On December 15, 1791, the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution were ratified. Known as the Bill of Rights, these amendments didn’t create and/or grant us our rights as they are endowed to us by our Creator, not government. Instead, the Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution to confirm and guarantee those rights.
Sadly, on this 228th birthday, we find ourselves in an age where our rights are facing the greatest danger of being nullified by the very government they were designed to protect us from.
In today’s America, hardly a day goes by where we aren’t facing an attempt by big government to deny us of our rights to freedom of speech, press, assembly, and religion, the right to bear arms, the right to private property, the right to fair treatment for accused criminals, the right to protection from unreasonable search and seizure, and the right of the states (the people) to have the final word on matters not covered by the Constitution.
While the assault against our rights has been going on for many decades now, I’ve documented in hundreds of articles since launching the Strident Conservative how it has intensified at the hands of everyone from the Far-Left to the so-called conservative-right.
Things got really out-of-control post-9/11 when George W. Bush ushered in a host of laws effectively destroying liberty in America. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the PATRIOT Act and PATRIOT Act II, and National Security Agency (NSA) spying on Americans are only a few of the programs begun under Bush and continued under Obama.
In the Age of Trump, 9/11 was the influence behind giving the NSA more spying power with the creation of the U.S. Cyber Command within the Agency along with the reauthorization of FISA 702, which gave the NSA new authority to conduct warrantless electronic surveillance on Americans.
Trump has become an even greater threat to the Constitution in many other ways. Here are a few examples in no particular order:
- He sought to ban demonstrations and protests in Washington, DC.
- He embraced Pelosi’s gun-control agenda, banned bump stocks, and pushed for enhanced background checks and red flag laws.
- He suggested ignoring due process rights to allow government to seize guns.
- He refers to the news media as the “enemy of the America people” and recently announced his intention to sue CNN for “anti-Trump” bias.
- He has suggested having the government spy on Americans in their homes using Apple Watches, Amazon Echo, and Google Home.
- He proposed requiring social media companies to develop tracking tools to “detect mass shooters before they strike.”
- He urged Congress to give the NSA permanent authority to gain access to logs of Americans’ domestic communications.
- His DOJ took Google and Apple to court, demanding they turn over personal information on users of a phone app that calibrates rifle scopes.
- He has proposed creating a phone app to conduct remote background checks via the NICS system. The app would give government greater access to personal information without due process and would eventually lead to the creation of a de facto national gun registry.
And let’s not forget, now that the GOP is owned and operated by Trump, Inc., Republicans in Congress are working with the life-long Democrat to advance a host of liberty-killing socialist ideas guaranteed to destroy our rights.
228 years ago, the Bill of Rights was born, but thanks to Trump and the GOP and the never-ending attack on the Constitution, it wasn’t a very happy birthday.
David Leach is the owner of the Strident Conservative.
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