On the 225th Anniversary of the United States’ Bill of Rights
Politics / US Politics Dec 19, 2016 - 01:23 PM GMTBy: Antonius_Aquinas
This December, 2016, marks the 225th anniversary of the ratification of the first ten amendments to the US Constitution which would become known as the “Bill of Rights.” To secure passage of the Constitution, the framers of the document (the Federalists) had to agree that it would contain explicit language on individual rights.
Ever since its ratification, the Bill of Rights and the Constitution in which it is a part, has been hailed as one of the seminal achievements in the annals of human history while the political arrangements prior to it (primarily monarchy and aristocratic rule) have been sneered at and belittled by the Constitution’s hagiographers. Moreover, the American Constitution has provided a model for the emergence of the nation state which came into its own after the French Revolution and the tragic breakup of Christendom.
History, however, if looked at outside the Anglo-American perspective has shown that far from a protector of individual liberty, the Bill of Rights has been mostly useless in defense of basic freedoms while the Constitution, that it is a part of, has been a vehicle for the expansion of state power to an unfathomable degree.
Despite the supposed guarantees of individual liberty within the Bill of Rights and the supposed limited nature of the Constitution itself, there has never been a more intrusive state in world history both domestically and in its myriad of interventions across the globe than the Leviathan that rests on the shores of the Potomac River. And, the rise of American totalitarianism did not begin with the revelations of Edward Snowden and the other courageous whistle blowers of the recent past, but started soon after the new “federal” state came into existence with the passage of the Alien & Sedition Acts. Each year since has witnessed the growth of state power at the expense of individual rights where now domestic spying and surveillance are part of the nation’s social fabric.
The primary reason why the Bill of Rights has been unable to secure basic liberties is because the federal government and its courts are the ultimate interpreters of the Constitution and its amendments as explicitly stated in Article VI, section 2, subtitled, Supreme Law of the Land:
This Constitution and the laws of the United
States which shall be made in pursuance thereof,
and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under
the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme
law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be
bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of
any state to the contrary notwithstanding.
Since the central government is the final arbitrator of the document, any ruling or decision on particular laws or regulations which would impinge on individual rights will, for the most part, be favorable to the government itself. And, due to man’s fallen nature, any such power will be abused.
The ratification of the Constitution in 1789 made in essence the individual states mere appendages of the central government. While the Constitution’s sycophants boast of its “checks and balances,” a far superior bulwark against political repression is that of people “voting with their feet.” Under the Articles of Confederation, when the national government was not the supreme law of the land, if a certain state became too tyrannical, at least in theory, and had the much neglected Articles remained in place, those persecuted could simply move to a more friendlier jurisdiction.
This would also hold true in the realm of taxation and regulatory policy. Those political authorities who became too confiscatory in their taxing or enacted burdensome regulations could also see population outflows. Similar activity goes on all the time currently as people flee high tax municipalities and states like California and New York to lower tax regions such as Florida and Texas.
For voting with one’s feet to be most successful, there needs to be a multitude of states and political jurisdictions. In the current political climate, this would mean the breakup of the nation state. Secession and political decentralization should thus be the goals of those who prize individual liberty and prosperity, not the celebration of constitutionalism and the supposed guarantees of personal freedoms under ideas such as the Bill of Rights.
Antonius Aquinas@AntoniusAquinas
By Antonius Aquinas
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