This December, 2016, marks the 225th anniversary of the ratification of the first ten amendments to the US Constitution which would become known as the “Bill of Rights.” To secure passage of the Constitution, the framers of the document (the Federalists) had to agree that it would contain explicit language on individual rights.
Ever since its ratification, the Bill of Rights and the Constitution in which it is a part, has been hailed as one of the seminal achievements in the annals of human history while the political arrangements prior to it (primarily monarchy and aristocratic rule) have been sneered at and belittled by the Constitution’s hagiographers. Moreover, the American Constitution has provided a model for the emergence of the nation state which came into its own after the French Revolution and the tragic breakup of Christendom.
History, however, if looked at outside the Anglo-American perspective has shown that far from a protector of individual liberty, the Bill of Rights has been mostly useless in defense of basic freedoms while the Constitution, that it is a part of, has been a vehicle for the expansion of state power to an unfathomable degree.
Despite the supposed guarantees of individual liberty within the Bill of Rights and the supposed limited nature of the Constitution itself, there has never been a more intrusive state in world history both domestically and in its myriad of interventions across the globe than the Leviathan that rests on the shores of the Potomac River. And, the rise of American totalitarianism did not begin with the revelations of Edward Snowden and the other courageous whistle blowers of the recent past, but started soon after the new “federal” state came into existence with the passage of the Alien & Sedition Acts. Each year since has witnessed the growth of state power at the expense of individual rights where now domestic spying and surveillance are part of the nation’s social fabric.
The primary reason why the Bill of Rights has been unable to secure basic liberties is because the federal government and its courts are the ultimate interpreters of the Constitution and its amendments as explicitly stated in Article VI, section 2, subtitled, Supreme Law of the Land:
This Constitution and the laws of the United
States which shall be made in pursuance thereof,
and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under
the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme
law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be
bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of
any state to the contrary notwithstanding.
Since the central government is the final arbitrator of the document, any ruling or decision on particular laws or regulations which would impinge on individual rights will, for the most part, be favorable to the government itself. And, due to man’s fallen nature, any such power will be abused.
The ratification of the Constitution in 1789 made in essence the individual states mere appendages of the central government. While the Constitution’s sycophants boast of its “checks and balances,” a far superior bulwark against political repression is that of people “voting with their feet.” Under the Articles of Confederation, when the national government was not the supreme law of the land, if a certain state became too tyrannical, at least in theory, and had the much neglected Articles remained in place, those persecuted could simply move to a more friendlier jurisdiction.
This would also hold true in the realm of taxation and regulatory policy. Those political authorities who became too confiscatory in their taxing or enacted burdensome regulations could also see population outflows. Similar activity goes on all the time currently as people flee high tax municipalities and states like California and New York to lower tax regions such as Florida and Texas.
For voting with one’s feet to be most successful, there needs to be a multitude of states and political jurisdictions. In the current political climate, this would mean the breakup of the nation state. Secession and political decentralization should thus be the goals of those who prize individual liberty and prosperity, not the celebration of constitutionalism and the supposed guarantees of personal freedoms under ideas such as the Bill of Rights.
The Supreme Court is the problem, not the Constitution or Bill of Rights.
It, the Bill of Rights, was needed to form a single political State with a single people that could live together as a coherent nation.
As the American people “diversified” both ethnically and in political philosophy they deliberately made it a political tool for one side or the other, not an independent branch of government set aside from politics.
It is now the Supreme Court redefining what the Bill of Rights -as well as the rest of the Constitution- means in spite of what it says that is undoing that initial purpose to undo us as a single, independent and sovereign nation.
We have little time left as a peacefully unified single nation, be ready for it.
The fault belongs to more than the Supreme Court. It belongs to all of us who value the true basis for the Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence, upon which it was based. The U. S. gov’t is supposed to be based on a “bottom up” approach to government. Authority to govern comes from the people. That authority is based upon the respect of the individual rights of the people and the discipline of the people and those chosen to represent us to respect those rights. We lost that discipline when we learned that we could sell our support and votes to the highest bidder. Without the discipline, the respect for our rights became a meaningless gesture. The truth is that standards matter, and we no longer have the commitment to the standards required to support and protect those rights. The standards upon which the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are based were the eurocentric philosophies which guided the founders. We are no longer a eurocentric culture or society. When the denoument comes – when the multicultural chaos of the present collapses – and we return to a tribal based social and cultural structure, there will some who will seek return to the standards voiced by the writers of the Bill of Rights. I hope to be alive to be among them.
Whether or not, “Secession and political decentralization should thus be the goals of those who prize individual liberty and prosperity,” (I agree with that statement) devolution is a hurricane gathering force. We will witness the reversal of centralization in the next few decades.
The Constitution (and the 10th amendment in particular) was destroyed in the Civil War. We’ve been living a well propagandized lie for a long , long time.
You are so absolutely correct, dad! Too bad most history books gloss over such inconvenient truths!
The Constitution and its Bill of Rights is the main hope of our sense of a free republic continuing through the turmoil and breakups now devolving, as Robert puts it so well. I do not judge the Bill of Rights by how bad things are now. I believe things could/would be much worse without it. I also blame the Supreme Court in large part, because they have taken a consistently spineless approach to creeping federalism. States rights are well-defined and enshrined in the Constitution, and ignored to our detriment.
The fifty States (originally 13) were intended to also function as laboratories – that is, a given “experiment” in policy (say, property taxes: 5%? 15%? 50% or none at all?) could be tried in a different way in every state, and then the citizens could decide to standardize on a single best method, keep their own methods in each state, or whatever. The Statists, however, interpret the “supreme law of the land” to say that all must do what the Federals decide.
That improper interpretation alone leads to most of our current problems.
Also, the idea that the Federal budget need not be balanced is something that would have HORRIFIED the Founders; states that MUST be run on a balanced budget are far more fiscally responsible than those who think balanced budgets are a luxury.
Until the Federals learn that wiggle room is necessary for a system flexible enough to survive, they will flounder. Or sink; the days of easygoing deficits are nearly over, and settling up the books is going to make a lot of bureaucrats unhappy – and superfluous.
Our Constitution has been dead since old Abe decided that he knew better than the founders and trampled the Constitution in a manner not exceeded till FDR or maybe Obama the Kenyan fag.