Monday, September 17, 2012

Amendment I

Excerpt below taken from: http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/bill_of_rights_transcript.html

“Written and ratified by the Congress of the United States begun and held at the City of New-York, on Wednesday the fourth of March, one thousand seven hundred and eighty nine.

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

   The purpose of posting the above is to make sure we are reading from the same page. I want you to pay particular attention to the order of the rights listed in the 1st amendment; religion, speech, assembly and redress of grievances.  Long ago dictatorships and monarchy’s (which are familial dictatorships) ruled the world using everything from religion to speech to assembly as an excuse to crush uprisings in country’s falling apart. Our revolution was fought and won in an attempt to put government in its place with regard to rights of the citizenry.  Our current President had attacked every single freedom guaranteed by this amendment.  Not so you say?  I am over-reacting your say?
    Personally I have begun to think this administration; either by design (doubtful) or by sheer ignorance (most likely) is following a path to systematically repeal each of our amended rights. Take for example freedom of religion, as you see above the 1st amendment states Congress won’t make any laws,  “respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”. The prohibition of religious exercise is directly violated by Obama administration policy, which mandates the purchase of contraception by religious institutions. According to the Dept of Health and Human Services website  “women will have free preventive care that includes contraceptive services no matter where she works. The policy also ensures that if a woman works for religious employers with objections to providing contraceptive services as part of its health plan, the religious employer will not be required to provide contraception coverage, but her insurance company will be required to offer contraceptive care free of charge.”  The policy is a laughable attempt to pretend that religious organizations won’t be paying (perhaps indirectly) for contraception. It is no different than pretending that federal dollars going to Planned Parenthood don’t support abortion services. Simply, ridiculous. Of course that isn’t the only assault on the 1st amendment.
   President Obama recently upped the ante in his assault on the freedom of speech, by asking You Tube to specifically review a 14 min video posted on its website in a search for a policy violation to mask his intended result which is pulling the video.  I won’t go into the reasons behind his desire for removing the video, that’s for a later post, but we should all be very concerned about federal government’s direct assault on the freedom of speech. However, as with other infringement on our rights, this one coincides with another assault.
   Over the past two years, the Obama FCC has been attempting to implement policies that manipulate the Fairness Doctrine, part of the Communications Act of 1934, to increase liberal radio time, while masking the bias of liberal media on television as part of one of the two exceptions (“bona fide news interview, scheduled newscast”) allowed in the law.  If anyone can actually watch CNN or NBC and believe they are “newscast” or bona fide news”, I have a bridge in New York I would love to sell you.
   All of this babbling does have a purpose. I urge all citizens to ask; why, if not for self-serving purposes, would any President attack the fundamental rights provided by our Constitution?  I can think of no reason. Please let me know if you can think of one. One of the problems with most, if not all, politicians is that they quickly forget their job is first to do what is best for our country.

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