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Bill of Rights
BILL OF RIGHTS
I never thought I would see a day when support for the Bill of Rights would be considered radical, or even "anti-American." Many people support one part of the Bill of Rights (e.g., the First or Second Amendment), while neglecting or even sabotaging another part. This thinking rests upon the fallacy that rights can be separated and traded, and that the man can be fragmented into separate compartments. The government can somehow violate one sphere of a man's rights, while still leaving the whole of the man intact.
The Bill of Rights is one of the most adroit documents crafted in the history of humankind. It is my contention that every amendment in the Bill of Rights is equally important, with each serving as an important firewall in the defense of liberty. Because I see every amendment as equally important, I am going to list each one and provide a brief statement.
That we can safely exchange social liberty for economic liberty, or vice versa, is a ruse. In truth, there is an inextricable nexus between social liberty and economic liberty. One implies property rights and the other implies the right to self-ownership.
The right to own and control property and the right to self-ownership is the codification of human rights. There can be no human rights without property rights and the right to self-ownership. Rights are not collective, but belong to each and every individual - black, white, latino, Christian, Jewish, Muslim.
Theft, arson, vandalism, and fraud have traditionally been considered to be crimes. This is because they violate property rights. Rape, kidnapping, and murder have traditionally been considered to be crimes. This is because they violate the right to self-ownership. Thus we can conclude that any violation of property rights or the right to self-ownership is a crime. If the government enacts and enforces a law that violates property rights or the right to self-ownership, then the government is behaving criminally.
Therefore, I support every person's unmitigated right of self-ownership and property rights. The refrain I hear most often is this: "But, Mark, some people would abuse these rights and harm other people." What does harm imply? Somebody might violate another person's property rights, or the right of self-ownership? These rights, absolute and unmitigated, preclude the right of trespass.
Not only are dollars physical pieces of property, but it is through the acquisition of dollars that one achieves a command over property. There is no objective difference between the government taking your cow, or taking your money so that you can't buy the cow to begin with. Thus we can conclude that taxation can best be summarized as the confiscation of property.
Suppose the government taxed 100% of everything to do with, say, newspapers. How long would newspapers be in business? Without property rights, one can't have the printing press. Without the printing press, one can't exercise their First Amendment rights. Without property rights, one can't eat. If one can't eat, they can't live. If one can't live, they can't exercise their First Amendment rights. Civil rights are a corollary of property rights. By exercising civil rights, one is also exercising property rights.
Now that I have established that the government can't encroach upon economic liberty without also encroaching upon social liberty, what about encroachments upon social liberty? Some people have embraced the idea that, in the name of stopping some perceived threat, we can live under a hyperactive police state while also having property rights. With very careful scrutiny, one should be able to see that the true purpose of the police state is to control capital, i.e., suppress economic liberty. What good would it be to have to wealth only to be jailed for your thought crime? Thus the war on liberty is merely a different way to confiscate property.
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 First Amendment codifies the rights of religious freedom, speech, the press, assembly, and redress.
The government derives unjust power by dividing people into groups. These groups are played off against one another, using state power to achieve their ends.
It is important to understand that by endorsing freedom, this doesn't mean you must endorse what everybody does with their freedom. Unfortunately, I hear a lot of people spend more time attacking thoughts and beliefs that are swirling around in another person's head - e.g., Christianity - than they do promoting liberty. If you are interested in liberty, then you shouldn't be spending your time attacking what people believe.
While the First Amendment protects speech that many may find to be offensive, it is important that we not reduce its meaning down to the protection of apolitical speech. The true meaning behind the First Amendment was that it would protect political speech!
The intention of the Founding Fathers was to protect the right of the people to collect, garner, and disseminate information related to the government. They wanted citizens to be cognizant of what the government is doing! They wanted us to have the right to assemble for political purposes, so that we can hold the government in check through peaceful means.
The government has assumed the authority to spy on the activities of Americans without probable cause. The government wants to track and trace Americans. However, I have read countless news stories where somebody was jailed merely for video taping a police officer. This undermines the spirit of the First Amendment. It is the citizens that should be able to freely record, monitor, document, and report on what government agents are doing, not the other way around.
Therefore, I strongly oppose any effort by the government to profile citizens based upon political affiliation. I strongly oppose any effort by the government to monitor, track, and trace individuals for peaceful political activism.
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.
The government can't legitimately possess a right that individuals don't also possess. As Frederic Bastiat saliently articulated, if it is wrong to rape and pillage, then it would be wrong to create a government which can rape and pillage. If it is wrong for the people to keep and bear arms, then it would be wrong to create a government which can keep and bear arms. The principle of the "collective right" must be based upon individual rights. Thus if the government can justify its right to bear arms, then the people must certainly have that right.
There are more than 50 federal agencies that employ over 100,000 people who work in capacities where they can bear arms against the American people. This is nothing but a standing army of federal agents. If we are to control guns, we ought to look at disarming this federal standing army. Law enforcement should be returned to the states and local communities, free from federal subsidies and control which undermines the ability of citizens to mitigate corrupt Law Enforcement Agencies. I strongly support a return to the supremacy of the institution of the elected sheriff for handling law enforcement matters. In order to return local control over law enforcement matters to the institution of the sheriff, I call for the prompt de-funding and abolition of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms; the Drug Enforcement Administration; the Department of Homeland Security; the Food and Drug Administration; and the Federal Trade Commission, just to name a few.
The meaning of the Second Amendment should be self-evident to anybody with any level of cognitive skills.
The first common error in Second Amendment interpretation is to conflate the word regulated with government control.
Regulate
1. to control or direct by a rule, principle, method, etc.: to regulate household expenses.
2. to adjust to some standard or requirement, as amount, degree, etc.: to regulate the temperature.
3. to adjust so as to ensure accuracy of operation: to regulate a watch.
4. to put in good order: to regulate the digestion.
You can have a regulation-sized basketball, used for playing during regulation time in a basketball game.
The second common error is to conflate the word militia with the government military. The militia is meant to imply private individuals. Why would the government need to be reminded to not disarm itself? I can think of no government that has ever voluntarily surrendered its arms. And how would that work for the government to surrender its arms to....itself?
Thus private citizens being armed is the regulation.
The war on guns is no different than the war on drugs. Murder and robbery are already illegal. The war on guns criminalizes the mere possession of an inanimate object, and this war on guns is, itself, criminal.
There is no better form of "homeland" security than preserving the right to keep and bear arms.
"Every able-bodied freeman, between the ages of 16 and 50, is enrolled in the militia." -Thomas Jefferson
"The great objective is that every man be armed. . . . Everyone who is able may have a gun." -Patrick Henry
"To disarm the people [is] the best and most effectual way to enslave them." -George Mason
"The Constitution shall never be construed . . . to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms." -Samuel Adams
"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed." -Alexander Hamilton
"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them." -Richard Henry Lee
Just because one endorses the right to keep and bear arms, does not mean one has to endorse every use of a firearm. Firearms should be used responsibly. Deadly force is only warranted as a last resort in the defense of life and limb, but not to curtail property crimes.
No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.
This one is self-explanatory enough that I don't believe Black's Law Dictionary can be used to contort its meaning. I will leave this one alone.
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.
This is one of the most important firewalls in defending liberty and protecting the innocent from tyrants. The demolition of this firewall is incompatible with small-government conservatism.
Over the last few years, I have read more than a few legal "scholars" who tried to apologize for a program of warrantless spying. I read one professor who tried to explain that since the Fourth Amendment consists of two independent clauses, then an "originalist" interpretation would be "first-clause dominant." That we are dealing with two independent clauses is not in dispute. Let's not forget that the entire U.S. Code is written in outline form, with totally separate paragraphs that are equally-relevant to the main point.
Translated, the anti-Fourth Amendment analysis is this: the Fourth Amendment prohibits unreasonable searches. The second clause is excised. So long as searches are "reasonable," then probable cause and warrants are not necessary. But this creates a problem, because then that means the only time probable cause and warrants would be necessary would be for unreasonable searches.
It should be self-evident that the second clause explains what makes searches reasonable: probable cause and warrants. By ignoring the second clause, a new Fourth Amendment is concocted. One would have to argue that searches become "reasonable" pursuant to the arbitrary discretion of government agents. Government agents would literally have the power to go wherever they wanted, whenever they wanted, for whatever reason they wanted, with impunity. This was called Writs of Assistance under King George III, and it is exactly what precipitated the American Revolution.
Giving government agents the power to go wherever they want, whenever they want, for whatever reason they want, on the basis that they might find some evidence of criminal wrongdoing, is dangerous. There is no doubt that the government would abuse this and turn a whole lot of innocents into victims. And if that is going to be the attitude, then we might as well just repeal all laws against all crimes. We should let people run around clubbing others over the head with baseball bats, on the basis that a murderer might eventually get clubbed. Obviously, that would not be a good situation. And it isn't good to let the government have such power as well.
One refrain I hear is that if we aren't doing anything wrong, then we shouldn't care about what the government is doing. That is an inversion of what the Founding Fathers intended. If we aren't doing anything wrong, then the government shouldn't care about what we are doing. Is there nothing legal that should be private? Would you like people to watch you having sex or taking a shower? Would you entrust your neighbor with the right to come into your home and watch you? So why entrust somebody with that same right just because they happen to wear a government costume? With the thousands upon thousands of state and federal statutes, is there nothing illegal that shouldn't be illegal?
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
The Fifth Amendment encompasses a plurality of areas and is a very important firewall in the defense of liberty. The Fifth Amendment deals with habeas corpus, which has been undermined over the past few years, but is very important in protecting liberty. The Fifth Amendment deprives the government of the power to arbitrarily make people "disappear."
The Fifth Amendment also proscribes the government from trying and retrying the accused over and over again for the same offense until the government is able to achieve a desired guilty verdict. The principle of ne bis in idem is very important in protecting liberty, and this has also been undermined over the last several years through erroneous mistrial declarations.
One other way the government has been able to circumvent ne bis in idem is by defining a single criminal act as a plurality of criminal acts through statutory narratives. As an example, see the following story: Duo put stolen Taser on 'Tube, police say.
Don't conflate what I am writing as an effort to mitigate what the man did when he stole the cop's taser. I am only using this example to demonstrate how the government has managed to bypass the legal principle of ne bis in idem by defining one criminal act as a plurality of crimes by applying a plurality of statutes. One of the primary ways the government does this is by amalgamating "anti-money laundering" charges (i.e., the non-crime of moving money around) with other charges.
"East Troy police are asking that the Town of Waukesha man be charged with two felonies, disarming a peace officer and possession of an electric weapon, and two misdemeanors, carrying a concealed electronic weapon and theft."
Notice how one criminal act, i.e., the theft of the cop's taser, has been morphed into two separate crimes, i.e., "disarming a peace officer" and "theft." As if those charges weren't enough, he was also charged for both possession of an electric weapon and the way in which he carried it, i.e., concealed. This would be akin to charging somebody not just for drug possession, but also for the way in which the drugs are possessed (e.g., in a coat pocket).
With the thousands upon thousands of overlapping state and federal statutes, single criminal acts are morphed into a plurality of crimes through statutory narratives. This has allowed the government to make a stealthy end-run around the proscription against double jeapardy by charging people with several crimes for one criminal act. This is an overlooked and neglected issue which I believe deserves greater scrutiny and attention.
Habeas corpus, i.e., due process of law, is an important part of protecting liberty. In short, the government does not have the Constitutional authority to grab people, whisk them away in secret, put them in jail or execute them, without due process of law. It is important that people have the right to face their accusers, examine and confront evidence, and receive a fair trial.
The Fifth Amendment also protects people against self-incrimination. This renders torture, or any method used to coerce a confession, as unconstitutional. By what right can the government tell a person they have the right to remain silent, but that they will be tortured until they make self-incriminating statements?
The proscription on depriving people of property without just compensation I believe transcends the issue of eminent domain. In my estimation, this is the anti-collectivist clause in the Constitution, i.e., the protection of private property rights.
Not only are dollars physical pieces of property themselves, but it is through the acquisition of dollars that one achieves a command over property. There is no objective difference between the government taking your cow, or taking your money so that you can't buy the cow to begin with. This leads us to the following axiom: when the government takes money from taxpayers it is confiscating property.
When I read the last clause of the 5th amendment of the U.S. Constitution, I read it as follows: "nor shall private property (money) be taken for public use (by the government), without just compensation (unless the taxpayer is compensated)." By not amalgamating taxation with property rights, before the government can take property in one form from A, all the government must do is take property in a different form from B, to then give to A. All the government needs to do is raise and collect taxes in order to acquire property. By amalgamating the two, we now arrive at a new question: how are the taxpayers being justly compensated for use of their property?
SIXTH AMENDMENT
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