Individual Rights vs. Government Powers

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Sat, 22 Jul 2006 11:05:07 GMT <== Politics ==>

I posted the following in this High Road thread.

aryfrosty said:

Owning guns is a right guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. It's worth every fight we enter to preserve it.

NOWHERE in the United States Constitution or the Bill of Rights is found the "right" or the privilege or otherwise to smoke dope or use or deal in any other illegal drugs. Nowhere! You guys who believe people have a "right granted by God to disobey the laws" are perverting the spirit of the law to suit your personal agenda.

I could argue with lots of the rest of this drug stuff, but we'll just continue to talk past each other, so why bother. But this is the kernel of the problem.

The United States government was created to preserve individal liberty. That is the only reason it exists. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. -- That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed..."

Yes, I realize that the Declaration of Independence is not the law of the land. But it is the spirit of the law of the land, the reason the United States exist.

Liberty means that you and I may do anything we desire. Anything. As long as we do not directly infringe on the liberty of another. The government exists to help control infringements when they happen. Unfortunately, it has become the largest infringer, morphing into a huge mechanism to protect us from ourselves, to try to prevent us from making mistakes instead of allowing us to learn from them, to enforce the majority morality.

The Bill of Rights is important. It states in very plain language, places that government legislation may not go. It's somewhat of a dead letter today, since they've not only gone there, they've built a super highway through the area. What the Bill of Rights is not, however, as elucidated by the Ninth Amendment, is an inclusive list of our rights. It's the other way around. The Constitution is an inclusive list of the government's powers. Anything not explicitly stated there is not their business. They may not restrict our liberty, ever, in any way, unless the Constitution gives permission.

The several states each has its own constitution. I won't discuss state laws here, since that would take a very long time, and since I'm not familiar with most of them. So the rest of this post concerns the federal Constitition and the powers of the federal government.

Show me the place in the U.S. Constitution where the government is given the authority to create new crimes. There are a handful of crimes mentioned in the Constitution. That's all they get.

Show me where the U.S. government is given the power to prohibit possession of anything. It's not there. They used to know this. Prohibition of alcohol was done as a Constitutional amendment because that's the only way it could be done. Legally. The original marijuana prohibition was done as a stamp tax, on interstate commerce. The same for machine guns and short barreled rifles and shotguns. The original law was a transfer tax. The taxes were made large, in the money of the time, to make it difficult for most people to afford. But they only applied to transfers across state lines, because even a liberal reading of the Constitution allows only that, and even that was stretching the Commerce Clause.

Nowadays, the Commerce Clause has been stretched and pulled like salt water taffy. It's become so elastic that it permits anything the feds want to do. The same elasticity that allows them to prohibit drugs will allow them, and not too long from now, to send their goons from house to house to take away our guns.

Note that I don't recommend ingesting psychoactive substances. Been there. Done that. Learned better. If somebody commits an actual crime, hurts somebody or steals their property, under the influence of drugs, arrest him, throw the book at him. But not because he was high. That's nobody's business. Because he directly infringed on another's liberty without their consent.

The natural consequences of drug abuse are severe and appropriate. We need nothing else. And the government has no authority to provide it.

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Comments (5):

"NOWHERE in the United

Submitted by Billy Beck on Sat, 22 Jul 2006 13:05:05 GMT

"NOWHERE in the United States Constitution or the Bill of Rights is found the 'right' or the privilege or otherwise to smoke dope or use or deal in any other illegal drugs."

You might inform this person, Bill, that "NOWHERE in the United States Constitution or the Bill of Rights is found" the right to bake a pizza, raise flowers in a garden, change the oil in one's car, play a guitar, read a book, go to a movie, fix one's roof, brew a cup of coffee, mow the lawn, throw a birthday party, vacuum the carpets, etc., etc., on and on, all day long. The list of things that we might do as a matter of right which are not found in the constitution is endless. And the logic of his position is that anything not explicitly approved in the constitution is forbidden. On that premise, there is no serious way to validate the original American political value of freedom.

His attitude is quite pervasive, now, and it's a big part of why I call our historical era "The Endarkenment".

It's absolutely appalling. This person is not an American, and it is way past time to start pointing this out in bold print.

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That's why I wrote this

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Sat, 22 Jul 2006 21:05:33 GMT

That's why I wrote this little essay, but you, Mr. Beck, have said it much more succinctly.

Care to paste your post over in that The High Road thread? Or will all the gummint apologists over there raise your blood pressure too much? There ARE lovers of liberty over there, but there are JBTs, too.

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The oft' forgotten 9th Amendment

Submitted by David Goodyear on Sun, 23 Jul 2006 12:41:47 GMT

"NOWHERE in the United States Constitution or the Bill of Rights is found the 'right' or the privilege or otherwise to smoke dope or use or deal in any other illegal drugs."

oh...here it is...

9th Amendment to the Constitution...

"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others."
-- Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782. The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, (Memorial Edition) Lipscomb and Bergh, editors, ME 2:221

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I have too many forums and

Submitted by Billy Beck on Sun, 23 Jul 2006 14:11:28 GMT

I have too many forums and blogs, etc., to keep up with, Bill. Take my remarks and spread 'em as far & wide as you see fit, sir.

Onward.

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The Bad Con

Submitted by Anonymous on Sun, 23 Jul 2006 14:30:23 GMT

The United States government was created to preserve individal liberty.

"Preserve" implies "forever" to me.

Even the Original Dads knew better.

The experiment failed.

We're on our own, like we always have been.

jomama

http://djomama.blogspot.com

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Quotes

Government doesn't work. Never did. Never will. Can't. But there are lots of good people. Love them.

-- Bill St. Clair

The Atlanta Declaration

Every man, woman, and responsible child has an unalienable individual, civil, Constitutional, and human right to obtain, own, and carry, openly or concealed, any weapon -- rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- any time, any place, without asking anyone's permission.

-- L. Neil Smith

Reread that pesky first clause of the Second Amendment. It doesn't say what any of us thought it said. What it says is that infringing the right of the people to keep and bear arms is treason. What else do you call an act that endangers "the security of a free state"? And if it's treason, then it's punishable by death. I suggest due process, speedy trials, and public hangings.

-- L. Neil Smith

A Penalty Clause for the Bill of Rights

Any official, appointed or elected, at any level of government, who attempts, through legislative act or other means, to nullify, evade, or avoid the provisions of the first ten amendments to this Constitution, or of the Thirteenth Amendment, shall be summarily removed from office, and, upon conviction, deprived of all pay and benefits including pension, and sentenced to imprisonment for life.

-- L. Neil Smith

Based on 253 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications, and some of its own empirical work, the panel couldn't identify a single gun control regulation that reduced violent crime, suicide or accidents.

-- John Lott, commenting on the National Academy of Sciences report on gun control laws.

Who is a libertarian?

Zero Aggression Principle ("Zap")

"A libertarian is a person who believes that no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being, or to advocate or delegate its initiation. Those who act consistently with this principle are libertarians, whether they realize it or not. Those who fail to act consistently with it are not libertarians, regardless of what they may claim."

-- L. Neil Smith

(Formerly called the "Non-Aggression Principle", or "NAP")

Why Did It Have to be... Guns?

Make no mistake: all politicians -- even those ostensibly on the side of guns and gun ownership -- hate the issue and anyone, like me, who insists on bringing it up. They hate it because it's an X-ray machine. It's a Vulcan mind-meld. It's the ultimate test to which any politician -- or political philosophy -- can be put.

If a politician isn't perfectly comfortable with the idea of his average constituent, any man, woman, or responsible child, walking into a hardware store and paying cash -- for any rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- without producing ID or signing one scrap of paper, he isn't your friend no matter what he tells you.

If he isn't genuinely enthusiastic about his average constituent stuffing that weapon into a purse or pocket or tucking it under a coat and walking home without asking anybody's permission, he's a four-flusher, no matter what he claims.

What his attitude -- toward your ownership and use of weapons -- conveys is his real attitude about you. And if he doesn't trust you, then why in the name of John Moses Browning should you trust him?

-- L. Neil Smith

Concise

"Tell me," I was once asked, "What do you think about gun control? Give me the short answer." To which I replied, "If you try to take our firearms we will kill you."

-- Mike Vanderboegh

Also from The Atlanta Declaration:

... like going to the bathroom, breathing, eating, sleeping, or making love, it turns out that self-defense is a bodily function one cannot safely or effectively delegate to a second party.

-- L. Neil Smith

This does not mean that "Marijuana should be available by prescription." It means that morphine sulfate should be available in five pound bags at the supermarket for a couple of bucks, like sugar... but probably in a different aisle, to avoid confusion.

-- Vin Suprynowicz

If you refuse to pay unjust taxes, your property will be confiscated. If you attempt to defend your property, you will be arrested. If you resist arrest, you will be clubbed. If you defend yourself against clubbing, you will be shot dead. These procedures are known as the Rule of Law.

-- Edward Abbey

The state can only survive as long as a majority is programmed to believe that theft isn't wrong if it's called taxation or asset forfeiture or eminent domain, that assault and kidnapping isn't wrong if it's called arrest, that mass murder isn't wrong if it's called war.

-- Bill St. Clair

End the War on Freedom