The Bill of Rights is Not Negotiable

The Bill of Rights is Not Negotiable

by Mike Adams There is a destructive, delusional meme spreading like a virus among many misguided Americans. It pushes the idea that government can pick and choose which rights codified in the Bill of Rights it wishes to recognize or discard on any given day. This delusion is predicated on the concept that if a popular majority can be emotionally whipped into a frenzy over one particular right, then that right can simply be discarded and stricken from the Bill of Rights. But no such power exists to discard any portion of the Bill of Rights, at least not without proper ratification by three-fourths [of the State Legislatures] of the fifty states. There is no such power found solely in the federal government. There is no such power placed solely in the executive branch, nor in Congress, nor in the White House. The Bill of Rights describes a set of individual rights and liberties which are not granted by government, but recognized as DIVINE rights given to use by our Creator. Because government never granted the rights in the first place, it has no authority to take them away. "The Framers of the Bill of Rights did not purport to "create" rights. Rather, they designed the Bill of Rights to prohibit our Government from infringing rights and liberties presumed to be preexisting." -- U.S. Supreme Court Justice, William J Brennan Jr. The individual liberties described in the Bill of Rights cannot be infringed, nor deleted, nor overridden by popular opinion... not even loudly screamed opinion. America is not a nation ruled by the tyranny of the mob. It isn’t even a democracy -- it’s a republic, where certain inalienable rights describe the protection of each individual, even if that individual is the lone voice of sanity in a majority gone mad. The Bill of Rights protects individuals from the tyranny of mob rule -- a phenomenon that routinely rears its head in any society where historical illiteracy is rampant and the masses are lulled into a state of complacency by charismatic but dishonest leaders. It was the extended amendments attached to the Bill of Rights that outlawed slavery, guaranteeing individual freedom to those of African descent even in a time and place when the majority of voting citizens believed slavery was socially acceptable. And it was the Second Amendment that put firearms into the hands of those recently-freed slaves, ensuring that they could defend themselves against attackers of any color through the powerful expression of armed defense (aided by the laws of physics and certain materials from the table of elements, notably lead). Another amendment beyond the Bill of Rights granted women equal voting rights in an age when the majority believed women should not be allowed to vote. It was the Bill of Rights that decriminalized prohibition, ending a dark era of mass criminalization of everyday citizens who suffered under the oppression of government law enforcement gone bad. Yet today, incredibly, many African-Americans and women are actively assaulting the very document that first secured their own freedoms. They now wish to take their freedom and power and use it to enslave someone else by revoking other people’s rights under the Bill of Rights. This is the ultimate social betrayal, and it is a powerful demonstration of the principle that those who do not respect freedom for others do not deserve it for themselves. The Second Amendment is not negotiable The Right to Keep and Bear Arms -- much like the Right of Free Speech -- is not negotiable. Its protections are not subject to the whims of majority opinion, nor the screaming demands of hyperventilating media personalities. All the social media trolls and opinion writers in the world can comment all they want on the Second Amendment, yet the individual right to keep and bear arms remains immutable. Just like the Bill of Rights, the Second Amendment is not negotiable. No Governor, Senator or President has any power whatsoever to banish the Second Amendment, and any who attempt to oppose it only brand themselves as criminal traitors to the United States of America. Any active effort to eradicate the Second Amendment outside of law -- without going through the proper process of state ratification for Constitutional amendments -- is, by definition, an act of sedition against the United States of America and its people. Ironically, many who viciously attack the Second Amendment do so by invoking their free speech protections under the First Amendment. Yet they seem blind to the realization that the First Amendment itself is only made possible by the Second Amendment which balances power between the People and the government, ensuring that the individual right to bear arms serves as a check and balance against the monopoly of violence every government inherently seeks. Disarmament of the populace is always the first step to depriving them of their civil rights and human rights. Without the right to bear arms, there is no right to free speech, no right to due process, no right to trial by jury and certainly no right to be secured against unreasonable search and seizure. A government with a monopoly of force is a government that respects no boundaries and honors no limits. Grasping this point requires competent thinking, which is why so many who now flourish in America on the popularity of pop culture idiocy fail to understand it. It is intellectually lazy to blame gun rights for violence, requiring no depth of thought or reason. Only someone of higher awareness and possessing the aptitude for multi-layered thinking can realize the critical importance of distributed firepower in stopping government violence against the People. As Ron Paul recently said, "Government security is just another kind of violence." Ron Paul gets it. He understands that an imbalance of power in the hands of government inevitably leads to mass violence waged against the People. Those who are currently screaming for the population to be disarmed do not realize that in seeking to prevent one kind of violence (school shootings), they are unleashing a far more disastrous and horrifying violence by allowing the government to monopolize physical power over the citizens. This is a mistake that has been repeated throughout history, often at the cost of tens of millions of destroyed lives. The Second Amendment was put in place precisely for the purpose of making sure that future Americans would not fall for the same mistake yet again. That’s why it is the second highest amendment, right after the right of free speech, indicating its crucial priority in the enumeration of sacred rights that must be protected at all costs. The Bill of Rights does not require your endorsement The validity of the Bill of Rights does not require your endorsement. In fact, it encourages tolerance of those with whom you disagree. If you do not believe in the freedom of speech for those with whom you disagree, then you do not believe in it at all (a derivation of a quote from Noam Chomsky). If you do not believe in freedom of speech, then you do not believe in the Bill of Rights. And if you do not believe in the Bill of Rights, then you are not, at heart, an American. You are something else, something less evolved. Something archaic and outmoded. The Bill of Rights is the single most important milestone in the history of civilized society because it lays out, with near perfection, the divine principle of INDIVIDUAL rights and liberties that come directly from the Creator rather than from a "King" -- also known as a dictator. "To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public." -- Theodore Roosevelt Ratified in 1791, the Bill of Rights lifted human civilization out of the tar sands of tyranny and into the enlightenment of liberty. It was divinely inspired and stands eternal as the key milestone of human compassion, justice and equality. To oppose the Bill of Rights is to oppose human progress. That’s why the Bill of Rights is the single most progressive document that has ever been recognized by any nation. "If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter." -- George Washington Why the Bill of Rights extends through all time and innovation Importantly, the rights described in the Bill of Rights extend through all time and cover all innovations and technological advances. It was not written to cover only those things that existed in 1791, but rather to serve as a template of liberty encompassing innovation, advancement and all future expressions of those rights, regardless of what devices or technologies may come into existence. The Right to Free Speech, for example, does not merely protect speech written on scrolls or rolled out of a Gutenberg press. It covers all expressions of free speech, including speech expressed through devices that did not exist in the late 1700's: e-books, websites, blogs, television programs, bumper stickers and more. This very website, Natural News is a pure expression of the First Amendment. It would seem foolish and wrongheaded to argue that the First Amendment only applied to the printing press of the day and not to modern-day websites or e-books, yet that is exactly what many misguided people argue today when they say the Second Amendment only applies to "Muskets and bayonets." The Second Amendment guarantees your right to keep and bear the firearms of your time. What are the firearms of our time? AR-15 rifles. 308 sniper rifles. 50 caliber Barretts. 12-gauge shotguns. Handguns with night sights and high-capacity magazines. Your right to own, carry, buy, sell and transfer these items is as solidly safeguarded as your right to free speech. The Bill of Rights is not negotiable. Those who oppose the Bill of Rights are enemies of America Some misguided, if not treasonous, U.S. Senators, lawmakers and public servants in the executive branch of government currently suffer under the dangerous misconception that the Bill of Rights only exists because they allow it to. They foolishly believe that they can selectively pick and choose which rights to nullify via new legislation or by the stroke of an executive pen. This delusion is not merely wrong-headed and arrogant, it poses a grave threat to the Republic and all its future generations. Enemies of the Bill of Rights are enemies of America. Whether those enemies be found in the media, in Congress, in the Oval Office or on the streets of America, they are unworthy of being called "Americans" at all. Those who despise liberty do not deserve liberty. Those who deliberately and maliciously attack the Bill of Rights do not deserve the protections of the Bill of Rights. Those who despise the Constitution and its Bill of Rights are publicly indicating they would prefer to live as subjects, not Citizens. I propose that any who attempt to denounce Bill of Rights protections for others must first surrender their own rights and freedoms. Do not speak of taking away my Second Amendment rights while you enjoy the protections of the First Amendment. Surrender all your rights and freedoms first, because only then have you achieved the necessary moral consistency from which you can demand others be deprived of their rights. Relocate to North Korea, in other words, and become a subject of Kim Jong-un and then continue your assaults of the Bill of Rights as a Korean gulag blogger. Because only then will you know how much you have lost, and how much you should have valued the liberties you so carelessly abandoned. The Bill of Rights is not negotiable. If you oppose it, you betray not only yourself, but all Americans. Please SHARE this urgent declaration. You have permission to re-post, with proper attribution.