Posted by
AngryLoudMouth on Thursday, June 28, 2007 1:33:11 AM
Welcome To The Brave New World.
I decided to start a blog more for the sake of personal expression and as an outlet to vent my frustration with regard to our personal freedoms that seem to be going away. Whether you like the blog or not, feel free to vent your (dis)satisfaction by posting your response.
Now on to frustration:
I would venture to say that the government has not only started down the slippery slope of diminishing our constitutional freedoms, but, indeed, we are well on our way to voiding much of the constitution through vague and disconnected interpretations of the document, which just happen to fit with certain political ideologies.
These "interpretations" of the constitution are simply legislative actions taken by the courts. Many judges' decisions tend to follow along party lines rather than by strict interpretations of the constitution. Conservative judges seem to interpret the constitution in a more literal sense, but since the courts have accepted certain decisions that have eroded the true intent of the founders, many decisions can only be made along ideological lines; the fact is that precedents have been set and accepted by the courts that have no true constitutional basis.
Of course I'm not stating anything that any rational person in the U.S. doesn't already know, but it's getting to a level that seems to be irreversible, perhaps a sort of critical mass that tips the balance of government that was designed for the people to what will possibly be a government despite the people.
These days, judges interpret constitutional law in much the way former President Clinton interpreted honesty, "it depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is." A decision doesn't really have to be based upon the literal content of the constitution, it simply has to sound lawful and be, perhaps, within six degrees of separation of the intent of the founders.
Follow today's logic: the constitution says there is no right to search and seizure without cause, which is interpreted to mean that we all have a right (a very limited right as it turns out) to privacy, therefore a state law can't stop an abortion because that would somehow be a violation of the right to privacy that was extrapolated from the IV Amendment, even though the amendment was clearly aimed at preventing the government from invading our privacy by virtue of entering/searching our homes, personal possessions, etc. and/or seizing property and people without cause. By the way, our government routinely seizes property without cause in the name of imminent domain (but for private interests and profit of individuals and/or companies) and for drug busts that may or may not result in convictions, but I'll cover that in another post and corresponding to the relevant amendment.
This twisted logic has gotten us to where we are today: congress passes laws that may not be constitutional but which may pass muster with certain politically-stacked courts based upon extrapolated constitutional "law", of which the courts now recognize. This, in effect, allows the courts not only to interpret the law, but to essentially create law. I don't know about you, but my understanding of our system of government is that congress enacts the laws, while the courts interpret the laws. After all, where are the checks and balances to the courts if they can legislate from the bench?
What good will it do to point out these inconsistencies since the government and courts all recognize these manufactured precedents as valid? No good, likely, but people need to start pushing back, because the erosion of our rights has eaten away the infrastructure of what the founders intended for our government to be, such that government power has grown to the point that everyday citizens are becoming less important than special interests and the personal interests of those in power.
With that said, my personal goal in this blog is to enumerate, in separate postings, the Bill of Rights and subsequent amendments, and to point out where today's laws have been created, many times by the judicial branch of our government, based upon some nebulous connection to the constitution or even based upon just plain old political ideology. There will be lots of rants and examples of abusive interpretations of the constitution, and I'll occasionally sideline comments on certain amendments to address the topic du jour. I'll try to avoid anything to do with Paris Hilton, though!!
As boring as it sounds, there are actually some interesting events and laws that have been interpreted/passed/extrapolated from the constitution, Bill of Rights, and subsequent amendments, and some of them are even a little funny.
That said, my next blog entry will cover our first amendment right, especially as it relates to the so-called "fairness doctrine." If such a law were passed, it would be one of the more significant efforts in our history to quash free speech, the freedom of which is specifically called for in our Bill of Rights. If such a law can be enacted, we will be entering a very real sort of escape velocity out of true democracy, where certain types of speech will be labeled unfair, hate-speech, or illegal because certain people don't like it. When that happens, our voices will no longer be heard unless they happen to agree with those in power. Ask President Putin how that works for him. I'm sure he'd endorse the "fairness doctrine" wholeheartedly if he hadn't already seized the assets or imprisoned those who disagreed with him. Yippee-kai-yay...
In any case, see you at the first amendment!