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The Rights of Citizens of the United States Are in Jeopardy
The rights of the
people of the United States of America are in jeopardy. Our rights are in
jeopardy because some members of the Supreme Court, some members of
Congress, the President, and many Citizens don’t understand what the
Constitution of the United States is all about.
In 1789, Thomas Jefferson wrote a note to James Madison about the future
possibility of a president who didn’t understand the principles on which
America was founded. “The tyranny of the legislatures is the most formidable
dread at present,” he wrote, “and will be for many years. That of the
executive (the president) will come in its turn, but it will be at a remote
period.” It now appears that the remote period Jefferson wrote about has
arrived.
Conservatives claim the right to violate citizens’ private lives because
there is no “right to privacy” in the United States. Supreme Court Justice
Potter Stewart said in 1965 “I could find no general right of privacy in the
Bill of Rights, in any other part of the Constitution, or in any case ever
before decided by this Court.
Justice Clarence Thomas (George W. Bush’s role model for future Supreme
Court nominees) agrees. In his dissent in the Texas sodomy case, Thomas
wrote, “just like Justice Stewart, I can find neither in the Bill of Rights
nor any part of the Constitution a general right of privacy, or as the Court
terms it today, the liberty of the person both in its spatial and more
transcendent dimensions.”
The Constitution doesn’t grant a right to eat, or to read, or to have
children. Yet do we doubt these are rights we have?
The reality is that there are many rights that are not specified in the
constitution, but which we enjoy daily and they cannot be taken away from us
by the government.
The Constitution wasn’t written to grant us rights. We don’t derive our
rights from the Constitution.
Rather in the minds of the Founders, human rights are inalienable –
inseparable – from humans themselves. We are born with rights by the simple
fact of existence. As written by Thomas Jefferson “We hold these truths to
be self-evident,” the founders wrote. Humans are “endowed by their creator
with certain inalienable rights…” These rights are clear and obvious, the
Founders repeatedly said. They belong to us from birth, as opposed to
something the Constitution must hand to us, and are more ancient than any
government.
The job of the constitution was to define a legal framework within which
government and business could operate in a manner least intrusive to “We,
The People,” who are the holders of the rights. In its first draft it didn’t
even have a Bill of Rights, because the Framers felt it wasn’t necessary to
state out loud that human rights came from something greater, larger, and
older than government. They all knew this; it was simply obvious.
There had been discussion among the delegates to the constitutional
convention about weather they should go to the trouble of enumerating the
human rights they had held up to the world with the Declaration of
Independence, but the consensus had been that it was unnecessary.
The Declaration of Independence, the writings of many of the Founders and
Framers, and no shortage of other documents made amply clear the Founders’
and the Framers’ sentiments that human rights were solely the province of
humans, and that governments don’t grant rights but, rather, that in a
constitutionally limited democratic republic We, The People – the holders of
the rights – grant to our governments what ever privileges our government
may need to function (while keeping the rights for ourselves).
This is the fundamental difference between kingdoms, theocracies, feudal
states, and democratic republic. In the former three, people must beg for
their rights at the pleasure of the rulers. In the latter, the republic
derives its legitimacy from the people, the sole holders of rights.
Although the purpose of the Constitution wasn’t to grant rights to people,
as kings and popes and feudal lords had done in the past, Jefferson felt it
was a necessary to be absolutely unambiguous about the solid reality that
humans are the sole holders of rights, and that in no way was the
Constitution or the new government of the United States to ever be allowed
to infringe on those rights.
A letter written by Jefferson to Madison in 1787 said “To say, as Mr. Wilson
does that a bill of rights was not necessary, might do for the audience to
which it was addressed but it wasn’t enough. Human rights may be well know
to those writing the constitution, they may all agree that governments may
not infringe on human rights but, nonetheless, we must not trust that simply
inferring this truth is enough for future generations who have not so
carefully read history or who may foolishly elect leaders inclined toward
tyranny. Let me add that a bill of rights is what the people are entitled to
against every government on earth, general or particular; and what no just
government should refuse, or rest on inference.”
There’s good reason to believe – as the majority of the Supreme Court did in
the Texas sodomy case and at least a dozen others – that the Founders and
Framers did write a right to privacy into the Constitution. However, living
in the 18th century, they never would have actually used the word privacy
out loud or in writing. A search, for example, of all 16,000 of Thomas
Jefferson’s letters and writings produces not a single use of the word
“privacy.” Nor does Adams use the word in his writings.
The reason is simple: “privacy” in 1776 was a code word for toilet
functions. A person would say, “I need a moment of privacy” as a way of
excusing themselves to go use the “privy” or outhouse. The chamber pots
around the house were referred to as “the privates,” a phrase also used to
describe genitals.
It wasn’t until 1898 that Thomas Crapper began marketing the flush toilet
and discussion of toilet functions became relatively acceptable. Prior to
then, saying somebody had a “right to privacy” would have meant “a right to
excrete.” This was, of course, a right that was taken for granted and thus
the Framers felt no need to specify it in the Constitution.
Instead, the word of the day was “security,” and in many ways it meant what
we today mean when we say “privacy.” Consider, for example, the Fourth
Amendment: “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses,
papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not
be violated…”
Similarly, “liberty” was also understood in one of its dimensions, to mean
something close to what today we’d call “privacy.” The Fifth Amendment talks
about how “no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property” and
the Fourteenth Amendment adds that “nor shall any State deprive any person
of life, liberty, or property” And of course, the Declaration of
Independence itself proclaims that all “are endowed by their Creator with
certain unalienable Rights that among these are Life, Liberty and the
pursuit of Happiness.”
Nobody, not the Supreme Court Justices, the President, the Congress or
anybody else has the right to invade the privacy of the citizens of this
country.
Our leaders ignorant of or ignoring the history of this nation’s founding
make a parody of liberty and with the so called “Patriot Act,” flaunt their
challenges even to those rights explicitly defined in the Constitution.
Four of the nine Supreme Court justices on the Supreme Court believe that
government has the right to invade the privacy rights of Americans. If any
of the present Justices of the Supreme Court retire President Bush will
appoint another neo-conservative judge. With the appointment of another
neo-conservative judge the neo-conservative judges will be in the majority
and the American people stand to loose more of their rights. Once our rights
are lost it is very hard to get them back.
Parts of this article are excerpted from an article written by Thom Hartmann
entitled Dear Clarence Thomas: It Happened on July 4, 1776. The entire
article can be read here
Dear Clarence Thomas
Thom Hartmann
(thom at thomhartmann.com) is the author of over a dozen books,
including "Unequal Protection" and "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight," and
a nationally syndicated daily talk show host. www.thomhartmann.com This
article is copyright by Thom Hartmann, but permission is granted for reprint
in print, email, blog, or web media so long as this credit is attached.
::: posted by Alan at 5:08 PM