The Truth About Our Constitutional Rights

The term ‘Constitutional rights’ is often used by many well-meaning American citizens. Usually brought up when there’s been a perceived injustice. What I’ve recently discovered is that virtually everyone (myself included) don’t realize that our ‘rights’ are not actually solid as we think. This is very important to understand, your rights are not always guaranteed to you. Not like we think they are. Your rights can actually be denied to you, legally. That is what I’m attempting to show you.

Pop quiz; what is your First Amendment Right? The right to free speech, good job. Virtually everyone knows this, and our ‘First Amendment rights’ are often cited. Have you ever sat and thought about the term, ‘amendment’? According to Dictionary.com, the word amendment means ‘an alteration of or addition to a motion, bill or constitution’. Read it again. We all have this idea that somehow, the Constitution we have today is the exact one set out by the Founding Fathers, but this isn’t true. What we’re actually dealing with is a document that has been redacted and added to over the decades. Whenever politicians declare, ‘The Constitution is set in stone’, they don’t realize this isn’t the case.

There are two important concepts you need to understand. First of all, the way amendments work. An amendment can be proposed, or ratified (i.e. changed) at any moment, for any reason. Granted, there is a legal pathway to follow here. Any changes require a majority vote from both the House of Representatives and the Senate. The good new is that you probably won’t wake up tomorrow and find your right to free speech has suddenly vanished. The point I’m trying to make is that it is possible. Take the Prohibition Act. It was passed by Congress in December 18, 1917. The Prohibiton Act actually became the eighteenth amendment to the Constitution. Do you understand? The sale of alcohol was prohibited by Constitutional law. In December 5, 1933 the 21 amendment was passed, that effectively nullified the eighteenth amendment. You see, Constitutional amendments are now law, they can be repealed or ratified at any time.

The second concept you must understand is emergency powers. Under the emergency powers clause, the President of the United States is granted special ’emergency powers’, and also, the Federal Government can suspend Constitutional rights indefinitely. This suspension is allowed without having to go through any legal channels. You’re probably thinking; ‘whew! Good thing we’re not in an emergency.” Really?

Shortly after the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center on 9/11, President George Bush declared a state of emergency. From the time he declared it, to the time he left office, President Bush never officially declared an end. This meant the state of emergency would continue until either the new President declared it over, or the expiration date occurred. Emergency powers do have an expiration date, in this case it was set to end in 2016. In 2016, as President Barack Obama was preparing to leave office, he actually extended the emergency originally declared by President Bush. Meaning that the emergency would continue for another fifteen years. This was apparently unnecessary as in 2017, President Donald Trump declared a state of emergency over the ‘opiod epidemic’.

In other words, we are technically locked in a state of emergency indefinitely. This means our ‘Constitutional rights’ can be suspended without us having to be informed of it. Here, I’m only interested in the truth. I want to strip away all the lies that we are inundated with on a daily basis. The sad reality is, we do not have guaranteed or protected rights.