Thursday, December 15, 2011

Killing The Bill Of Rights On Its Anniversary

The title of this post is the header of an email that I received today from Matt Hawes of the Campaign for Liberty. I post the significant portion of Mr. Hawes' email below.

Today marks the 220th anniversary of the day the Bill of Rights were officially added to the Constitution.

Ironically, the U.S. Senate is set to kill the 4th, 5th, 6th, and 8th amendments of that Bill of Rights later today.

Last night, the U.S. House approved the Conference Report version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which includes provisions that would allow the President to throw American citizens in jail and keep them there indefinitely.

The Senate is set to vote on this bill . . . today.

The Bill Of Rights is now legally dead. Yes, 220 years is a pretty good run -- unless you happen to be living on the day it dies.

I am going to try to forbear haranguing anybody about their political preferences, but you need to know that both major-party political establishments are behind this, or it would not be passed with such overwhelming support. Please forgive me if I am silent whenever I hear anybody's future enthusiams about your party in Washington. The Republican and Democrat insiders both favored this. (Because there is only one Inside.) And they have an absolute majority.

Please don't bother telling me how pro-life you are, how pro-Israel, how pro-troops, how above-politics, how respect-the-government, how you can hardly wait for Jesus to come back, how you don't believe in conspiracy theories, how we're-going-to-take-it-back, how anything. Not because your views are wrong, but because they don't matter.

Why don't they matter? Because, actually, there was a significant group of people in Congress who voted against this death warrant, and their views and votes don't matter either.*

It's over, folks.

And it wasn't the "liberals" who destroyed our freedoms, or the "radical Islamists," or "Obama," or the "Occupy" people. Not without the active support of conservatives, neo-conservatives, religious-establishment Christians and Jews, Wall Street, and active and retired military.

This day has come because of entrenched evil in the underworld that has shamelessly seduced our legitimate government. Yes, they have fooled the people; but the people were far too easily fooled. And the people who cared were too few, and too weak.

Do I still love and respect the Constitution? Yes, of course.

Do I have any hope? Yes, but only because I believe in Resurrection. It gives Wendell Berry's advice (given in a slightly different context, but applicable) new importance.

"Practice Resurrection."

* * *
Comment if you care.


* There were 13 Senators who voted against the bill in its final form: 6 Republicans, 6 Democrats, 1 Independent:
NAYs ---13
Cardin (D-MD)
Coburn (R-OK)
Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)
Durbin (D-IL)
Franken (D-MN)
Harkin (D-IA)
Lee (R-UT)
Merkley (D-OR)
Paul (R-KY)
Risch (R-ID)
Sanders (I-VT)
Wyden (D-OR)

Judge Andrew Napolitano has just written an article on this subject. You can read it here.

3 comments:

  1. i care. thus my comment. admittedly i feel inadequately informed about the current state of things. But be patient with me, i am beginning to do my home work and your posts are, as always, very helpful for me in this new and late venture.
    -kirk

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  2. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  3. All things are connected -- should it take quantum physicists and billion-dollar experiments to convince us of the simple fact?

    What we do to our enemies, we multiply to ourselves.

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