Funny, he doesn’t mention he was teaching Constitutional Law at the time and had plenty of law contacts to handle this for her… If he really wanted to.
On March 19, 2010, In Congress, By Andrew Schwartz
Contrary to popular opinion, the only rights the Constitution grants to the people are those rights enjoyed when being held in governmental control.
Not Congress, the President, the Supreme Court, nor even the Constitution grants an individual the right to freely exercise religion. They do not give the freedom of speech or press, nor do they bestow freedom to a peaceful assembly and petition.
The state does not give people the right to bear arms, nor does it grant a right to privacy.
It certainly never gives any citizen the right to life, liberty, or property; it doesn’t even grant its citizens the right to vote.
Only in the Sixth and Seventh Amendment does the Constitution specifically grant citizens rights, such as a speedy trial, the confrontation of witnesses and evidence, the nature of arrest, and the right to an attorney. These are the only rights citizens may enjoy, according to the Constitution, at the behest of the state.
Rather, in the First Amendment, it prohibits Congress from establishing any laws respecting the freedom of religion, press, speech, assembly, and petition.
The Second Amendment orders the government not to interfere with the right to bear arms.
The Fourth Amendment requires that the government not violate rights to personal security and infiltration.
The Fifth (and Fourteenth) Amendment does not grant the right to life, liberty and property—it tells the government it can’t interfere with this right without due process.
Even in the Fifteenth, Nineteenth, Twenty-fourth, and Twenty-sixth Amendments, the right to vote is not granted by their ratification, they simply tell the government it may not deny people of their right to vote based on race, sex, failure to pay a poll tax, or age.
Language is extremely important today, and it certainly was to the writers of the Bill of Rights, which was written “in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of [the original Constitution’s] powers.” They purposefully rejected drafting these amendments in a manner that would imply the states had granted individuals rights—this would invariably imply their ability to take rights away.
Imagine if the First Amendment had read, “This Amendment hereby grants all citizens the right to exercise religion, speech, press, assembly, and petition freely.” If it were so, citizens would be exercising these “rights” solely by permission of the state and not of their own liberty. If the citizen acts on these ideas only by permission of the state, he would be continually fearful of overstepping his bounds.
The framers of the Bill of Rights understood that it was not within a state’s power to grant individual liberties—at least not the state they wanted. The Constitution was never intended to demonstrate its authority by bestowing rights upon its people; it demonstrated its authority by preventing the government from interfering with rights that they believed inherently belonged to the individual. The state was to be a protector of rights, not a purveyor of them.
As for the positive rights the Constitution does allow the government to bestow, they are a protection on the individual citizen as well. In order for the government to reach the point where they may grant those rights in the Sixth and Seventh Amendments, they must first arrest and detain a citizen. Upon this act, and only upon this act, the individual is in the care of the government and is entitled to the standard of care the Constitution sets forth.
Those who advocate for and demand the government fulfill their “right to a job,” a “right to good wages,” a “right to a home,” or a “right to health care,” are really speaking in Redundancies. The Constitution already prevents the government from interfering with their right to pursue all of those things. But to demand that they be provided by the government also speaks in Contradictories, for in order for the federal government to provide, to finance these things, they must interfere with and violate another individual’s freedom.
Barack Obama has complained that the Constitution contains too many Negative Liberties—those liberties that prevent the state from taking action—and not enough Positive Liberties. It seems he has never understood that positive governmental liberties always come at the expense of another’s individual liberties. Negative Liberties, on the other hand, only prevent Leviathan from growing fat with power.
In 1513, the Medici Pope Leo X was facing the likely possibility of a bankrupt Roman Catholic Church. The magnific building projects to bolster the church’s image were begun with no foresight to their long-term economic consequences, and the crusades into the Holy Land and other foreign proselytizing campaigns had drained the papal treasury. Christendom, as any centralized power is wont to do, had become indebted to her constituents and the world.
In order to combat the Holy Deficit, the Pope began to issue indulgences to the lowly sinners of the congregation in order to forgive them—not of their past transgressions, but of their future sins. Of course, this was not an act of spiritual altruism; forgiveness came at a tangible price, which was imposed on a progressive scale determined by one’s wealth and the atrocity of their sin. The Catholic Church had become so dogmatic and authoritative that unsuspecting and fearful Catholics bought into this scheme without question—to oppose this plan could have meant the eternal damnation of one’s earthly soul.
History, despite her eternal struggle for progress, has been ordained once again to repeat her orbit around the selfish desires of man. (more…)
Nazi Propaganda Poster
Godwin’s law states (paraphrased) that the longer an argument ensues, the probability of one side accusing the other of behaving like Nazis reaches 1 (a perfect probability). Despite its humorous pretenses, this law has certainly been proven in the recent debate over health care reform. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) accused protestors of carrying swastikas; Rep. Brian Baird (D-WA) compared their actions to “Brown Shirt tactics.” Prominent conservative radio host, Rush Limbaugh, in turn made similarities between Obama’s health care logo and Nazi propaganda, and even made comparisons between the Nazi party and the Democratic party.
What makes the argument confusing is when most of us learned about the political spectrum in a publicly funded educational institution, we were taught that Communists are on the far left of the spectrum and Fascists/Nazis are on the far right. This is not accurate by any means if one accepts a more modern definition of the spectrum that puts increased government involvement on the left and less government involvement on the right. In other words, Communists would still be on the far left, but Anarchists would be on the extreme right.
But which party is more like the Nazis? Is it the left-wing Democrats or the right-wing Republicans. Where does fascism really lie? To shed light on this argument, I have listed the 25 point program adopted by Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist German Workers’ (Nazi) Party, and compared them with modern-day viewpoints from mainstream political affiliations. Scores are tabulated at the end of each point.
1. We demand the union of all Germans in a Great Germany on the basis of the principle of self-determination of all peoples.
Principles of self-determination is a very right-wing mindset, as is American Exceptionalism. However, the word “demand” (fordern in German) is a very authoritarian verb and would require a large-scale government to enforce, which is typically a left-wing idea. Nevertheless, the principle is right-wing. RW-1, LW-0
2. We demand that the German people have rights equal to those of other nations; and that the Peace Treaties of Versailles and St. Germain shall be abrogated.
This assertion is politically benign, as it is only demanding the basic rights of a state. Its demand that the treaties of Versaille and St.Germain-en-laye be rescinded was an attempt to regain its standing as a legitimate country. Those treaties broke up the German Empire—which is important in the next point—and redrew the map of Europe; they forced Germany to accept guilt in starting World War I, a highly debatable attestation at best; they also limited the size of the army Germany was allowed to maintain. Point number two does not reflect any specific view on the political spectrum; it only wished to remove the implication of international subservience that Germany was currently under. RW-1, LW-0
3. We demand land and territory (colonies) for the maintenance of our people and the settlement of our surplus population.
This appears to be a right-wing attitude, as that spectrum recently has been viewed as imperial and expansionist. However, this demand was an extension of the previous point. Germany wanted its land that was hers prior to World War I in order to feed (Ger. Ernährung) its outlying loyalists. Be that as it may, its smack of neo-conservatism forces a score. RW-2, LW-0
4. Only those who are our fellow countrymen can become citizens. Only those who have German blood, regardless of creed, can be our countrymen. Hence no Jew can be a countryman.
Irrelevant in American politics. Some would argue that racism and anti-Semitism is a right-wing characteristic, but they do so on the assumption that Nazism and fascism are right-wing philosophies. Stalin’s Soviet Union killed more Jews than Hitler did, but that does not mean a left-wing Communist philosophy is racist. Despite common portrayals in mainstream media, no American political party can claim they have conquered racism nor accuse the other of harboring it. RW-2, LW-0
5. Those who are not citizens must live in Germany as foreigners and must be subject to the law of aliens.
Allowing non-citizens to live within the political boundaries of a state is generally a left-wing position, as the seemingly popular opinion among the right is to deport all those who are in the country illegally. In regards to aliens with visas, neither spectrum in America holds any prominent posits on a different rule of law to which they must subject themselves. RW-2, LW-1
