See other Dead Constitution Articles
Title: Happy Bill of Rights Day
Source:
[None]
URL Source: http://www.lewrockwell.com/gregory/gregory49.html
Published: Dec 15, 2006
Author: Anthony Gregory
Post Date: 2006-12-15 10:44:58 by Lod
Keywords: None
Views: 179
Comments: 20
December 15 is neglected by most Americans for its historical significance as the anniversary of the Bill of Rights. Even worse, American politicians neglect the actual Bill of Rights on a day-to-day basis. Whether or not the Bill of Rights can ever be an effective means of limiting the government is open to debate. However, the Bill of Rights does offer a fairly good outline of a free society, and it shows how far our country has strayed. In an America with a full respect for the Bill of Rights, there would be no Federal Communications Commission regulating the airwaves and forbidding certain speech, no Federal Election Commission limiting how much Americans can donate to political candidates or what they can say in independent political ads, no Food and Drug Administration harassment of pharmaceutical and wine producers regarding their commercial speech, no federal laws that have anything to do with religion whatsoever, and no federally established "free-speech zones." There would be no laws disarming Americans, prohibiting airlines from allowing pilots or passengers to carry guns on planes, or limiting how much ammo or what kind of firearms people can buy and own. There would be no Patriot Act, no secret searches, no spying on telecommunications without a warrant. There would be no civil asset forfeiture, no horrendous eminent domain abuses, no kangaroo courts, star chambers and phony hearings for the accused. There would be no torture in America’s "terrorist" dungeons. There would be no federal laws against starting a business without a license, buying and selling drugs, competing with the government to provide its "services" at a better cost and higher quality, or seceding from the central state. There would be no federal programs not authorized by the Constitution: no Departments of Energy or Education, no Medicare or Social Security, no Federal Reserve or Selective Service, no farm subsidies or corporate welfare. We’ve come a long way, haven’t we? If either the ninth or tenth amendment alone had full recognition, almost everything now done by the federal government would come grinding to a halt. A government that obeyed the Bill of Rights would cost a small fraction of its current size, and would not require an income tax to fund. The young would be liberated from Social Security and any fear of conscription ever coming back. The streets would be safer, free from the violent crime augmented by the War on Drugs and gun control. America would no longer have a higher per capita prison population than Saudi Arabia, Russia and North Korea. The free economy would be unleashed to produce the largest revolution in technology and commerce and greatest increase of the American standard of living since the Industrial Revolution. The productive sector would no longer be persecuted by the political class for producing too much, not enough, or not according to the specifications of central planning. Many if not most political tensions would be decentralized down to the state level, and after that, competition and experimentation among states would likely point the way to the benefits of liberalizing and shrinking government at all levels. The blessings of free association would again sweep America, as people’s rights to hire, fire, work for, and enter business and organizations with whomever they wanted would allow economic productivity to balloon, and religious, ethnic and racial hostilities to decline. Immigration would no longer be seen as such a threat as decisions to associate or not to associate would be left to the states and, much more ideally, private-property owners. Healthcare would be more affordable and of a higher quality. The price of food staples would plummet, as the feds would no longer subsidize clumsy agricultural practices with price supports, and even the poorest workers would have far greater access to necessities and luxuries than almost anyone in the history of the world. Many tens of thousands of federal employees would have to find honest work. With the Bill of Rights respected and enforced, the War on Terror as we know it would be impossible. The federal government would no longer have any powers not delegated to it by the Constitution – rendering such colonial projects as Iraq and Guantanamo totally prohibited. Americans would stop dying in foreign wars, and foreigners would have far less reason to attack the United States. Americans would become more responsible, tolerant, caring, cooperative, industrious, wealthy and safe. A lot of problems would still exist, but without the amplification that they now get in the political process. If today you hear a politician mention the Bill of Rights – a politician besides Ron Paul, that is – try to imagine which Bill of Rights he’s referring to. Which Bill of Rights is it that allows for two-and-a-half-trillion-dollar budgets, airport Gestapo, thousands of gun laws, a federal war on drugs, No Child Left Behind and McCain-Feingold? Where in the Bill of Rights does it say that the president can disqualify suspected terrorists from their rights to a trial, an attorney, and due process? The officials who violate the Bill of Rights are breaking the very law that supposedly brings their jobs and the government that employs them into existence. And yet we are supposed to take them seriously when they talk about "the rule of law," "law and order," and "justice." I celebrate Bill of Rights Day, not out of some delusion that we have the enumerated and unenumerated freedoms protected by the document, nor with some nostalgia for a past when the Bill of Rights was perfectly obeyed. It never was. George Washington and John Adams violated the Bill of Rights. Ever since Lincoln, the document has suffered major violence, and four years of Bush have probably done more harm to the freedoms in the Bill of Rights than this country has seen in thirty, maybe even fifty years. But Bill of Rights Day is still a good time to think of that document, which comes as close to a libertarian founding legal charter as any in the world. Celebrate Bill of Rights Day, if only to think of the great freedoms that might exist, that could exist, and that can exist, one day, in fuller force and greater glory than ever before.
Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 10.
#1. To: lodwick (#0)
Bill of What? Anniversary? Was this something passed last year?
Some seditious anti-Bush screed. Some librul wrote a list of ways to protect the enemies of America and freedom haters everywhere.
Just a reminder to what we've lost.
Somewhere in Texas... It's on a rendition plane landing in Nigeria or someplace else. Maybe when the village gets back its idiot, we'll get back our Bill of Rights.
Please deposit another 35 cents to continue hating Belgians.
Make it a double waffle, here's 70 cents worth of bandwidth and something to start a counterfeit operation in the Belgian colony of your choice. Keep the change.
My suggestion to use bulletproof glass, airtight caulking, a few simple electric bits, and a vacuum pump as an ad-hoc automotive theft prevention system fell on very deaf ears today.
#11. To: Dakmar (#10)
Maybe we should make this a casino operation instead.
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
#2. To: leveller (#1)
Bill of What? Anniversary? Was this something passed last year?
#3. To: bluedogtxn, leveller, freedomlovers here (#2)
#4. To: lodwick (#3)
Just a reminder to what we've lost.
a village is missing its idiot.
#5. To: robin (#4)
It's on a rendition plane landing in Nigeria or someplace else.
#8. To: Dakmar (#5)
#10. To: robin (#8)
"On the contrary. It appears their intercourse had been very much broken by various causes. He had, as he informed me proudly, managed to nurse Kurtz through two illnesses (he alluded to it as you would to some risky feat), but as a rule Kurtz wandered alone, far in the depths of the forest. `Very often coming to this station, I had to wait days and days before he would turn up,' he said. `Ah, it was worth waiting for!--sometimes.' `What was he doing? exploring or what?' I asked. `Oh yes, of course;' he had discovered lots of villages, a lake too--he did not know exactly in what direction; it was dangerous to inquire too much-- but mostly his expeditions had been for ivory. `But he had no goods to trade with by that time,' I objected. `There's a good lot of cartridges left even yet,' he answered, looking away. `To speak plainly, he raided the country,' I said. He nodded. `Not alone, surely!' He muttered something about the villages round that lake. `Kurtz got the tribe to follow him, did he?' I suggested. He fidgeted a little. `They adored him,' he said. The tone of these words was so extraordinary that I looked at him searchingly. It was curious to see his mingled eagerness and reluctance to speak of Kurtz. The man filled his life, occupied his thoughts, swayed his emotions. `What can you expect?' he burst out; `he came to them with thunder and lightning, you know-- and they had never seen anything like it--and very terrible. He could be very terrible. You can't judge Mr. Kurtz as you would an ordinary man. No, no, no! Now--just to give you an idea-- I don't mind telling you, he wanted to shoot me too one day-- but I don't judge him.' `Shoot you!' I cried. `What for?' `Well, I had a small lot of ivory the chief of that village near my house gave me. You see I used to shoot game for them. Well, he wanted it, and wouldn't hear reason. He declared he would shoot me unless I gave him the ivory and then cleared out of the country, because he could do so, and had a fancy for it, and there was nothing on earth to prevent him killing whom he jolly well pleased. And it was true too. I gave him the ivory. What did I care! But I didn't clear out. No, no. I couldn't leave him. I had to be careful, of course, till we got friendly again for a time. He had his second illness then. Afterwards I had to keep out of the way; but I didn't mind. He was living for the most part in those villages on the lake. When he came down to the river, sometimes he would take to me, and sometimes it was better for me to be careful. This man suffered too much. He hated all this, and somehow he couldn't get away. When I had a chance I begged him to try and leave while there was time; I offered to go back with him. And he would say yes, and then he would remain; go off on another ivory hunt; disappear for weeks; forget himself amongst these people-- forget himself--you know.' `Why! he's mad,' I said. He protested indignantly. Mr. Kurtz couldn't be mad. If I had heard him talk, only two days ago, I wouldn't dare hint at such a thing. . . . I had taken up my binoculars while we talked and was looking at the shore, sweeping the limit of the forest at each side and at the back of the house. The consciousness of there being people in that bush, so silent, so quiet--as silent and quiet as the ruined house on the hill-- made me uneasy. There was no sign on the face of nature of this amazing tale that was not so much told as suggested to me in desolate exclamations, completed by shrugs, in interrupted phrases, in hints ending in deep sighs. The woods were unmoved, like a mask--heavy, like the closed door of a prison--they looked with their air of hidden knowledge, of patient expectation, of unapproachable silence. The Russian was explaining to me that it was only lately that Mr. Kurtz had come down to the river, bringing along with him all the fighting men of that lake tribe. He had been absent for several months--getting himself adored, I suppose-- and had come down unexpectedly, with the intention to all appearance of making a raid either across the river or down stream. Evidently the appetite for more ivory had got the better of the-- what shall I say?--less material aspirations. However he had got much worse suddenly. `I heard he was lying helpless, and so I came up-- took my chance,' said the Russian. `Oh, he is bad, very bad.' I directed my glass to the house. There were no signs of life, but there was the ruined roof, the long mud wall peeping above the grass, with three little square window-holes, no two of the same size; all this brought within reach of my hand, as it were. And then I made a brusque movement, and one of the remaining posts of that vanished fence leaped up in the field of my glass. You remember I told you I had been struck at the distance by certain attempts at ornamentation, rather remarkable in the ruinous aspect of the place. Now I had suddenly a nearer view, and its first result was to make me throw my head back as if before a blow. Then I went carefully from post to post with my glass, and I saw my mistake. These round knobs were not ornamental but symbolic; they were expressive and puzzling, striking and disturbing-- food for thought and also for the vultures if there had been any looking down from the sky; but at all events for such ants as were industrious enough to ascend the pole. They would have been even more impressive, those heads on the stakes, if their faces had not been turned to the house. Only one, the first I had made out, was facing my way. I was not so shocked as you may think. The start back I had given was really nothing but a movement of surprise. I had expected to see a knob of wood there, you know. I returned deliberately to the first I had seen--and there it was, black, dried, sunken, with closed eyelids,--a head that seemed to sleep at the top of that pole, and, with the shrunken dry lips showing a narrow white line of the teeth, was smiling too, smiling continuously at some endless and jocose dream of that eternal slumber.
Replies to Comment # 10. The Russian was explaining to me that it was only lately that Mr. Kurtz had come down to the river, bringing along with him all the fighting men of that lake tribe.
End Trace Mode for Comment # 10.