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The losing this and losing that, hue and cry of the tea party, grass-roots crowd grows stronger and louder as we attempt to pass through the stages in the fundamental change to our country.
A quick examination of some of the amendments to the Constitution does seem to raise a little concern. The first 10 amendments are commonly called the Bill of Rights (a list of some of the inalienable ones). They were put in after the fact, in order to be able to "sell" the Constitution.
It turns out the framers were so terrified of a too strong central government that they enumerated certain rights to be sure folks got them. Note the enumerated powers of government are limited to the 18 tasks found in Article I, Section 8. Everything else belongs to the states or people, according to the way the Constitution was originally written.
So the First Amendment protects my right to exercise my religion free from government intrusion. We should ask Chief Justice Roy Moore from Alabama: "How's that workin' for ya?" So the First is long gone.
We have had people try to get in our motel room on two different occasions. They go away when you tap on the glass with a small handgun.
But it is beyond imagining what the penalties might be for getting caught with a firearm up North. Life in prison without parole, hanging, pilloried, who knows? So my Second Amendment rights are seriously infringed. And so it goes.
The 10th Amendment rights of the states were abolished by Abraham Lincoln in 1861, and states' representation in the federal government was rescinded in 1913 by Woodrow Wilson. Soon California will be nationalized with General Motors. So the states are losing out on the deal, too.
So it does look like the folks have a beef, as O'Reilly would say. What will they do? Will they dust off the Declaration of Independence or will they go sit on the legislators' desks? Or maybe, just maybe, they might replace them with someone who does realize that the Constitution is being fundamentally trod on and will put a stop to it.
M.J. Blanchard
Blairsville