Why We Have No "Constitutional Rights"

This piece was written by "The Old Sage" and is a great example of why I think he should be blogging. - RWR

A few minor edits have been made to this post in the interest of readability. Sage wrote this out as a "stream of consciousness", and I thought about it and its specifics a while before actually posting it. - RWR

I recently read an article in National Geographic magazine concerning a suit brought against the government by some of the five hundred or so prisoners held by the government at the US naval station at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Some of the complaints include the use of "evidence" obtained by the use of torture which their attorneys have claimed is a violation of due process. Our government's position, as stated by Principal Deputy Associate Attorney General Brian Boyle, is that the prisoners "have no constitutional rights enforceable in this, or any other, court of law". As I read those words, my first thought was, "of course they have no constitutional rights!"

There is no such thing as "constitutional rights" in this country! Our rights are not constitutional rights. The Founding Brothers never intended them to be. This country was founded under the premise that our rights are God-given, or natural. They are not gifts from any government; they are not granted by the constitution. Now, there are constitutional rights in Canada, the UK, France, Russia, and a host of other countries around the world. In those countries, both the people and the governments consider their rights to be gifts from the government, and thus subject to government approval. The United States in the only country in all of history that was set up with the philosophy that rights are God-given, and not man-given. Nowhere does the constitution say that we are being granted any rights from any said government body. Whenever rights are mentioned, it says only that the government cannot deprive us of them. Nowhere does it say that any of our rights are particularly American, either, but rather that "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights" ... that, my dear friends, is the philosophical and legal basis of this country!

So ... what is the deal with the constitution and the Bill of Rights? The Federalists, Washington, Hamilton, Adams, Madison and company, didn't want one because they feared that any rights specifically not included would be denied, and the government would then begin acting as if the government itself, and the constitution in particular, would be seen as the source of rights. Thus, the rights of the people would be man-given, not God-given as was intended. On the other hand, the Democrats, Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and others, wanted a Bill of Rights because they feared that without it the government would eventually assume that individual rights didn't exist and would, in effect, usurp the power of the people.

The compromise to make sure that "the unnamed rights" were not ignored was the Ninth Amendment, which states that "the enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people". The bad news is that the fears of both the Federalists and the Democrats have become reality.

Government lawyers, beaureaucrats, congressmen, presidents, and even the courts, spend an incredible amount of time (and your money) trying to circumvent the one thing that has made the United States unique in history! They have arrived at the view that:

* any right not specifically mentioned in the Bill of Rights doesn't exist,
* the rights that are mentioned are very pliable,
* the Ninth Amendment is dead (ignored),

and worst of all ...

* the Constitution, i.e., the government, is now the source of our rights.

That's how other countries treat rights, and in every way, we are becoming more and more like the rest of the world!

Our government claims to be fighting for freedom and democracy in places like Afghanistan and Iraq. Wouldn't it, perhaps, be a better idea to finish the job at home first before we take it to the rest of the world? If the government really believes that those they hold at Guantanamo are a threat, then we must allow them their "inalienable" rights and their day in court. Make the government close what is, in essence, the same type of concentration camp in which we illegally held Japanese-Americans during World War II. Let the government make its case against those it holds in front of the American people for all the world to see. Those among the prisoners that they can prove guilty, let them be sentenced, or shot, or whatever else they deem necessary to do with them, then let the rest have their God-given rights of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of whatever they consider to be happiness".

It's not just the rights of those detained at Guantanamo that we're talking about here, folks, but the rights that our Founding Brothers said belong to all of us!!! If we don't wake up and smell the coffee of government abuses and usurpations perpetrated by this and previous administrations; if we don't change our mindset; if we refuse to draw a line in the sand and say, "No more," then we are going to wake up one day and find all our "God-given" rights gone. What will be left are the rights that politicians and lawyers want us to have, rights that they can rescind any time they find them inconvenient, rights that have become nothing more than privileges granted by governments like the rest of the world has - none at all! For this to happen, not one word of the Constitution, nor the Declaration of Independence, will ever have to be changed. All they will have to do is ignore them.

TOS

Let me know what you think ... post a comment on this post.
RWR