By C.L. Harmon
I recently watched a video online that I found very disturbing. It was one where a reporter was asking random people as to their thoughts on Hillary Clinton’s plight to repeal the Bill of Rights to usher in a new world order. Now without getting too political, I will share some of the comments from those people.
“I think its time to repeal. I think we need change like they have been promising us for years. You can’t have the rules of yesteryear now.”
“I think its a good time to look at it.”
“I support Hillary Clinton in her plan to repeal the Bill of Rights to move us forward.”
“A third of the Bill of Rights is unjust.” There were several others who responded to the question in various ways, but they were all in support of repealing the Bill of Rights.
Now there may have been (And God I hope there was.) a majority of people who were asked the same question and vehemently disagreed with the idea of repealing the Bill of Rights. I don’t know since those people, if there were any, were not on the video. But my point is, that even if one person who votes in this country is not aware of the Bill of Rights’ purpose and origin, they have become very dangerous to the institution of democracy and the right to freedom.
Lesson 1: The first ten amendments to the Constitution make up the Bill of Rights. Written by James Madison in response to calls from several states for greater constitutional protection for individual liberties, the Bill of Rights lists specific prohibitions on governmental power.
Lesson 2: The Bill of Rights is a list of limits on government power. For example, what the Founding Fathers saw as the natural right of individuals to speak and worship freely was protected by the First Amendment’s prohibitions on Congress from making laws establishing a religion or abridging freedom of speech. For another example, the natural right to be free from unreasonable government intrusion in one’s home was safeguarded by the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirements.
Lesson 3: The Bill of Rights in laymen’s terms and as explained to children.
1. Congress can’t make any law about your religion, or stop you from practicing your religion, or keep you from saying whatever you want, or publishing whatever you want. And Congress can’t stop you from meeting peacefully for a demonstration to ask the government to change something.
2. Congress can’t stop people from having and carrying weapons, because we need to be able to defend ourselves.
3. You don’t have to let soldiers live in your house, except if there is a war, and even then only if Congress has passed a law about it.
4. Nobody can search your body, or your house, or your papers and things, unless they can prove to a judge that they have a good reason to think you have committed a crime.
5. You can’t be tried for any serious crime without a Grand Jury meeting first to decide whether there’s enough evidence for a trial. And if the jury decides you are innocent, the government can’t try you again with another jury. You don’t have to say anything at your trial. You can’t be killed, or put in jail, or fined, unless you were convicted of a crime by a jury. And the government can’t take your house or your farm or anything that is yours, unless the government pays for it.
6. If you’re arrested, you have a right to have your trial pretty soon, and the government can’t keep you in jail without trying you. The trial has to be public, so everyone knows what is happening. The case has to be decided by a jury of ordinary people from your area. You have the right to know what you are accused of, to see and hear the people who are witnesses against you, to have the government help you get witnesses on your side, and you have the right to a lawyer to help you.
7. You also have the right to a jury when it is a civil case (a law case between two people rather than between you and the government).
8. The government can’t make you pay more than is reasonable in bail or in fines, and the government can’t order you to have cruel or unusual punishments (like torture) even if you are convicted of a crime.
9. Just because these rights are listed in the Constitution doesn’t mean that you don’t have other rights too.
10. Anything that the Constitution doesn’t say that Congress can do should be left up to the states, or to the people.
The only reasonable explanation I can fathom as to why any American would want these rights repealed is because of ignorance of the subject matter. I know of no one who wishes to be forced to house soldiers in their homes, be imprisoned for speaking or writing their opinions, be arrested simply because someone else wants them arrested, wants their guns and ammunition confiscated, to be accused and found guilty of a crime, tortured and imprisoned by another simply because they have more power and can do so or being ordered under the threat of death or torture and that they must be Jewish when they wish to be Christian or vice versa.
How can those who wish to abolish these individual rights be called Americans? The very foundation of America is built on the idea of freedom and civil liberty.
It is my sincere hope that all Americans will remember that the Bill of Rights is the old world order; the one that inspired nations across the globe to fight and secure freedom for themselves and their children. It is never outdated and will remain the key that forever locks out tyranny and oppression by those who wish to take our freedom from us.