I constantly hear politicians complaining about the imagined abuses of our 2nd Amendment rights to bear arms, or our 1st Amendment rights of religious freedom yet hear almost nothing about the other constitutional rights that are violated daily in this country by our own Government, both local, State and at the Federal level. Here are a few which should be seriously considered by the people of this country and we need to petition our government for redress of these egregious violations of our Constitutional rights.
1st Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” Well, we have those who would not only do that but are enacting laws within States that thumbing their noses at this requirement. “or abridging the freedom of speech.” I contend that these days only those who can afford it can buy free speech. “or the right of the people peaceably to assemble” we have been violating this one for as long as I can remember. People are harassed by police, pepper sprayed, hosed down, tasered, beaten and arrested for exercising this Constitutional right.
4th Amendment: “no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” Sec 215 of the Patriot Act violates this Constitutional right as do the search and seizure laws imposed regularly on innocent people by police and the DEA and then that property is never returned to them even when it’s shown they’ve broken no law nor was there ever a probable cause to even search in the first place, which also violates the 5th Amendment “be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”
8th Amendment: “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed.” This is a huge problem as we recently learned in Ferguson, MO where the people of that city are routinely stopped with fines imposed on them and the city has admitted that this is how they fund their police and city functions in large part. In Texas, children are cited or fined for truancy and fines imposed on parents that cannot be paid so the child is put in jail. In my mind, excessive means beyond any reasonable means or ability to pay. We have a lot of people in prison right now because of “excessive fines”. Are we returning to debtor's prison? Seems this is the case.
14th Amendment: “deny to any person within it’s jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” I would say that our Justice system is anything but just these days and certainly not equal by any stretch of the imagination. I will believe we have an equal justice system when I see a Wall Street banker such as Jamie Dimon put in prison.
15th Amendment, 1. “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States, or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” I would say this pretty much says it all but I contend that many States in this country routinely violate the Constitutional rights of many people, though they deny doing so. While this Amendment was written in regards to the freeing of the slaves after the Civil War, it clearly states "the rights of citizens of the United States to vote" so I fail to see what reason the Supreme Court had to rule that their is no Constitutional right to vote in this country.