WHAT CONSTITUTION? Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles like this one in Arizona are becoming commonplace in increasingly militarized police departments.
With liberty in peril from within, would Founders recognize the U.S.A?
By Watchdog.org M.D. Kittle | Wisconsin Watchdog——Bio and Archives--July 4, 2014
MADISON, Wis. – As the United States of America celebrates her 238th birthday, one critical question comes to mind.
Would the Founding Fathers, some of whom pledged their “lives, fortunes, and sacred honor” to each other in the Declaration of Independence, recognize the nation they forged in an inspirational foundry of the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?
Absolutely not, according to constitutional experts who lament the loss of liberty under the guise of security.
In a nation that has seen its local police forces grow increasingly militarized, its skies filling with drones, and its phones and computers tapped into by a massive, secretive government agency, the founders’ vision of liberty has become clouded by government intrusion.
“Most egregiously, they would be disturbed by the (National Security Agency) surveillance network,” said Shahid Buttar, executive director of the Northampton, Mass.-based Bill of Rights Defense Committee. “All of the levers and checks and balances built into the system have failed.
“What we are beginning to recognize is that this is a precursor of thought crimes, or at the very least (NSA domestic spying) will discourage people from adopting unpopular beliefs, and those are precisely the kinds of beliefs that breathe life into our democracy,” said Buttar, whose constitutional rights and liberties organization grew out of backlash to the U.S. Patriot Act.
Cheryl K. Chumley of the Washington Times is a veteran reporter on liberty issues. She’s also the author of Police State USA, which documents how America has abandoned its founding principles and what needs to be done to restore them.
She said the Founding Fathers’ greatest gift to the United States was clearly defining that its citizens rights come from God, not the government. They are natural rights, not man-made.
But the federal government, particularly since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, has forced the erosion of basic constitutional rights, in the name of security, Chumley said.
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