Knee Deep in Mud

Downer

I've had almost no time in front of a computer that doesn't have a drawing of a building on it for the last 2 weeks so most emails and websites I frequent have been quite lonely or completely ignored. For whatever reason I did just read an email update from freemarket.net Director of Operations Sunni Maravillosa.

And now I want to go lie down in my bed and burst into tears at how hopeless it all seems.

An excerpt:

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Speechless
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Amazingly, it's happened to me

I guess the fact that you're reading this doesn't mean that I'm
completely speechless, but for this entire month I have been unable
to muster my usual enthusiasm for my work, and for my nonpaying
passion, which is writing about freedom. I've felt it building for
some time, yet was unable to identify its source. June 21 provided
an unambiguous jolt that I'm still trying to overcome.

No, I've nothing against the start of summer (although that happens
on June 20 now). June 21, 2004 is the date the U.S. Supreme Court put
the nail in the coffin of the Bill of Rights. For all practical
purposes, we can declare them dead -- and, similarly to what happened
to Tom Paine, the death seems to have been largely unnoticed.

The First Amendment has been dead for years, as governments at all
levels have stifled free speech of commercial, religious, sexual, and
political sorts when it's suited them. While I've not learned of any
laws passed respecting the establishment of any religion, the Ten
Commandments court battles, pledge of allegiance lawsuits, and any
number of other legal activities have shown that many in this country
are very motivated to create or reinforce legal precedents that
encourage certain types of religious expression, often at the expense
of others.

While the most good news, Constitution-wise, may stem from recent
progress against Second Amendment foes, the fact that an individual's
unalienable right to keep and bear arms has been soundly trampled
by jurisdictions from the Supreme Court down and legislators at
many levels shows that it's dead, too. Has been since 1934, in
case anyone's keeping score.

Many individuals discount the Third Amendment as archaic and
irrelevant to today's American society. I beg to differ; and I view
it as long dead, as well. Who needs physical soldiers quartered in
one's home when the Patriot Act allows the ever-seeking eye of the
state to peer into one's life increasingly easily, particularly by
monitoring an individual's web and email activity? We don't bear
the physical costs of soldiers among us; instead we bear the
thousands of tiny cuts of taxes, fees, and limitations on our
freedoms that becoming a Database Nation, as some like to call it,
has brought us.

Amendment Four, prohibiting unreasonable search and seizure, has also
been gutted. At the national level (some pockets of resistance have
been reported in some states, as readers of our Freedom News Daily
newsletter know) there's apparently no such thing as an unreasonable
search. I remember getting a very queasy feeling about this when the
Supremes okayed random traffic stops -- way back in the 70s or 80s,
that was.

The Hiibel case is the one that killed the Fifth Amendment, which had
been struggling on life support for a while. I really can't say any
more about this one, except to point you to a very compelling essay
by Mr. Hiibel himself:

http://www.free-market.net/rd/429204362.html

He says it much better than I could.

The right to a speedy and impartial trial has been nibbled away, as
"voir dire" -- French for "jury stacking", as my friend Vin
Suprynowicz says -- has made an impartial jury impossible. And in a
case of great personal importance to me, the prosecuting attorney
said, apparently with a straight face, that the speedy trial
guarantee wasn't at issue because the defendant had been released
on bond. If you'd like proof, read the news story yourself
(the "speedy trial" sentence is near the end of the story):

http://www.free-market.net/rd/797829035.html

The Seventh Amendment -- guaranteeing a right to trial at common law
for any case involving a sum over twenty dollars -- is another murky
one. But no matter, it's dead anyway. Wasn't Laura Kriho denied a
jury trial? And isn't it the case that once a lawsuit becomes
certified as a class-action suit, all similar suits become part of
it whether the plaintiff desires it or not?

No excessive bail, fines, or cruel and unusual punishment? Is it
cruel for the courts to order public humiliation, as is now becoming
fashionable in some states? If not, how about ordering a couple not
to have more children until they can prove they can care for the ones
they already have? (What about the state meeting such criteria for
the thousands of children they take away from families each year?)

http://www.free-market.net/rd/609304909.html

The Ninth Amendment is a real laugher these days. So few individuals
understand what rights really are that we now live under regulations
like the Americans with Disabilities Act. Whether it began with
good intentions or not, the results are clear: it's become a
politically-correct means of nannying individuals and organizations,
in the name of "rights". Almost makes me wish a right to be left
alone had been one of the ten ...

And last, the Tenth Amendment, reserving rights not enumerated by
the Constitution to the states or the people. How quaint! So, when
will California, Colorado, and Oregon medical marijuana patients
stop being harassed by the DEA? In fact, when will the war on
all drugs (including those approved by the state but sometimes
taken in larger quantities and/or shorter intervals than the state
approves of by we the serfs) end? I dare not think how long this
amendment has been spat upon -- it's easily a century.

Lest anyone think I've gone all patriot or Constitutionalist, I can
assure you I haven't. I don't think I've ever expected some words on
a piece of paper, irrespective of how lofty they are, to protect me
or "give" me anything -- especially not liberty.

But others do. And that cuts to the core of why the Hiibel case has
affected me so strongly. I haven't seen any mainstream (that is,
nonlibertarian) coverage of the thorough destruction of the Bill of
Rights. For that matter, the only sites I've seen that have protested
the Hiibel decision are pro-freedom sites.

The magnitude of the task before those of us who love freedom has
been revealed, in the yawning indifference of Americans to this
decision. I wonder how many of us are checking our "Claire Wolfe
clocks", and saying something like, "Wow -- how did it get to be
half-past time to shoot the bastards without me noticing?"

On June 21 the Supreme Court killed any pretense that may have
remained of protecting the Constitution, and thereby U.S. citizens,
from abuse at the hands of the state. And most of America scratched,
belched, and turned on the TV.

It's too early to say, but my optimism may have died that day too. I
hope not, but for now, I continue to be speechless in response to
the trends in the U.S.


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