Thoughts on The Bill of Rights
By Michael Gay. April 27th, 2018
There is a move afoot wanting to repeal the second amendment to the constitution. In the excellent little book “Mitzvah” Aaron Zelman and L. Neil Smith observed that it is an elementary exercise in logic to see that eliminating the Bill of Rights, or any portion thereof de-ratifies the Constitution, which is the basis of the government in which the “repeal” of the second amendment would be taking place. This would be a logical impossibility and illegal.
However, we must question if this would bother anyone in government considering what has happened to other portions of the Bill of Rights in the past several years, and indeed over the past few decades.
Just to be sure that this is understood, the Bill of Rights does not grant anyone any rights. The rights contained therein are the unalienable rights illuminated in the Declaration of Independence, “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal and are endowed by there Creator with certain unalienable rights, among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” These rights so illuminated are then enumerated in the Bill of Rights. This document does not “grant” rights, it declares them so there is to be no mistake on the part of the men and women in government, and places restrictions on the government to run roughshod over the inherent rights of Americans. As the Bill of Rights says in its preamble, “...in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added. . .”
However, it must also be understood that the parchments upon which our government has been established, with its powers and limitations spelled out, are not sufficient to guarantee that the government will abide by those limitations.
“I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon laws and upon courts. These are false hopes, believe me, these are false” hopes. Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there no constitution, no law, no court can save it.”
Judge Learned Hand
“It is sad that governments are chiefed by the double tongues. There is iron in your word of death for all Comanche to see. And so there is iron in your word of life. No signed paper can hold the iron, it must come from men. The word of Ten Bears carries the same iron of life and death. It is good that warriors such as we meet in the struggle of life. . . or death. It shall be life.”
Chief Ten Bears from the film, “The Outlaw Josie Wales”
The Bill of Rights is much like a restraining order placed on government by the founding fathers. So, like a restraining order, it is a fine thing and effective in discouraging an abusive man from beating his wife–but only as long as the man respects the paper issued by the court. Once the 225 lb man gets drunk and becomes inflated with his own sense of omnipotence and decides to go to her place the 110 lb woman can hold that paper up and he will slap it out of the way and commence to beat her senseless. That paper restrains him only to the extent that he allows it to do so.
It is the same with the restraining orders placed on our government. Once they become convinced that nobody will actually stop them, the parchments upon which we rely mean very little; as to them, the end goal of total control justifies any means.
“Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined.”
Patrick Henry
Having the wherewithal to resist tyranny is not sufficient without having the spirit to do so. The abused woman is lost if all she can do is hold up a piece of paper. As her father might have told her, she needs to get away from him, and get herself something that the abusive man will respect; something like a gun and a guard dog to provide backup and the super–sensitive nose and ears for an early warning of danger. In this way the abusive man will either cease and get out, or face some very serious consequences.
If the abused person cannot bring themselves to take these steps. If there is no point at which she is ready to actually shoot. . . she is lost. If the abusive man is not convinced of her readiness to shoot he may well advance upon her, take the gun from her hand, use it to shoot her dog and commence to beat her yet again. To be effective she must have both–the firearm and the resolve to use it.