Has the Bill of Rights Become Irrelevant?

Has The Bill of Rights Become Irrelevant? by Colonel Dan - 08.31.01 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Would it be fair to say that the Bill of Rights has been incrementally ignored to such an extent over the years that it is now virtually irrelevant? If not irrelevant, what then do you call it when the very foundation of our country—its most fundamental principles of human rights and freedom—are selectively ignored with impunity by the governing body it was designed to rein in and a growing number of citizens don't realize it or care? Can you ignore parts of the concept upon which your country was founded and still regard that concept as whole? Not in my mind, because to successfully ignore part shows disrespect for and inevitably leads to a disregard of the whole, eventually rendering it irrelevant. If there is no respect for or strict enforcement of its principles, nor a price to be consistently paid for its violation, the concept will ultimately become meaningless. In other words, removing a brick here and there soon causes the entire structure to fall—that includes the entire Constitution.

I'm no Constitutional authority but here's just the simple view of a simple soldier—examples of what I consider to be a disregard of our basic principles of freedom.

I "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or the prohibiting the free exercise thereof;…" Where does this say you can't pray at public events of any kind or in school? Where is this so called separation of church and state that our government has imposed on us over these many years? Who is the restricted party here if not the government? It says, "Congress shall make no law…" thus it is government that is the restricted element not the citizens who want to pray. Yet government actions have severely restricted the citizenry where the free exercise thereof is concerned. The First has been ignored.

II "…the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." 20,000 plus gun laws to include prohibition of selected types of weapons, magazine capacities, rates of fire, barrel lengths, laws, permits and regulations that restrict and in some cases prohibit our ability to buy, keep and bear (carry) arms—that's infringement, plain and simple. The Second has been ignored.

IV "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures..." Was Elian secure in his house or the Branch Davidians in theirs? Was the man who only wrote about fantasies of sex with children in a private journal but who now sits in jail because of those writings secure in his papers? The Fourth has been ignored.

V "…nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." How about the enforcement actions of the Environmental Protection Agency or the Endangered Species Act? Have a section of your property declared a wetland or find some animal on it that happens to be on a list created by a federal "environmentalist" and see how private your property really is and then ask the Klamath Falls farmers about just compensation. The Fifth has been ignored.

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." How about the Department of Education, Department of Energy, the EPA, the amount of water in your toilets? Where in the Constitution does it empower the federal government to have any say at all concerning such issues? Nowhere, yet the Godzilla of government has ultimate control over your life in many areas never envisioned by the founders or delegated by the Constitution. The Tenth has been ignored worst of all. As a very astute lawyer friend accurately put it, "The Tenth… is merely "mostly dead" as opposed to completely dead."

The day we allowed government to expand its power beyond clearly specified constitutional limits was the day we started down this slippery slope—a slope from which we will never recover until the slope itself is gone, replaced or restored.

Today, government can and does violate the principles of freedom contained in our Constitution with virtual impunity. The only time you hear politicians reference the Constitution as a restrictive document is when they need to hide behind those principles for the purpose of protecting themselves.

In fact, Americans have come to expect such stepping over the constitutional line or they accuse Congress of being a "do nothing" congress. Considering the aftermath of the alternative, I like a "do nothing" Congress.

Sadly, this slide is the natural progression of government as I've written about before and as Jefferson himself described when he said, "The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground."

And how does this natural progression begin? With "common sense" regulation of this or that and then once having gained a toehold, it incrementally grows like a cancer eating away at our freedom with the passage of each bit of such "common sense" legislation or regulation.

Jefferson was a savvy man who warned of this danger, the same savvy man who also advised that a little revolution periodically was a healthy thing.

These founders of ours knew what they were talking about because they lived through times of oppression and were divinely inspired to create the type of Constitution they did—one based on the pre-eminence of individual freedom and very limited, subordinated government.

We've slid a long way into the pit of freedoms lost since our original Constitution and Bill of Rights were ratified. I would venture to say that America is so far down that hill that we could no longer recognize the top of it if we saw it.

The really sad part is that most Americans these days don't care about the top of the hill, the hill itself or how far down we've come. They don't want to be bothered and don't care who has the power or who has the authority, just so they don't have the responsibility that real freedom requires.

So, can a viable argument be made that the Bill of Rights is now or is close to being irrelevant? When the government it was designed to rein in routinely ignores its principles with impunity and an increasing preponderance of the governed, whose rights it was designed to protect, don't realize it or care what's happening—yes, I'd say so.

I heard something a few months back to the effect that there was a movement brewing to prevent the bill of rights being taught in history classes in the public schools. Can anybody help me out here with that reference? What better way to continue the liberal victimization brainwashing than to prevent the leaders of tomorrow from knowing the rights they can claim as Americans. How much more expedient to the liberal agenda to keep them unaware that liberty was ever anything other than the current environment allows. What better way to restock their pool of constituents than to keep them swimming in the sea of ignorance?

'Has the Bill of Rights Become Irrelevant?'

Even discussing this as a relevant topic does the work for Liberals, but if we must beat our own core values with a stick, I will say in response: 'Only to a Liberal, democrat, foreigner, or political neophyte'.- Darheel (2001)

My suggestion in both cases would begin with our individual choices for ourselves and our families....just say NO to tyranny. And having made the choice stand firm whatever the consequences.

My suggestion in both cases would begin with our individual choices for ourselves and our families....just say NO to tyranny. And having made the choice stand firm whatever the consequences.

I see but where is the line drawn for you? What happens when NO is not accepted? You have just given an emotional answer with no workable solution. Do you really think that the nation will rise up in your defense unless it understands what it is defending? Problems are simple to define, solutions are much harder. The fact is that a vast majority of this country does not feel the "boot on the back of the neck" that you obviously feel. That is your problem, it is up to you and those few that feel the way you obviously do to make a better case than "you" have made.

The reality is that my own boot is more powerful than any other. That is the fact of individual liberty. Live free or die, the tyranny becomes too much when you, citizen, say so.

Live free or die, the tyranny becomes too much when you, citizen, say so.

That is fine sloganeering but so what?

Just curious, what are your answers to the questions that you have asked?

I didn't define the problem. The two articles presented by this poster have painted a picture so dark that this Republic is in imminent danger. If that is the case, then surely there is a solution to go with the "problem".

Once again, you have a defined problem but no solution.

There will never be a solution unless enough people become aware that there's a problem. That's the point of posting stuff here at FR--to get the word out and pass it along. One thing's for sure...sitting there saying, "Oh yeah? Well so what?" is most certainly no solution.

"Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they they have rebelled they cannot become conscious."
---1984—pg 61, referring the proles

NOTE: I did not say this and I am not advocating anything but Education. The author of this sentence is George Orwell from the book 1984

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