Today is Bill of Rights Day. So it’s an appropriate time to consider the state of our constitutional safeguards and how the 1% and their friends in government are taking our rights away:
Let’s consider each amendment in turn.
The First Amendment says that “Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech.” Government officials, however, have insisted that they can gag recipients of “national security letters,” blacklist and prosecute whistleblowers, disbar attorneys in retaliation for zealous advocacy. At the behest of white collar criminals, governments too often fail and refuse to protect ethical employees in the government and the private sector when their rights are trampled upon by employers, large and small. See Ed Slavin & Tom Devine, "The Government's Secret War on Whistleblowers," ABA Young Lawyers Division (YLD) Barrister Magazine (Spring, 1991); Ed Slavin, "ALJ Independence Undermined -- What the Department of the Interior is Doing and Why," ABA Judges' Journal, (Spring, 1992)(Indian Probate Judges’ judicial independence violated by DoI); Ed Slavin, "The Pecking Order,” ABA Judges' Journal, (Spring, 1992)(sidebar to preceding article); Ed Slavin “How to Protect the Free Speech Rights of Employees,” ABA Individual Rights and Responsibilies News Report, (Winter 1991 Individual Rights and Responsibilities Section newsletter).
The First Amendment protects freedom of the press, but our inept news media is increasingly dominated by monopolists and oligopolists who care not a fig for investigative journalism, but are more interested in their “bottom lines.” The corporate news media does not uncover enough wrongdoing, leaving it to public interest groups and activists to perform the “watchdog function” that our Founders had in mind. Newspapers receiving ad dollars from corporations and government agencies (legal ads) are reluctant to bite the hands that feed them. See Tom Wicker, On Press (1977). News media too often focus on the interests of the 1%, rather than the interests of working people.
The First Amendment protects religious freedom, but is too often violated by people who attempt to inflict school prayer and indoctrination on defenseless school children.
The First Amendment guarantees the right to petition for a redress of grievances, but Occupy Wall Street protesters have been shot in the face with rubber bullets, illegally arrested and illegally spied upon. Our St. Johns River Water Management District recently persuaded a Court of Appeals to say citizens have no right to speak in public meetings, rejecting the challenge of my late mentor, KKK-buster Stetson Kennedy, who was denied the right to speak when SJRWMD voted to allow our St. Johns River water to be pumped out and wasted for Orlando’s lawns and golf courses.
The Second Amendment says the people have the right “to keep and bear arms.” Government officials, however, make it difficult to keep a gun in the home and make it a crime for a citizen to carry a gun for self-protection. Corporate miscreants manufacture and sell guns to criminals, making profit off of human misery, while pushing Congressional legislation that would violate “states’ rights” to regulate concealed guns by making states honor each others’ concealed gun permits (while the same shady elected officials seek to deny full faith and credit under our Constitution to state marriage licenses).
The Third Amendment says soldiers may not be quartered in our homes without the consent of the owners. This safeguard is one of the few that is in fine shape — so we can pause here for a laugh.
The Fourth Amendment says the people have the right to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures. Government officials, however, insist that they can conduct commando-style raids on our homes and treat airline travelers like prison inmates by conducting virtual strip searches. Privacy rights are under attack. Technology has expanded to bring about an Orwellian world of constant surveillance, without courts catching up. Warrantless searches are used to follow people using cell phones and automobiles using GPS technology. Government contractors spy on ethical workers under color of federal law, while government officials ignore their actions. Employers spy on workers engaging in protected activity with impunity. Workplace ID badges with computer chips enable employers to know where every worker is at all times. Discrimination in stops and searches of automobiles and pedestrians is rampant. For example, New York City Police have stopped and frisked tens of thousands of people based on epidermal pigmentation.
The Fifth Amendment says that private property shall not be taken “for public use without just compensation.” Government officials, however, insist that they can use eminent domain to take away our property and give it to other private parties who covet it. That’s not all folks – the Courts have held that the Fifth Amendment also guarantees Due Process of Law and Equal Protection, which is routinely violated in too many of our Courts. The Fifth Amendment protects citizens against self-incrimination, a right that is often flagrantly violated by law enforcement officers coercing confessions, even of children. Prosecutors brag that grand juries, required by the Fifth Amendment, would even “indict a ham sandwich.” Coerced confessions result in too many wrongful convictions, incarcerations and executions – systemic injustice that is a stench in the nostrils of our Nation.
The Sixth Amendment says that in criminal prosecutions, the person accused is guaranteed a right to trial by jury. Government officials, however, insist that they can punish people who want to have a trial—“throwing the book” at those who refuse to plead guilty—which explains why 95 percent of the criminal cases never go to trial. Most lawyers represent the rich and powerful ---- perhaps as much of 90% of lawyers, by former President Jimmy Carter’s reckoning. Poor and working people have a second-class system of justice in our country, as the few public defenders are outmatched by prosecutors due to lack of funding by local governments. The Sixth Amendment does not even apply to American Indian Reservations, leaving a million people without the right to lawyers, with incarceration for “crimes” that would not be crimes off the Reservation – Congress did this in the Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968, which selectively incorporates part of the Constitution, while including only the right to counsel “at their own expense.” See Ed Slavin, “Tribal Rights, Anglo Rights,” ABA Student Lawyer. (March 1986)(Indian Tribal court procedures denying rights other Americans take for granted)(Reprinted in L.A. Daily Journal).
The Seventh Amendment guarantees the right to a jury trial in civil cases where the controversy “shall exceed twenty dollars.” Government officials, however, insist that they can impose draconian fines on people without jury trials. The Seventh Amendment right to jury trials is being systematically wiped out by dodgy “contracts of adhesion” in which people are euchred into agreeing to secret courts and secret law (mediation and arbitration) as a term and condition of employment and purchasing goods and services. Big Government and Big Business seduce law schools into propagandizing in fvor of “Alternative Dispute Resolution,” a movement that is funded by those whom FDR called “malefactors of great wealth” -- plutocrats who hate juries – they seek an autocratic World without jury trials. Judge James Guill & Ed Slavin, "A Rush To Unfairness -- the Downside to Alternative Dispute Resolution," 28 American Bar Association Judges' Journal No. 3 (Summer 1989).
The Eighth Amendment prohibits cruel and unusual punishments. Government officials, however, insist that a life sentence for a nonviolent drug offense is not cruel. Too many people are incarcerated in our country for victimless crimes. Too many are subjected to solitary confinement. Too few of the 1% are ever prosecuted for any of their crimes, as the Securities and Exchange Commission in particular is an unjust and ineffectual steward, failing to protect the people from financial ruin at the behest of the 1%.
The Ninth Amendment says that the enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights should not be construed to deny or disparage others “retained by the people.” Government officials, however, insist that they will decide for themselves what rights, if any, will be retained by the people. Our right to be left alone is being violated, while Congress and states adopt Nuremberg style laws attacking the rights of Gay and Lesbian people to marry each other, a surrender to bigotry and intolerance.
The Tenth Amendment says that the powers not delegated to the federal government are reserved to the states, or to the people. Government officials, however, insist that they will decide for themselves what powers they possess, and have extended federal control over health care, crime, education, and other matters the Constitution reserves to the states and the people.
Our friends at Cato Institute left out a few pertinent parts of our Constitution – the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments were adopted after the Civil War resolved the matter of states’ rights (states have no right to secede or to violate human rights):
The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery and indentured servitude. Yet nonenforcement of worker protection laws renders millions of workers into virtual slaves, with employers demanding they agree to arbitration or mediation as a condition of employment, waiving their Seventh Amendment to jury trials in discrimination or other labor law cases. Millions of workers are working in “dark satanic mills” like nuclear weapons plants, without adequate protection. Farmworkers in particular have been found to be working in slave labor conditions, including workers in St. Johns County and adjoining counties. The U.S. Department of Labor long engaged in desuetude (nonenforcement) of worker protection laws, refusing to enforce laws on the books at the behest of corporation lobbyists. Some 5500 people die in American workplaces a year, most of them preventable deaths. Why? Due to government and employer indifference to the value of human life. Another 50,000 die of preventable occupational diseases. Enough!
The Fourteenth Amendment guarantees Equal Protection and Due Process by state and local governments. It states: No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. Yet everywhere the 1% are shown favoritism by governments, from the Courthouse to the White House. Laws that are more loophole than law are routinely enacted as ordinances, laws and regulations, allowing the 1% to steal from us. People without influence are too often treated as objects by Courts and Government agencies. In corporativist governments like that of Florida Governor Richard Scott, megacorporations don’t even need to ask for favors when their people are appointed to powerful posts and violate our rights to Equal Protection and Due Process. The Fourteenth Amendment was never intended to treat corporations as “persons,” but has been misinterpreted to do so, for more than a century, culminating in the Citizens United case, which allows unfettered and unregulated corporate cash to buy elections and politicians. Citizens United must be overturned by Constitutional amendment.
The Fifteenth Amendment protects minority voting rights, but across the South a wave of lawbreaking laws are being enacted to punish voter registration drives, limit early voting and otherwise chill, coerce and restrain the Right to Vote. Even our St. Johns County School Board tried to get in on the act, attempting to enact a discriminatory districting scheme that would have eroded minority voting strength in District 2. (After we filed complaints with two federal agencies, our St. Johns County School Board rightly dropped its scheme, which would have violated the Fifteenth Amendment).
It’s a disturbing snapshot, to be sure, but not one the Framers of the Constitution would have found altogether surprising. They would sometimes refer to written constitutions as mere “parchment barriers,” or what we call “paper tigers.” They nevertheless concluded that having a written constitution was better than having nothing at all.
The key point is this: A free society does not just “happen.” It has to be deliberately created and deliberately maintained. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.
The deeper point – missed by CATO and our “libertarian” friends -- is that our Constitutional rights are being shredded by the 1%. The 1% are violating our rights by the actions of their handmaidens, including bought-and-paid-for shills in Congress and the judiciary.
On December 15, 1791 – 220 years ago today – the Bill of Rights became effective. Now, 220 years later, we must work hard every day to honor it and make government and corporations obey it. It is not “a piece of paper” as President Bush said, but a living document that must be invoked and enforced every day to avoid arbitrary power and oppression.
Libertarians like CATO have it half-right: individual rights must be protected and not neglected.
Where libertarians fail, however, is when they propose to shrink government to allow wrongdoers to act with immunity (and impunity). That’s wrong.
The 1% are a clear and present danger to our liberty and our rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Overbearing one-percenters (like the KOCH BROTHERS) want to keep government out of the boardroom, and want to frustrate enforcement of environmental, antitrust and consumer protection laws.
The lesson is that the Constitution is for all of us, and not for the 1%.
In 1941, in the midst of a World War, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt declared December 15th to be Bill of Rights Day. FDR took on the 1% and won. FDR said of the one-percenters, “I welcome their hatred,” explaining in 1936:
We have not come this far without a struggle and I assure you we cannot go further without a struggle.
For twelve years this Nation was afflicted with hear-nothing, see-nothing, do-nothing Government. The Nation looked to Government but the Government looked away. Nine mocking years with the golden calf and three long years of the scourge! Nine crazy years at the ticker and three long years in the breadlines! Nine mad years of mirage and three long years of despair! Powerful influences strive today to restore that kind of government with its doctrine that that Government is best which is most indifferent.
For nearly four years you have had an Administration which instead of twirling its thumbs has rolled up its sleeves. We will keep our sleeves rolled up.
We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace--business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.
They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.
Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me--and I welcome their hatred.
I should like to have it said of my first Administration that in it the forces of selfishness and of lust for power met their match. I should like to have it said of my second Administration that in it these forces met their master.
… For all these we have only just begun to fight.
We must safeguard our liberties. Inspiring words of Senator Robert Taft inscribed upon the Taft Carillon on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., state:
LIBERTY HAS BEEN THE KEY TO
OUR PROGRESS IN THE PAST
AND IS THE KEY TO
OUR PROGRESS IN THE FUTURE
IF WE CAN PRESERVE LIBERTY
IN ALL ITS ESSENTIALS
THERE IS NO LIMIT TO THE FUTURE
OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE
It takes more than just a village to enforce our Constitution work, from City Hall to Congress. It takes the 99%, organized, empowered and informed.
There are more of us (99%) than there are of them (the 1%)!
We are the 99% and this is our town, our Nation and our time!
What do you reckon?
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