Let’s talk about the Bill of Rights.
I guess, as a prelude to the discussion of natural, God-given rights and the part that the Government is assigned by the Constitution in such, I need to start with the Ninth Amendment.
“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people” – Amendment IX.
And, let’s throw in the Tenth Amendment for balance.
“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” – Amendment X.
I see these two amendments as the anchor and the seal, respectively, to the Bill of Rights.
So, why do we have a Bill of Rights? The Articles of Confederation, our first constitution, proved unworkable. It weakened the federal government so much that the Fed, essentially, had no power. It was understood in the day that more power needed to be appropriated, but how much? And there’s the hook.
There were essentially two groups that came together to fix things – the Federalists who leaned toward more federal power and the Anti-Federalists who leaned toward as little federal power as possible.
Let it be understood that the convention was called to amend the Articles of Confederation, not scrap them, however, some conventioneers had different ideas. That explains why some today shy away from an Article 5 Convention of States to deal with things we can’t seem to fix legislatively. Unfortunately, there’s no guarantee of who will, ultimately, gain control of a convention and what will be the outcome.
In fact, the Bill of Rights was the result of exactly that kind of uncertainty. The unhappiness of the minority Anti-Federalists with the new Constitution resulted in the demand for some definite language about the limits of the federal government lest some forget; kind of where we are today.
Interestingly, our leaders then had much more integrity than our leaders today. When the promise was made to return to deal with the concerns of the Anti-Federalists, the promise was honored and the result was the Bill of Rights. In our day, one of the issues that has come back to bite Republicans time and time again, is going along on issues based on Democrat promises to fix the problems afterwards but the promises are never honored. You’d think Republicans would figure it out at some point… but I digress.
Once the Framers gathered and addressed some of the pressing concerns of the Anti-Federalists, it became apparent that not each and every single concern could be addressed. Yes, freedom of speech, religion, the press, and assembly, the right to keep and bear arms, the right to privacy in one’s home and protection from government intrusion, and the right to due process, were very important, but there were other rights that the Framers recognized and, essentially, dealt with them in the Ninth Amendment.
Rather than try to list all the rights, the Framers chose to state that the authority granted to the Fed was outlined in the Constitution and all other rights, while maybe not enumerated in the Bill of Rights, should not be construed as not existing but, in fact, remained within the purview of the people and were not to be usurped by the Fed.
Finally, to cap it all off, the Tenth Amendment made clear that any power not designated to the federal government, unless specifically prohibited in the Constitution to the states, remained under the purview of the states and, thus, the people.
Now to the remainder of the Bill of Right and, specifically, the 2nd Amendment.
I must first digress to another topic regarding the Constitution. The Constitution as the basis of our Law has been ignored by the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches, in one degree or another, for a very long time. It started with the ignorance relating to the Ninth and Tenth Amendments. Legislators began to ignore the Constitution and whether proposed legislation passed Constitutional muster and began crafting legislation that seemed good, reasonable, and not liable to raise the ire of “we the people.” Unfortunately, the overreach got worse and worse and we now have laws upon laws that have no anchor in the Constitution’s restrictions on federal power.
Look what happened during the ongoing pandemic, with regard to personal liberty and the freedom to practice one’s religion. Again, these are not rights established by government that can be suspended when needed. They are natural, God-given rights that the government is instructed to protect not restrict. Furthermore, The Declaration of Independence declares, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The unalienable rights are not government provided, the Founders recognized that men and women were endowed with them by God. Where then did government find the authority granted it to suspend the ability of people to earn a living? And when people tried to comply, the government made it worse and politicians made such outlandish excuses such as, ‘the Bill of Rights is above my pay-grade’ (Thank you Governor Phil Murphy for being honest about your unconstitutional overreach).
And now to the 2nd Amendment. The 2nd Amendment is the God-given right that enables citizens to protect themselves when government attempts to abrogate their other natural rights. When you pull on the string of the 2nd Amendment too hard, the entire Bill of Rights unravels.
As I related in an earlier post – A Quick and Dirty Primer to the 2nd Amendment, the Amendment mandates that the government not interfere in the right of the people to keep and bear arms. The 2nd Amendment establishes no right that can be taken away by repeal of the 2nd Amendment because it establishes no right, only forbids government from interfering in the right. And what has government done? Infringement would be an understatement.
While the American colonists and Founders, and the English before them, understood the idea of natural, God-given rights, that did not stop the King and his parliament from encroaching on those rights. In the end, when those who are tasked with protecting those rights begin to encroach on those rights and take on authority not given to them, it becomes incumbent upon the aggrieved to fight for those rights, or give them up.
That’s where we are today. The Democrats have been promising for a long time to come after our legal firearms. With a majority in both the Senate and the House, Joe Biden seems to be the champion they need and the one to try to do it. I don’t see a peaceful path to this overreach.
Joe Biden is even encouraging the SCOTUS to rule in a pending case to allow law enforcement to enter private homes and confiscate private property in the form of legal firearms. The 4th 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.”
Look at it; the Amendment does not establish a right of privacy, the right is understood as a natural right. The Amendment mandates, to the Fed, that the rights in question “shall not be violated.” Do our elected officials even care about the Constitution anymore? I wonder how many of them who swore to uphold it have ever even read it?
I contend today that our elected officials, especially Democrats, have abandoned any pretense of following the Constitution. The only reason they do not state it openly is because they fear the majority of Americans are not ready to hear that. But, make no mistake, there is no effort on the part of Democrats, who currently control the entire federal government, to abide by any mandates in the Constitution. Unless something radical occurs, the Republic is D.O.A. in 2021.
Go ahead, CHANGE MY MIND!
Change My Mind! 