What Exactly is the Bill of Rights?

I think most people know of the Bill of Rights, and can even name one or two of them.  Although, I’d bet most people would be hard pressed to put the requirements with the amendment number.  Well, maybe the Second Amendment, since it gets a fair deal of play.  Likely the Fifth Amendment would be relatively popular as well.

What does the Bill of Rights do?  Who does it pertain to?  Why do we need the Bill of Rights at all?

Anyone…. Bueller… Bueller… Bueller…

Nobody?  That’s about what I expected, honestly.  I didn’t know much about it until I started really paying attention and studying politics and the founding documents.  It’s amazing the things you can learn just by doing a little studying. 

The Bill of Rights limits the scope and power of the Federal Government.  It pertains directly to the Federal Government, and what they are not allowed to do.  It also specifically makes mention of the States a few times.  We need it to clarify some things left out of the original Constitution.  For instance, the First Amendment, most commonly known for Freedom of Speech (and sometimes wrongfully referenced for Separation of Church and State, which is nowhere in the Constitution or any Amendments), recognizes freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and stipulates that Congress can neither recognize an official religion nor prevent someone from practicing the religion of their choice.  Notice, it does not say you can’t have the 10 Commandments on a plaque in a court house or any other such non-sense.  It specifically tells Congress what it cannot do.  It cannot censor you for non-violent speech or protest.  Nor can it censor the press.  Nor can it require or prevent you from practicing any religion. 

The Bill of Rights is not a document granting you some rights you didn’t already have.  It’s a document recognizing rights that are inherently in people, based on free will, and forbidding Congress from attempting to interfere with those rights. 

Likewise, the other nine Amendments set forth in the Bill of Rights are not granting you any special power or privilege you didn’t have.  They are all recognizing rights that are yours, and forbidding interference.  In some places you’ll find mention of the States.  In particular, the Tenth Amendment is my favorite. It calls out in detail that the powers of Congress and the Federal Government are limited to what is enumerated in the Constitution, and ONLY what is enumerated in the Constitution.  It goes on to specify that any and all other powers that can be imagined are reserved specifically for the States or the people to decide for themselves.

A right cannot be granted.  People are saying they have a right to medical care.  Bull.  A right doesn’t depend on someone else providing it for your.  Saying you have a right to medical care is like saying you have a right to a small portion of another persons life (the doctors and nurses).  That cannot be. 

I have heard people saying they have a right to a job.  I can’t even fathom how they arrived at that, but it fails for the same reason.  Someone has to employ you, and you cannot claim you have a right to someone else’s time, money, or possessions.  That’s foolish, at best.

My favorite is the right to vote.  There is absolutely NO right to vote in a federal election.  None.  Nada.  Zip.  Nor should there be.  If anything, we should be limiting the people who are allowed to vote.  For one, if you’re living solely off the tax money of others, whether as a politician, welfare recipient, or government employee, you should not be allowed to vote for any positions that have any control over the money that is paid to you.  To allow Federal Employees to vote for people who authorize budgets for Federal Departments is a conflict of interest.  Why would they not vote for the person who promises them the most for the least amount of work?  Short sighted self interest is what humanity does best.

Rights are inherent in you.  They do not require action from another person or entity to make them rights.  They do not require assistance from others to provide your right to you.  You have the right to live, liberty, and property.  You have a right to defend yourself.  You do not have a right to get things for free, or to make others take care of some sort of need or desire for you.  Your rights depend entirely on you. 

They also need you to defend them.  Stand up for yourself, and demand that you State stand up against Federal Tyranny on your behalf.  Don’t vote for the person with the best lies.  Vote for the person who knows what a right is.  Pick wisely.

THIS is what this Election is All About

Someone, for the love of God, listen to what is said and understand what is being done.  Obama and Obama-lite (Romney) are not the solution.  They are two heads of the same beast.  

Vote for real change, not the pretend change that the GOP and Dems offer while continuing business as usual after the elections.

Why Abraham Lincoln was a Horrid President

               
Abraham Lincoln, greatest of Presidents, beloved of school children everywhere in our land.  How could he not be a great man?  He held this nation together during a time of turmoil. He freed the slaves.  Honest Abe. 
Sounds like the ideal politician.  Except history knows that’s all crap.  It’s pure propaganda.  For one, a politician being known as “Honest” is pretty unlikely.  Even the ones that truly are honest wouldn’t be nicknamed as such, because that would make it too hard to fight against them.  Ridiculous. 
What about holding this nation together, and freeing the slaves?  Well, he didn’t actually do either.  The GOP has recently started a campaign to win the hearts and minds of black Americans pointing out that Abe was a Republican and freed the slaves.  This is the kind of garbage that is taught in public schools, too.  Lincoln freed the slaves of the Confederate States.  Which he didn’t have the power to do, since they were a separate nation at that time. 
“What’s that?” you say?  A separate nation?  Yes, indeed, as soon as the Southern States declared their intentions to leave the Union, they were in fact a separate nation.  Not only international law, but our own Constitution agrees on that.  While there is no mechanism in the Constitution dictating the method for states to leave, there is no mention of them having no right to do so.  That in itself guarantees that they do in fact have that right, under the 10th Amendment. 
The 10th Amendment specifically states that all power not delegated to Congress or the Federal Government, nor specifically forbidden to the states, in the Constitution is reserved for the States or the People.   That means the states and the people have nearly unlimited power, and the Federal Government has extremely limited power.
So, by extension, the moment the states left the union, they were free of any and all Federal Regulation.  Which in turn means a few things.  First, the Civil War was not a civil war.  A civil war, by definition, is a war between two factions for control of a government.  There was no such war.  The Confederate States had their capital, the Union had it’s capital, and the Confederacy wanted nothing to do with controlling the Union. They wanted to be free of the Union.  The Union, on the other hand, was set on capturing, conquering, and controlling the Confederacy.  It also means that, far from a defensive action to “hold this nation together”, this was a militaristic aggressive action taken against another nation.
Now, on to the slavery issue.  He didn’t end slavery.  He didn’t free black people.  He wanted to not allow it to spread to any new states or territories, and he made several statements to the effect that it was wrong, but he also made statements, on numerous occasions, that he had no intentions or design on changing anything in regards to slavery in the states where slavery was legal.  During the war between the states, slaves were originally classified as equipment, and could be captured as such.  Later, there were offered the chance to earn their freedom by joining Union forces to fight against the South.  This appealed to many slaves, who had a natural human desire for vengeance or justice, or just wanted to help free others. 
Lincoln was also very sure that blacks and whites would never be able to live in harmony, and the relations between the two, if they lived in the same nation, would always have to be one of superior/inferior. As a white man, believing such, he was content that whites should remain the superior race.  Since he had freed all the Southern blacks during the war (as a means of encouraging them to run away to the North and weaken the armies and economy of the South, not because he cared in the least) and he believed that they could not live together with white people as equals, he was working on plans to solve that problem after the war. 
The most likely plan involved the several hundred thousand acres in what is now Panama.  An owner of a shipping company had somehow ended up as the controlling party of this land, and offered it up for use in Lincolns relocation plans.  The idea being that they transport the blacks there to resettle them, they mine the coal that was supposed to be richly deposited across the area, and sell it back to the US Navy.  The blacks would then use the profits from those sale to found their nation, planting crops, forming their government, etc.  There seems to be some historical argument as to whether or not they would have been a free nation, or perhaps a semi-free US Territory.  Either way, it was land that was uninhabited where Lincoln could solve his problem of blacks and whites living together. 
Before he could see this plan through, someone shot him in the back of the head.  Thus Lincoln, the great liberator of the black people in the United States, the great man who held a nation together, is proven to be the man that violated the rights of millions to forcibly require the unconditional surrender of a free nation so he could swallow it whole and deport a large majority of it’s workforce (the slaves) to another nation where he wouldn’t have to deal with them anymore.  Lincoln, the racist tyrant who ignored the Constitution, the Supreme Law of the land, which he took an oath to uphold and defend.  The rest, as they say, is history.
If you’re interested in reading more, most everything that is covered in this blog and a great deal more can be found at http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v13/v13n5p-4_Morgan.html.