Let’s take a moment to review a couple of fairly important pieces of paper, shall we? Specifically, I’m referring to the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence.
From the Declaration:
“We” (Americans) “hold these truths to be self-evident:” (which means we think you’d have to be kind of a bonehead not to see it)
“that all Men are created equal” (bearing in mind that in the standard usages of the time this referred to ‘mankind’, not to those of a specific gender),
“that they are endowed by their Creator” (this does not restrict us to the Judaeo-Christian God but to any creative force, be it a God, multiple gods, Nature or even the Flying Spaghetti Monster)
“with certain unalienable rights” (definition: unable to be taken from or given away by their possessor)
“that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
This is powerful stuff.
When you take away someone’s life, impinge on someone’s liberty or impede their pursuit of happiness, you are actively opposing what it means to be American.
From this alone we can see that slavery, domestic violence, the death penalty, hate crimes – and any denial of rights to one group of people which another would claim for themselves – are in direct violation of our nation’s most sacred principles.
Let’s also look at the Bill of Rights a little:
The First Amendment. “Freedom of speech” does indeed give you the right to say hateful and discriminatory things. It does not in any way protect you from people calling you out for it, putting your despicable rantings on YouTube, breaking off friendships, refusing to do business with you or voting you out of office. Similarly, this amendment proscribes government from “an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”. Even if the people wishing to freely exercise their religion happen to be Muslims, or indeed anything other than Christian.
The Second Amendment. “A well-regulated citizen militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.” Well-regulated. That means that yes, gun control measures to ensure that random nutjobs aren’t shooting up schools and churches are not only perfectly legitimate, they are necessary.
The Fourth Amendment. Understanding that the nation’s founders had no way of predicting the technological advances of the last half century, I think it’s fair to say that “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures” also applies to electronic data – which has been unreasonably searched and seized all too often of late.
The Ninth Amendment. “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” This means that the rights mentioned in the Declaration of Independence above (the rights to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness) continue to be retained by the people and must remain inviolate.
None of these things seem particularly hard to understand….
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