In different phrases, it’s our job to hold out the federal authorities play by the foundations of the Structure.
We’re presupposed to be the masters and so they—the federal authorities and its brokers—are the servants.
We the American of us—the citizenry—are presupposed to be the arbiters and ultimate guardians of America’s welfare, safety, liberty, felony pointers and prosperity.
Silent, it’s not simple to be a merely citizen everytime you happen to don’t know one thing else about your rights or how the federal authorities is presupposed to function.
Because the Nationwide Overview rightly asks, “How can People presumably perform colourful and instructed political picks in the event that they don’t notice the mandatory construction of their authorities? American voters dangle the beautiful to self-government, on the other hand apparently we an growing variety of lack the aptitude for it.”
People are constitutionally illiterate.
Most voters dangle cramped, if any, information about their not modern rights. And our instructional scheme does a sorrowful job of instructing the mandatory freedoms assured within the Structure and the Invoice of Rights.
Teachers and school directors attain not fare significantly higher. A watch carried out by the Coronary heart for Survey Study and Prognosis found that one educator in 5 turned unable to call any of the freedoms within the First Modification.
Authorities leaders and politicians are additionally sick-told. Regardless of the precise undeniable fact that they dangle an oath to uphold, reinforce and defend the Structure in opposition to “enemies worldwide and home,” their lack of schooling about our essential rights normally causes them to be enemies of the Invoice of Rights.
So what’s the decision?
Thomas Jefferson recognized {that a} citizenry skilled on “their rights, pursuits, and duties” is the solely actual assurance that freedom will stay on.
From the President on down, any particular person taking public exclaim of commercial should dangle a working information of the Structure and the Invoice of Rights and must be held in administration of upholding their precepts. One process to substantiate this may be to require authorities leaders to dangle a course on the Structure and circulation an intensive examination thereof ahead of being allowed to dangle exclaim of commercial.
Some critics are advocating that school college students circulation the US citizenship examination in account for to graduate from highschool. Others counsel that it desires to be a prerequisite for attending school. I’d lope to this point as to argue that school college students should desire to circulation the citizenship examination ahead of graduating from grade school.
Proper right here’s a idea to accumulate skilled and dangle a stand for freedom: any particular person who indicators as a lot as grow to be a member of The Rutherford Institute will get a pockets-sized Invoice of Rights card and a Know Your Rights card. Use this card to coach your younger of us the freedoms conceal within the Invoice of Rights.
A wholesome, consultant authorities is labor. It takes a citizenry that is instructed in regards to the components, skilled about how the federal authorities operates, and transferring to comprehend greater than grouse and bitch.
As I worth in my e guide Battlefield America: The Battle on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, “we the of us” dangle the vitality to hold out and wreck the federal authorities.
The powers-that-be desire us to stay divided over politics, hostile to these with whom we disagree politically, and illiberal of any particular person or one thing else whose options to what ails this nation fluctuate from our dangle. In addition they desire us to think about that our job as voters begins and ends on Election Day.
However there are 330 million of us on this nation. Think about what we could probably presumably attain if we really labored collectively, outfitted a united entrance, and spoke with one utter.
Tyranny would not stand a huge gamble.
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