Hardball1911  

In today's world, we often find ourselves with the choice between this candidate and that candidate for political races. Often, we find ourselves caught up in the process, losing touch with exactly what it is we are choosing. Take our current presidential race.

Often times we are lead to believe that the office of President of The United States is the office in which every aspect of our lives will be affected in one way or another. We are made promises that the economy will be made so much better, taxes will be reduced, our children will grow up to have golden geese, etc. The entire race becomes about which candidate can tell the best lie with the straightest face, and which candidate will anger the crowd less. This race has less to do with the reality that the office of President will actually have more to do with foreign policy than domestic policy. The office of President in The United States has very little to do with how our daily lives are lived, except for the consequences of the Presidents choices when it comes to appointments to the Supreme Court, and his/her choice as to what bill he/she signs into law or vetoes back to Congress to rethink.

In today's political climate, we are faced with the radical to an extreme. During the recent Republican National Convention it was widely publicized that anarchists were smashing windows and taking to the streets in an almost riot. While I failed to see any of this during the Democratic National Convention, I am told that the anarchists do not favor either party, and only favor their brand of government, which I have always assumed was anarchy, meaning there was never a government. This, evidently, is not what most anarchists want, which in my book would make them less anarchist and more domestic terrorist to get their way, but I am admittedly ignorant to their cause. Then there were the Code Pink crowd, who simply want everyone to wear pink and quit making war? Well, I don't know, I just know that they look like absolute nutcases when they chase heads of state with syrup on their hands. I suppose everyone should like syrup, but I prefer jelly. They have taken it so far as to disregard laws that legally state they must not disrupt events, etc. as have all of the previously mentioned.

What the whole point of this post is supposed to be is that we have a serious and concerted effort in this country over the last three decades to disregard the very thing that instituted this country as the greatest country on earth. The United States of America offers its citizens the most freedom, the most economic benefit, the most moral latitude, the most... name it, yet the efforts to subjugate our Constitution and distort its meaning has been evident for many years. I offer my case.

While termination of a pregnancy is not a topic that I prefer to debate, Roe Vs. Wade has always been construed as a "woman's right to choose", cutting short the true meaning of Roe Vs. Wade, which is a "woman's right to choose to let a baby live or die". There is no other meaning. If the woman chooses to terminate the pregnancy, the baby dies. If she chooses to carry to term, the baby lives. Facts are what they are, and we can not change that fact. Having said this, the manipulation of language in this country has taken on an art form of sorts, with the inclusion or exclusion of words and phrases meant to illicit emotional reaction, or to limit the emotional reaction based on the goal at hand for the manipulating party.

My second point in this case is the argument over the meaning of the second amendment to the Constitution of The United States. It reads, "A well regulated Militia, being necessary for the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." For years, the argument has been that there is no need for a militia, as we have the standing military. This argument recently has been stretched to redefine the meaning of "the people" to include only those who were in military service, disregarding the fact that everywhere else in the Constitution where the term "the people" is used, it is used to illustrate all citizens of The United States as defined by the Constitution and immigration laws. The manipulation of language to have entirely different meaning from the original intent is a form of psychological warfare engaged upon our very own lives. A recent President challenged the world with,"It depends on what your definition of 'is' is." A masterful attack on intellectual foundation. The argument that you will always hear from me, is that the Constitution and its amendments do not offer the freedoms to the citizens of the United States; it protects rights which were given to the citizens of The United States by God. This leads me to another point.

In today's political standards we have been presented with the argument that Christians are somehow these fanatical and overbearing Neanderthals who are less the intellectuals than they are extremists. The attacks on Christianity stem from a political band in this country that adores the concept of separation of church and state. This political band touts that no religion should exist where government is concerned, therefore, any religious symbolism associated with governmental proceedings or governmental property shouldn't exist. Their claim is that the Constitution provides that the government can not be associated with religion, period. This is simply a manipulation of language and ideas. The First Amendment that they cling to for freedom of speech primarily includes religion, and reads, "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 manipulation of the phrase, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;" has turned this phrase into something completely different that it’s intended meaning. The manipulation of this phrase to those anti-religionists reads, "Congress shall have no part in religion, and shall make it a point to not allow religion to appear in public." My point being that you do not have a right to freedom from religion, only the freedom to exercise whatever religion you choose, whether publicly or not. This leads me back to the Fourth Amendment to assist in defining “the people” and its original intended value.

It reads, "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and 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." This amendment has been supported by the Supreme Court to mean that every citizen has the right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure, and has affected not only the way we define what can and can not be done in criminal investigations, but it secures the phrase "the people" to every citizen of The United States of America. There has been little done with regard to manipulating the meaning of this Amendment, and unless the first two are done away with, I foresee little manipulation of this Amendment. It does however; lead me back to the Second Amendment and the attempts at manipulating meaning of words.

Gun control is a subject that the framers of the Constitution could never foresee. Like global flight, the technologies of the day could never have foreshadowed the existence of future technologies and their implications on mankind. With this said, the framers' intent of the Declaration of Independence and The Constitution was to ensure that mankind, at least mankind who are Citizens of The United States of America, should never again be subjugated to tyranny. With each amendment to the Constitution, the framers take away a tool that was used by tyranny to oppress a people. The second amendment, according to Federalist Papers, was one of the most important, yet, useless if the others were not adhered to. Their intent was not to base the rights on usefulness of the tools, but to protect the tools for usefulness' sake.

There is an argument, which has predominantly succeeded, that unless one is law enforcement, there is no need for automatic weapons. The National Firearms Act, known as the NFA, made owning a fully automatic weapon a bit more difficult. Many believe that it made it entirely illegal, but it did not. It did, however, make it difficult. At the time, law enforcement including the Federal Bureau of Investigation and local municipalities acted in concert with one another and would base decisions on what was the going trend. In the NFA it dictated that an individual must register the fully automatic firearm with the government (ATF), have a letter from the local chief law enforcement officer, and pay a tax of $200 for the registration of the automatic firearm. The verbiage of the NFA was construed to mean that it was illegal to own or possess a fully automatic firearm, which has hung around in meaning until today. Of 100 people asked on the streets today, more than likely 99-100 would say that it is illegal to own or possess a fully automatic firearm. In a sense, they would have been correct in the time that the NFA was written, as it would be almost impossible without being "one of the guys" to a chief law enforcement officer to get his letter of approval, but it was not made entirely illegal. My argument continues:

The needs of citizens have been as varied as the times and atmospheres surrounding the needs. With the manipulation of information and factual basis behind that information, our society has forgotten the basic principles and intents of the Declaration of Independence and The Constitution, opening the doors to those who would once again subjugate a society to the will of governmental dictation. It has long been established that the need for automatic firearms is limited to law enforcement and governmental agencies. The intrinsic value of semi-automatic firearms has, after it was accepted that fully automatic firearms were not needed by the masses, been under the same attack as of late. In 1994 a law was passed dictating the restrictions on firearms that were cosmetically associated with firearms that were military in nature. The words "assault weapons" were used to demonize the particular construction and cosmetic value of the particular firearms. It was chosen to make these firearms banned, simply out of emotional reaction to a situation that happened in California. We all can remember the two masked individuals who shot up LA with the AK-47's. What most failed to realize, or even bothered to take into account, is that everything these two individuals had done, from possessing the firearms to using them, was illegal. Both were convicted felons in possession of firearms, both were felons the moment they masked up and decided to rob a bank and both were bad seeds of society. The language used during the proceedings to ban certain weapons was based on emotional response to this particular act. It was repeatedly sited as the reason for the ban, and it was repeatedly advised to others during the proceedings that nobody should be able to spray down innocent people. Who could disagree to that? The language used was chosen very carefully. If you disagreed with the lawmakers assembling this ban, you were made to look like a lunatic on the fringe of committing another schoolhouse shooting yourself. If you opposed the law, you were made to look like you hated children and were an ignorant redneck, clinging to your guns, as you couldn't possibly have the intellect to realize that it was the best for society as a whole. Nothing could have been further from the truth.

What the Congress members failed to tell anyone was that the framers of the Constitution were rolling over in their graves. Their intent was to keep the average citizen in direct competition to the government, and without restriction. They, too, had individuals who would commit crimes, and they dealt with that through legislation for punishment, not restriction of the law abiding. They, too, had occasional bad seeds that would use freedom as a means to take from others. They did, however, understand that if the government was not able to be checked by the citizens it governed, then it was not a government of the people and for the people. It was at that point that the government became self serving. Which is where we are today with our political standard.

Today, we have Senator Barrack Hussein Obama and Senator John (I would use his middle name if it were publicized) McCain running for the office of President of The United States. Neither candidate has indicated where they stand on the true meaning of The Constitution, however, one of these two candidates has in their lifetime taken an oath to "protect and defend the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic..." The other has served no military time, yet has been concluded to be a "community organizer" whatever that may be. In this campaign Mr. Obama states that voting for him is "voting for change we can all believe in" yet he has failed to mention what that change will be. Manipulation of language and emotion has been the basis of his success, and having said that, it leads me to conclude that his intent may not be the change I am looking for. Senator McCain has made valid argument that our security rests on the decisions made by the office of President, and that he is ready and experienced in leadership enough to occupy this office. Regardless of your political affiliation, one has to realize that the very principle that we hold dear, freedom has been and will remain under assault until we as citizens are once again subjugated to a self serving government if we are not highly aware and take active roles to prevent it.

We, the common citizen, are the last line in the defense of the Constitution of The United States of America. We are the only true defense that she has in this day and age. Whether you like it or not, the only way to protect freedom is through the sacrifice of those who would bleed and die for the very cause. All parts of the Constitution and its amendments must never perish and must remain intact for The Constitution to mean anything. The willingness of each citizen to understand that, while they do not have the need for "weapon X", the need exists. Their weapon of choice may be the pen. My weapon of choice is the ability to effectively compete with any enemy of The Constitution, foreign or domestic. That is my responsibility as a citizen, as it is yours should you be a citizen of The United States. We share the responsibility equally for our own freedom's preservation. Never let yourself be distracted by the emotional manipulations associated with the desires of those who would subjugate you. Never let yourself be deceived by the intent of the Devil, as he would lie to you and make you believe that he was pure and right, just to steal your soul. Never let those who would dismantle the Constitution to erect Utopia lead to you believe that they have the answers. While anarchy is not the way, it is the closest to what the Framers of the Constitution had in mind when they chose their form of government. Of the people and for the people.