Freedom to choose, that is what the Founders created. The freedom to choose which words you will use, which clothes to wear, what foods you will eat, what brands you will buy, which businesses to patron, which elections you will participate in, which vote to cast, freedom to move without oppression and without intervention, freedom to work, freedom hire, Freedom of association and the freedom to discriminate all without reprise.
In this social contract called the United States, we have to competing elements of political forces. One is the People themselves and the other is the elected. The People themselves are the John Lockes, naturally because the Founders created a free thought society, while the elected are the Thomas Hobbes, always looking for some evil to regulate, even where there is none and creating laws to oppress and control FREEDOM.
Locke and Hobbes were both social contract theorists, and both natural law theorists (Natural law in the sense of Saint Thomas Aquinas, not Natural law in the sense of Newton), but there the resemblance ends. All other natural law theorists assumed that man was by nature a social animal.
Locke believes that man by natural can rule itself, that ultimately evil is undone by the good, because inherently, people are good. Contrarily, Locke would have you believe man needs to be ruled because by nature, man is evil and selfish to the core.
More than 350 years ago, America’s first known system of law enforcement was established in Boston. As soon as colonists had settled there in 1630, local ordinances had allowed for constables to be appointed. Soon after, in April 1631, the townspeople formed a “watch” made up of six watchmen, one constable, and several volunteers who patrolled at night, walking the rounds. Initially run by a combination of obligatory and voluntary participation, the 17th century watch typically reported fires, maintained order in the streets, raised the “hue and cry” (pursuing suspected criminals with loud cries to raise alarm), and captured and arrested lawbreakers. Constables had similar tasks, which included maintaining health and sanitation and bringing suspects and witnesses to court—frequently for such conduct as working on the Sabbath, cursing in public places, and failing to pen animals properly.
This early policing system was modeled after the English structure, which incorporated the watch, constables, and sheriffs (derived from the British term, “shire-reeves”) in a community-based police organization. (Interestingly, the British system developed from “kin policing” dating back to about 900 A.D., in which law enforcement power was in the people’s hands, and they were responsible for their families or “kin.”)
In 1749, Philadelphia passed a law that restructured the watch in an attempt to solve these problems. Now, officials called wardens had authority to hire watchmen as needed. Their powers were increased, and a tax paid the watch. All male citizens were no longer obligated to work when summoned, and only men interested in the paid job applied. Philadelphia’s reform was not the ultimate solution, but it fueled progress and inspired others to make similar improvements.
Even with positive developments like these, the Colonial law enforcement system still required drastic change. During the Industrial Revolution of the early 19th century, the number of factories, buildings, and people surged substantially. New York, for example, jumped from a population of 33,000 in 1790 to 150,000 in 1830. The overall boom in industrial growth and overcrowding brought more crime, riots, public health issues, race and socio-economic divisions, and general disorder. The solution? A new and improved law enforcement system implemented first by England in 1829: a stronger, more centralized, preventive police force, designed to deter crime from happening, rather than to react once it had occurred. How do you do that without violations of the Bill of Rights? What freedom do we give up for that?
First Amendment is the topic today, for the law makers, law enforcement and judges reviewing are violating it on it daily basis and brain washing you into believing what they are doing is right using Hobbeist theory.
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ….
or abridging the freedom of speech……
or of the press ….
or the right of the people peaceably to assemble…..
and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
Religion cannot be legislated for or against by Congress, right? Right! Congress, not the state, not the city, not the school, only Congress. So what happened that every time we turn around, there is something be shouted about religion and courts are stripping a townhall, a courthouse, a school, etc of religious markings, a bible passage, a student giving a school speech, the list goes on.
In recent years the Supreme Court has placed the Establishment and the Free Exercise of Religion Clauses in mutual tension, but it was not so for the Framers. None of the Framers believed that a governmental connection to religion was an evil in itself. Rather, many (though not all) opposed an established church because they believed that it was a threat to the free exercise of religion. Their primary goal was to protect free exercise. Most of the Founding generation believe that government ought to be “untainted” by religion, or ought not to take an interest in furthering the people’s connection to religion. The Northwest Ordinance (1787), which the First Congress reenacted, stated: “Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.” As President, George Washington’s practice concretized the understanding of most of his contemporaries. In his first inaugural address, Washington declared as his “first official act” his “fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the universe” that He might bless the new government.
There is nothing in the drafting history of the First Amendment that contradicts Washington’s understanding of the appropriate relation between government and religion. In the First Congress, the committee proposal in the House read, “no religion shall be established by law, nor shall the equal rights of conscience be infringed.” But some evinced concern that the phrase might put in doubt the legitimacy of some of the states’ own religious establishments. Six of the original thirteen states had established churches. James Madison believed modifying the phrasing to prohibit a “national religion” would be sufficient to allay that concern and would make clear that the new government was not to impinge on the rights of conscience by establishing a governmental connection to a church. Representative Samuel Livermore of New Hampshire suggested that “Congress shall make no laws touching religion or the rights of conscience.” The House finally settled on this language: “Congress shall make no law establishing religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, nor shall the rights of Conscience be infringed.” The Senate preferred the formula “Congress shall make no law establishing articles of faith, or a mode of worship, or prohibiting the free exercise of religion,” which likely would have permitted direct financial support to a sect. In the end, the conference between the House and the Senate agreed on the current version: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” The addition of the word “respecting” is significant. It prohibits Congress from legislating either to establish a national religion or to disestablish a state religion.
The modern view of the Establishment of Religion Clause began with Everson v. Board of Education of Ewing in 1947, where the Court initiated the current separationist approach to the Establishment of Religion Clause. On the way to reaching its decision, the Supreme Court held that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment applied the First Amendment’s proscriptions against establishment to the states. This is where the err of the court comes into play. The Establishment of Religion Clause was designed as a protection of the states against the federal government. It seems anomalous to many scholars, even to some who support incorporation generally, that the Establishment of Religion Clause could be called an individual right for purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment. Notwithstanding the historians’ doubts, the Supreme Court has firmly adhered to the incorporation of the Establishment of Religion Clause against the states. As a result of the incorporation of the Religion Clause into the Fourteenth Amendment, almost all of the federal cases compelling “separation of church and state” have been applied against state laws. Thus, we now have a freedom lost at the State level forever foregoing the rights of the state via the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.
Freedom of speech: Slander, libel, obscenity, sedition, bigotry, hate words, discrimination, fighting words, copyright infringement , just to name a few that has been trounced upon via the courts. In 1992 The Supreme Court overwhelmingly said that hate speech cannot be regulated and all laws concerning such are a direct violation of the First Amendment. Why? Because they discriminate against an individual or a group of people and therefore the laws themselves become discriminant.
I watched Demolition Man quite a few times and each time I feel like John Spartan saying “what?” each time a machine spit out a ticket, citing for his use of words. Besides, I hate Taco Bell. But what did the Founders say and where did this infringement of speech come from? The Founders, well one founder namely John Adams, in an attempt to make immigration harder, together with the 5th Congress wanted to make sure that anyone, immigrating to the United States was going to be loyal. So, within 7 yrs of the adoption of the Bill of Rights, was the creation of the Alien and Sedition Acts. The laws prohibited the publication of “false, scandalous, and malicious writings against the government of the United States, or either house of the Congress of the United States, or the President of the United States, with intent to defame…or to bring them…into contempt or disrepute; or to excite against them…hatred of the good people of the United States, or to stir up sedition within the United States, or to excite any unlawful combinations therein, for opposing or resisting any law of the United States, or any act of the President of the United States”. Since then, the revisionist courts have used this against the PEOPLE of the United States in as many applicable circumstances they possibly can. But notice the word “publication”.
Fighting words: Inflammatory words that are either injurious by themselves or might cause the hearer to immediately retaliate or breach the peace. Use of such words is not necessarily protected “free speech” under the First Amendment, but why not? Has a crime been committed yet? Is the hearer incapable of self physical restraint as to not physically assault someone because of their words? Granted, at time it becomes hard for most people. But a word causes no injuries unless the hearer allows it to, but the physical damage is none until the first punch is thrown. Once it is, then a crime has been committed. The same goes with all slander, libel, obscenity, sedition, bigotry, hate words, discrimination, fighting words, with exception to whereas monetary and or reputation damage has been done via slander and libel.
Peaceably assemble: Wait you need a permit. Wait! You need police presence. Wait! There are rules for this. Wait! You cannot do that here. Really? No law abridging. Gather here! But what about the cutoff of the flow of traffic or pedestrian movement? You do not have the right to stop our freedom of movement. Once you stop a car, it is not peaceable. Once you trash the park, it is not peaceable. Burning of objects is not peaceable. Law Enforcement themselves should not be aiding and abetting the criminal act of stopping the flow of traffic or pedestrian venues unless a safety hazard exists and even then, the person moving about has a free choice to enter at own risk.
Redress of grievances, government. Not Petition.org , nor moveon.org, not FB, Twitter etc. Petition Congress, the President, any of his cabinet, the courts. Riot and mass demonstration is not a First Amendment right. Let’s look:
When considering the Bill of Rights, Congress approved the right to petition with little controversy. The right to assembly was somewhat more controversial. Four of the original thirteen states expressly guaranteed the right of assembly in their constitutions or charters in 1789. This right, however, was considered more of an adjunct to other rights than an independent right. Representative Theodore Sedgwick moved to strike the words “to assemble and” from what became the First Amendment. He believed the words to be unnecessary surplusage. He argued, “If people freely converse together, they must assemble for that purpose; it is a self-evident, unalienable right which the people possess; it is certainly a thing that never would be called in question.” Sedgwick lost, however, in part because many believed that the right of the people to assemble encompassed the right to assemble in a constitutional convention and change the structure of government, a right in fact established in the Constitution itself in Article V.
Congress initially took petitions very seriously, following the tradition of its colonial forebears. The House of Representatives scheduled time into its regular business in order to hear petitions on the floor. Typically, the Representative of the petitioner’s state would assume the role of referring the petition to a special committee for consideration. The committee considered petitions and reported to Congress, resulting either in a consideration of a bill or rejection of the petition. The exception was in petitions regarding slavery. A pattern developed by which Congress responded to petitions by sending them to committee, where they ultimately died without being answered, rejected, or denied.
The right to petition, along with the right to peaceable assembly, became less important as modern democratic politics gradually replaced petitioning and public protests as the primary means for constituents to express their views to their representatives. Today, Congress treats most petitions in a pro forma way. A Representative may present a petition on behalf of a private party to the Clerk of the House, who enters it in the Journal. Which ultimately means, it is ignored.
In March, 2012, President Obama signed into law H.R. 347, titled: “Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011”. Despite its official title, the law has become known as the “Trespass Bill”. The law potentially makes peaceful protest anywhere in the United States a federal felony with a possible penalty of ten years in prison. United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542 (1876), addressed the”right of the people peaceably to assemble”, but ruled the First Amendment guarantee protected the right against only federal government encroachment. Meaning, that I as an individual, a business owner, the state, a city, etc can stop you from entering certain areas, for they are not the Federal Government. However, Obama signed the law via the Federal Government which is 100% unConstitutional and therefore null and void. Any attempt by any law enforcement to enforce this law is a hostile act and clear violation of their oath. This goes with any and all legislation aimed at determent, rather than enforcement.
I for one will not trade freedom for security.
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