tho kudos to citizen for the bkgnd on the 4th...again quite interesting information.
ipse
Thanks.
I would, though, urge you to reconsider "much ado about nothing."
Consider, please. It took 725 years* of blood, smoke, and treasure to wrest rights from government, one little piece at a time, and even then it was incomplete.**
I read recently that 6% of England's population was erased during the English Civil War to put an end to kings ruling by divine right. That was Charles I's claim--chosen and set above you by God. His tweak was to assert that while he was bound to follow the law (Magna Carta, etc.), no mortal man could judge him; he was only responsible to God for his law-breaking and rights-violating. His argument died when his head bounced off the scaffold at Whitehall. But, six percent of the population died getting to that point.
Literally millions of Americans have been maimed, blinded, gassed, emasculated,*** and killed to defend rights since 1791.
When one looks back across history at the price paid to obtain rights, the value of rights changes. The value of rights can be estimated by what it cost to obtain them. I absolutely do not want to see that price have to be paid a second time.
Thus, I am outraged when a court says a warrant is not needed to search even the home of an accused wife-abuser in the absence of his ability to refuse consent.
No. No! No!! NO!!! Rights are rights are rights are rights. I'm not backing up one fraction of an inch. It cost way, way too much in human suffering to obtain them. Every little piece of a right is precious: because the price paid to win it was precious.
*Counting from the Norman Invasion in 1066 to the US Bill of Rights in 1791.
**Using, for example, the 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination. Government in our history cut off its incremental recognition at "its a fighting right", speciously claiming a right has to be invoked to be recognized. The example of the ancient Hebrew Sanhedrin (courts) expose the modern government lie. The Sanhedrin didn't screw around with whether the accused had been properly Mirandized. They didn't split unnecessary hairs about whether a person handcuffed in a police car was 'in custody'. They simply said
nothing said by the accused could be used against him. End of discussion.
That is full government recognition of a right.
***This is a dirty little secret of modern warfare, especially Iraq and Afghanistan. When a young man steps on an anti-personnel mine or booby-trap, the upward blast wrecks more than his foot. Too often, his testicles or penis, shredded, must be amputated. When you think about it, this is almost to be expected in an insurgency type of war where the enemy has neither aircraft, artillery, nor advanced communications and coordination. He has to rely on things like mines and booby-traps. And, of course, government dares not mention to teens and young men losing your sex life--that would dry up recruitment really, really fast.
Google it. While the government does not discuss it; it can't keep it totally hidden in the internet age.
