Forum Post: Scorecard: How Many Rights Have Americans REALLY Lost?
Posted 11 years ago on Feb. 24, 2013, 7:54 p.m. EST by john32
(-272)
from Pittsburgh, PA
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
Posted 11 years ago on Feb. 24, 2013, 7:54 p.m. EST by john32
(-272)
from Pittsburgh, PA
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
Does this count?
http://www.care2.com/causes/drug-dogs-at-traffic-stops-scotus-says-go-for-it.html
Yeah that definitely counts in my book
This don't help either.
http://www.aclu.org/criminal-law-reform/aclu-launches-nationwide-investigation-police-use-military-technology-tactics
The courts CAN help. but not always enough.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/16/fbi-data-demands-telecoms-firms
FYI, & to bump your post
What about the rights Americans have never had or even petitioned for? Here are five that come to mind.
1. Barring violation to the rights of others, the right of a free people to be secure in their individual decisions of personal safety, ingestion, expression, activity, association, and property, shall not be violated without due process of law.
2. The freedom from direct taxation being necessary for the right of a free people to be sovereign in the ownership of their labor and of their property, the imposition of direct taxes shall be prohibited at all levels of government, allowing for only indirect taxation and voluntary withholding as a tax payer’s voluntary means of funding selected social welfare services.
3. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall exist within the United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
4. Barring conviction for either treason or for voting fraud, the right of all mentally coherent adult citizens to vote at all levels of government shall be guaranteed, the violation of which shall be punishable with equivalence to an act of treason.
5. The right of a politically free and democratic people to engage in Initiative, Referendum, and Recall, to have all of their votes counted, and to be without the undemocratic imposition of an electoral college, shall be guaranteed at all levels of government.
http://occupywallst.org/forum/free-democracy-amendment/
How about these "sting" operations that seem like entrapment to me?
http://news.yahoo.com/bait-nypd-anti-theft-tactics-criticized-151905239.html
We need to understand the rights violations we are subjected to
http://www.nationofchange.org/amazing-rise-and-fall-presumption-innocence-1362845726
What's the point of trying to have a people understand the rights violations they're subjected to if they're not even interested in the subject of rights to begin with?
If the people are passively satisfied with an elect body determining for them what rights they have rather than having an active interest in determining those rights for themselves, how much enthusiasm are they going to have for responding to the violation of rights they've only passively accepted?
"What's the point"? Really?
You think we should just give up?
No, "What's the point" is not what I had asked. "What's the point" had only begun what I had asked.
"The point of trying to have a people understand the rights violations they're subjected to" Is to improve their lives and ours. By educating people about the rights violations we mean to end the violations, and hopefully prosecute those that have violated our rights.
THAT is the point. Right?
The point is based upon a premise of people having an interest. People don't have an interest in the violation of something they don't have an interest in to begin with. To have an interest in the violation of rights, people have to have an initial interest in their rights. Otherwise, the issue of the violation of rights becomes just another bothersome issue for the people to respond apathetically to. With an actual active interest in rights, violations are automatically and easily the concern of the people.
.
"all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."
Declaration of Independence 1776
.
"Our rulers will become corrupt, our people careless. A single zealot may commence persecutor, and better men be his victims. It can never be too often repeated, that the time for fixing every essential right on a legal basis is while our rulers are honest, and ourselves united. From the conclusion of this war we shall be going downhill. It will not then be necessary to resort every moment to the people for support. They will be forgotten, therefore, and their rights disregarded. They will forget themselves, but in the sole faculty of making money, and will never think of uniting to effect a due respect for their rights. The shackles, therefore, which shall not be knocked off at the conclusion of this war, will remain on us long, will be made heavier and heavier, till our rights shall revive or expire in a convulsion."
Thomas Jefferson (Notes on the State of Virginia) 1781
Profound words.
So clearly the answer to your original question: "what's the point of trying to have a people understand the rights violations they're subjected to if they're not even interested in the subject of rights to begin with?"
Is :
We must educate enough people to understand and BE interested in their rights!!!!
Once accomplished we can commence the repealing of the related rights violations forthwith.
And feel free to apply your above quotes for added understanding of why we MUST succeed at this effort.
Freedom to travel within the country.
Hedges knows the right strategy is through the courts. I submit we need progressive jidges who might agree with hedges.
Here is a case we lost because the scotus does not have enough progressives.
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/14833-justices-turn-back-challenge-to-broader-us-eavesdropping
You can't even expose murder and fraud in the military without getting indefinitely detained.
Bradley Manning for example.
You can't even protest for extended periods of time without having Bloomberg or some other hack mayor ordering the police to violently abuse people's freedoms.
I havent given up any of my 'rights'. So how could I have lost them?
you've lost them in the court of law...you personally might not have given them up...but they're being stripped from you nonetheless.
Like what? My right to own a deadly weapon? I think I'm freer without that "right". I will admit that many people have willing given up their 7th amendment rights to legislators. Some have also given up their right to think by not thinking.
no...your right to a trial...your right to not be assassinated without due process....your right to unreasonable searches and seizures...the rights the country was founded on.
Did you read the post?
Like 3/5ths. That founding "right"?
We don't need to go back to the 18th century to be free.
So you're cool with warrantless wiretapping...assassinations without trials or due process...unreasonable searches and seizures...and the list of 100 other things on the website?
I would like the federal government to cease ALL activity. ....
sarcasm or seriousness?
serious. why would that be a joke?
The federal government should cease. Completely.
and be replaced with a common law republic.
Cabret doesnt understand that you don't give up rights, they are taken away from you by the govt. Which is why the US has the Bill of Rights. Which is why the obama adminstration hates the Bill of Rights, it limits their power.Which is why the obama administration has gone the way of executive orders.
The "right" to own a deadly weapon is one "right" I would gladly give up.
The only just place in an unjust world is in jail. I'm free always and forever regardless if you are or not.
You do not have to exercise any of the rights that are guaranteed to you by the Constitution. IF, you were to be arrested, would you make use of the 5th amendment? 6th?8th?
Wouldnt I still mantain those freedoms even if another chose to deny me them?
If you are denied them , than you don't have them.
Just because someone else thinks I dont have them doesnt mean I dont have them.
Freedom is inherent.
If the govt denies you the rights you have under the constitution, you do not have them.
What if it's Wallstreet denying those "rights"?
They do, you know.
Please be specific about what rights you are talking about?
The right to the fruits of my labor.
The right to my government.
Are two major ones.
Please cite where wallstreet has denied you they right to keep the money you have earned. As to the right to your own govt, how has wall street denied you that ?,both of which are not in the constitution.
You're "forced" to pay them with virtually everything you buy.
Everything.
Where the hell do you think they got the money to buy our government?
The original post was about the rights guranteed to you by the constitution. You are off on a tangent.
WallStreet demands a vig on everything they own and they own pretty much everything.
I am "forced" to pay that vig. They use that vig to purchase my government.
I can't make it any simpler for you and WallStreet finds constitutions to be a minor inconvenience, no matter which country has them..
You are not forced to pay anything.
But wouldn't I have these rights with or without the constitution?
No, because these rights ( laws) are guaranteed by the Constitution. If the govt denies you these rights ( laws) you do not have them.
Nous makes the law. People just filter from there.
I agree....much like bush did.
Thread killer. This is a good read and you are trolling it.
http://wamu.org/news/13/02/22/virginia_senate_passes_two_year_moratorium_on_drones
Hell yeah.....need the rest of the states to follow suit.
Great (yet depressing) read. He punked out on the 10th ammendment though, guess he was getting tired. He also failed to highight a glaring abuse of the 4th ammend...probable cause is required for a search warrant and it has now become the basis for a search!
Good points
Too bad they didnt keep going with that list. But a bad ass post regardless. The sheer length of it is impressive.