Category: Constitutional Amendments

Freedom in America: Our Cultural Heritage

From its earliest history, the United States has been identified as the land of freedom. In 1814, Francis Scott Key touted America as the land of the free and the home of the brave in his poem that later became America’s national anthem, but explaining American freedom has been problematic throughout our nation’s history. Freedom and liberty, although not synonymous, are very closely linked and many Americans differ in defining these terms as they apply to America’s brand of freedom and the liberties they think its citizens should possess.  Oddly, this battle has been waged long before America obtained its independence.

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America’s Cyprus

While people around the world may be appalled at the actions of the Cyprus government to close their banks and confiscate a portion of certain accounts, many in America claim it “will not happen here.” Perhaps they are correct for at least the immediate future, but far worse was done to Americans in 1933 and it could happen again.

On April 5, 1933, approximately one month after first taking office, Franklin D. Roosevelt commanded, via Executive Order No. 6102, “All persons are hereby required to deliver on or before May 1, 1933, to a Federal reserve bank … all gold coin, gold bullion and gold certificates now owned by them or coming into their ownership on or before April 28, 1933[.]”

By his executive order Roosevelt deprived Americans of their property “without due process of law” under the Fifth Amendment. To add injury to insult, he also ordered up to a $10,000 fine or ten years in prison or both for anyone who willfully violated any provision of his executive order.

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Gun Control

Every time a mass shooting happens in America, and before research or analysis for the actual cause can begin, many people and news outlets instantaneously clamor for national gun control as if they are following Rahm Emanuel’s dictum to “never let a serious crisis go to waste.” Such an approach speaks loudly that the issue is more about control than it is about guns.

As part of gun control advocates’ mantra and a cornerstone of their argument, they claim citizens don’t need “assault weapons” to hunt or to defend themselves in their homes. Although, it is true citizens can do both of these things without military style firearms, their claim misinterprets the intent of the Second Amendment and the right it was written to protect.

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Religious Freedom

In the entire later half of the 20th century, Christianity has been under attack in America. Some of these attacks have manifested themselves as restrictions on the display of the Ten Commandments in schools and other public places, erecting Christian crosses on public property in memory of lost loved ones, displaying nativity scenes during the Christmas season, or individual public expressions of Christianity such as school teachers giving a “glance at inspirational Bible verses between classes.”[1]

In each case of public displays of Christianity, the alleged law-breakers have the same things in common: they are not Congress, they are not making a law, they are not establishing a religion, and they are not restricting the free exercise of religion. To the contrary, they are all doing exactly what the First Amendment protects their right to do.

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Can States Constitutionally Secede from the United States?

Following the Presidential election on November 6, 2012, citizens from each of the 50 States signed secession petitions on the White House website requesting to peacefully form their own government separate from the United States. In response to these petitions, other citizens signed petitions requesting the President “sign an executive order such that each American citizen who signed a petition from any state to secede from the USA shall have their citizenship stripped and be peacefully deported.” Obviously, this is an emotional issue, but emotions aside, it is the duty of every American citizen to uphold the supreme law of the Land, which is the US Constitution and secession is Constitutional.

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Stopping the Next Columbine

While our nation grieves over another tragic and senseless mass killing there are many among us who advocate the termination of a constitutionally protected right to stop this from happening again. If a constitutionally protected right is abolished or diminished there is nothing to prevent the same from happening to any of our other rights protected by the Constitution.  Even talking about abolishing or diminishing such a right is opening up Pandora’s Box, and since the box has been opened we should talk about banning something else that has killed more people than all the guns in the world: bad ideas communicated via newspapers, news programs, schools, legislators, laws, and judges.

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