Tuesday, September 14, 2010

“We the People” have no rights in America.


“We the People” have no rights in America.[1]
If you have a reason, you don't need to shout.
- Zen proverb -
I am trying to do this quietly, peacefully.
We have a Declaration of Independence that proclaims, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.”  We have a Constitution that seeks to establish Justice[2] under the rule of Law[3].  We have as original amendments to the constitution a Bill of Rights that enumerates in plain language the basic Civil Rights and Liberties American Citizens are to enjoy by law.  After the Civil War in 1865, 1868 and 1870 America passed Amendments 13, 14 and 15, respectively, establishing Civil Liberties and Rights for the newly emancipated persons and the enforcement of Rights as a Federal Function with the 14th amendment’s stipulation, “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States”.

In our constitution’s first amendment we asserted “Congress shall make no law… abridging the… the right of the people… to petition the Government for a redress[4] of grievances[5].  Additionally we originally had the common law of England as legal precedent for the enforcement of Rights “for it is a settled and invariable principle in the laws of England that every right, when withheld, must have a remedy, and every injury its proper redress.[6]”  The English Common Law was acknowledged by Chief Justice John Marshall (1803) and written into Supreme Court of the United States of America precedent as "The very essence of civil liberty certainly consists in the right of every individual to claim the protection of the laws whenever he receives an injury. One of the first duties of government is to afford that protection.[7]

After the Civil War and the emancipation of the former slaves we found it necessary to reinforce the pre-existing Constitutional Law, Common Law, and Supreme Court Precedent because of the recently enacted Amendments (13, 14 and 15) with additional statutory law.  “We the People” established the statutory law the Civil Rights Act of 1871 17 Stat. 13, § 1 Civil and § 2 Criminal Law– now codified into the current Federal Statutory Code as Title 42, Chapter 21, Subchapter 1 § 1983-1996  Civil action for deprivation of rights and Title 18 Crimes and Criminal Procedure Chapter 13 § 241 - 249 Criminal Deprivation of rights under color of law.  When the original law was presented (1871) Representative Shellabarger, the author and manager of the bill in the House, explained in his introductory remarks the breadth of construction that the Act was to receive:

"I have a single remark to make in regard to the rule of interpretation of those provisions of the Constitution under which all the sections of the bill are framed. This act is remedial, and in aid of the preservation of human liberty and human rights. All statutes and constitutional provision authorizing such statutes are liberally and beneficently construed. It would be most strange and, in civilized law, monstrous, were this not the rule of interpretation. As has been again and again decided by your own Supreme Court of the United States, and everywhere else where there is wise judicial interpretation, the largest latitude consistent with the words employed is uniformly given in construing such statutes and constitutional provisions as are meant to protect and defend and give remedies for their wrongs to all the people."  Cong.Globe, 42d Cong., 1st Sess., App. 68 (1871)

The Federal Statutory Law, Title 42 §1983. Civil action for deprivation of rights says, “Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress, except that in any action brought against a judicial officer for an act or omission taken in such officer’s judicial capacity, injunctive relief shall not be granted unless a declaratory decree was violated or declaratory relief was unavailable. For the purposes of this section, any Act of Congress applicable exclusively to the District of Columbia shall be considered to be a statute of the District of Columbia.

“We the People” have no rights in America.[8]

How it was intended, how it was written is not how it is being enforced.  “We the People” have no enforceable rights in America.  What we do have is a Justice system that incarcerates five times as many people per capita as any other country in the world.  Why?  Because ““We the People” have no rights in America.”  The home of the free… “The United States has by far the world's highest incarceration rate.  With 5% of the world's population, our country now houses nearly 25% of the world's reported prisoners.  We currently incarcerate 756 inmates per 100,000 residents, a rate nearly five times the average worldwide of 158 for every 100,000. [9]

Our Constitution, our Statutory Criminal Law, our Statutory Civil Law, our originating Common Law Precedent and our originating Supreme Court Precedent all support and stipulate to and provide for the enforcement of our Rights.  It seems elementary “Governments are instituted among Men to secure these rights, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed[10].” 

Furthermore, “The Government of the United States has been emphatically termed a government of laws, and not of men. It will certainly cease to deserve this high appellation if the laws furnish no remedy for the violation of a vested legal right.[11]

The Supreme Court in United States v. Lee, 106 U.S. 196 (1882) , Page 106 U. S. 219 and Bivens v. Six Unknown Fed. Narcotics Agents, 403 U.S. 388 (1971) @ 403 US 394-395 iterated a problem “There is no safety for the citizen except in the protection of the judicial tribunals for rights which have been invaded by the officers of the government professing to act in its name. There remains to him but the alternative of resistance, which may amount to crime.

BUT

But, and this is a very big BUT, the Supreme Court via Judge Made Law, without approval of “We the People,” has over time taken away the rights of “We the People” and awarded absolute immunity from constitutional law[12], common law[13], criminal statutory law[14] and civil statutory law[15] to itself, to Judges[16], to Prosecutors[17] to Police[18] and trickle down immunity to ALL others “who were integral parts of the judicial process” [19].  Thus “We the People” have no Due Process of Law to enforce and/or establish our Rights.

Potentially malicious and corrupt Judges oversee all of this immunity.  Judges are admitted to be malicious and corrupt because “This (absolute impunity) immunity applies even when the judge is accused of acting maliciously and corruptly (Pierson v. Ray, 386 U.S. 547 (1967) @ page 554).  You can not even accuse a Judge of malice or corruption because “It is a principle of our law that no action will lie against a judge of one of the superior courts for a judicial act, though it be alleged to have been done maliciously and corruptly; therefore the proposed allegation would not make the declaration good.” ((Scott v. Stansfield, L.R. 3 Ex. 220, 223 (1868)) Bradley v. Fisher, 13 Wall. 335 (1872[20]) @ Page 80 U. S. 349).  The Supreme Court said in Bradley v. FisherAgainst the consequences of their (judges) erroneous or irregular action, from whatever motives proceeding, the law has provided for private parties numerous remedies, and to those remedies they must, in such cases, resort.[21]”  I beg you tell me where or what those remedies are.  I have been looking for 7 years (U.S. Federal Court Eastern District of Missouri Case No. Case 4:10-CV-101-TCM, 8th District Court of appeals Appeal: 10-1947[22]).  I don’t know about you but that sounds, to me, like “Let them eat Cake.”  There are no other remedies.

We ask for our rights, we reach for the 14th Amendment’s protection, we go to Due Process of law and we are refused, not because ““We the People” have no rights in America.” BUT because of the self admitted malice and corruption of the Judiciary; the result is ““We the People” have no rights in America.”

“The Government of the United States has been emphatically termed a government of laws, and not of men. It will certainly cease to deserve this high appellation if the laws furnish no remedy for the violation of a vested legal right.[23]”  Are we a government of laws or are we subject to the Royal whim of the black robed, ABSOLUTELY IMMUNE, malicious and corrupt guild of Judges?
“We the People” have no rights in America.[24]

Civil rights first became an issue post civil war (1865) with the newly emancipated persons, the former slaves.  We are still somewhere between the views of Roger B. Taney[25], “they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect[26]” and Martin Luther King’s goal "I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.[27]"  It is all about Equal rights, if you do not have equal rights, no one has any rights.  We are subject to someone’s discretion to decide who gets more e.g., we are now in a rebound effect colored persons have more options/rights than white persons do because of affirmative action.  The Courts are much more sensitive to a colored man’s rights than they are to a white man’s rights, they do not want to get labeled as racist.

“We the People” have no rights in America.[28]

The bigger problems for Civil Rights Law now, in that it goes across racial lines, are Drug Law / War of Addiction[29] and Sexual / Domestic / Family Law[30]

With Drug Law enforcement we are halfway between Harry J. Anslinger[31] and Stanton Peele[32].  We are still too close to the hysteria of Anslinger’s Reefer Madness and have not yet come to the true understanding of Peele’s “The Meaning of Addiction[33].  We are dragging Mexico and large portions of Europe and South America down with us in this ill-advised Drug Law / War of Addiction.

The 14th Amendment’s Federal requirement that “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States” via Judge made law, without the approval of “We the People”, does not apply to Sexual / Domestic / Family Law.  With Sexual / Domestic / Family Law enforcement, America’s current view, we are between the absolute right of a Woman / Mother’s priority over a Man / Father’s, and the polar opposite, the much-maligned Muslim and our former although not admitted view for the Man / Father over the Woman / Mother.  I am leaving out, but not overlooking the homosexuals in this issue, where are their rights to domesticity? A family?

We have to ask ourselves do men, woman and homosexuals have equal rights?  Do “All persons” have “equal protection of the law[34]“?

Violence of any sort should be outlawed, but especially domestic violence.  Should men or women get preferential treatment in domestic violence disputes?  Should women, men and homosexuals get paid the same for doing the same job?  Should women, men and homosexuals be treated the same in Divorce, financial settlement? child custody?  In a country where it is asserted that “All persons” have “equal protection of the law[35] the only reasonable answer is they should be treated equally before the law.  And the law does not have the right to impart any sexual based bias within the process or in the outcome.

“We the People” have no rights in America.[36]

The reason this is not currently a bigger issue… not enough of us have been randomly selected yet by the process for the malicious, corrupt and unjust treatment.  Remember, this is not so much a reasonable, cohesive, organized effort; this is a malicious, corrupt and unjust power hungry effort that for self-centered, self-sustaining reasons needs to randomly select to hide from public view.  They want to keep us disorganized and ignorant.  I can only hope that we are reaching a critical mass, but we have not as yet achieved it. 

What do we do?

We have to have a shared belief in the power of community and connection, a commitment to the idea that we are our brothers' keepers.  We have three alternatives that I see.  We can have faith and follow the quiet peaceful path of Zen and believe “If you have a reason, you don't need to shout.”  We can take the path “of resistance, which may amount to crime[37]

OR

We can as was proposed in our Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1976, “That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these (rights) ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government[38]

All is fair in love and war[39]

Corridor of Violence: the Guatemala - Honduras Border - The International Crisis Group (ICG), 2014




[1] Why? “With 5% of the world's population, our country now houses nearly 25% of the world's reported prisoners.” Are we 5 times as bad?  Are our streets 5 times as safe?  Or have our Rights been taken away?
[2] The preamble to the Constitution for the United States of America, “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
[3] The United States Constitution, Article III, § 2 states: “The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States”
[4] re·dress   n. ree-dres, ri-dres; v. ri-dres –noun the setting right of what is wrong: redress of abuses.
[5] griev·ance (grē'vəns) –noun An actual or supposed circumstance regarded as just cause for complaint. 
[8] Why? “With 5% of the world's population, our country now houses nearly 25% of the world's reported prisoners.” Are we 5 times as bad?  Are our streets 5 times as safe?  Or have our Rights been taken away?
[9]Why We Must Fix Our Prisons”, By Senator Jim Webb, Parade Magazine published: 03/29/2009, U.S. Imprisons One in 100 Adults, Report Finds New York Times, By ADAM LIPTAK, Published: February 29, 2008, Our Real Prison Problem. Why are we so worried about Gitmo? Newsweek by Dahlia Lithwick Published June 5, 2009
[10] Paraphrased from the Declaration of Independence July 4, 1776.
[13] See The Commentaries on the 18th-century common law of England (and thus America) by Sir William Blackstone, originally published by the Clarendon Press at Oxford, 1765-1769.  Specifically Blackstone as quoted in Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 1 Cranch 137 (1803) @ Page 5 U. S. 163
[16] Pierson v. Ray, 386 U.S. 547 (1967) Judges have ABSOLUTE IMMUNITY
[17]  Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U.S. 409 (1976) We hold only that, in initiating a prosecution and in presenting the State's case, the prosecutor is immune from a civil suit for damages under § 1983
[18] Briscoe v. LaHue, 460 U.S. 325 (1983) Held: Title 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (1976 ed., Supp. V) does not authorize a convicted state defendant to assert a claim for damages against a police officer for giving perjured testimony at the defendant's criminal trial. Pp. 460 U. S. 329-346.
[19] Briscoe v. LaHue, 460 U.S. 325 (1983) @ Page 460 U.S. 335 “In short, the common law provided absolute immunity from subsequent damages liability for all persons -- governmental or otherwise -- who were integral parts of the judicial process.”
[20] It is critical to NOTE the first assertion of this absolute immunity came less than a year after the enactment of the Civil Rights At of 1871
[22] State Court Case No.: 03FC-10670M, Missouri Court of Appeals eastern District ED84021, U.S. District Court Eastern District of Missouri Jeep v. Jones et al, 4:07-cv-01116-CEJ, 8th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals 07-2614, Writ of Certiorari to the Supreme Court 07-11115 & State Court Case # CR203-1336M, Missouri Court of Appeals Southern District SD26269, U.S. District Court Western District of Missouri 07-0506-CV-W-SOW Jeep v Bennett, et al, 8th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals 08-1823, motion for rehearing on combined issues Writ of Certiorari to the Supreme Court 07-11115 (http://dgjeep.blogspot.com/).
[24] Why? “With 5% of the world's population, our country now houses nearly 25% of the world's reported prisoners.” Are we 5 times as bad?  Are our streets 5 times as safe?  Or have our Rights been taken away?
[25] The fifth Chief Justice of the United States, holding that office from 1836 until his death in 1864
[26] Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 19 How. 393 (1856) @ Page 60 U. S. 407 a.k.a. “The Dred Scott case”
[27] From "I Have a Dream" is a ten minute public speech by Martin Luther King, Jr., on August 28, 1963
[28] Why? “With 5% of the world's population, our country now houses nearly 25% of the world's reported prisoners.” Are we 5 times as bad?  Are our streets 5 times as safe?  Or have our Rights been taken away?
[29] I would ALSO reference my own SEVEN year struggle against the malice and corruption in State Court Case # CR203-1336M, Missouri Court of Appeals Southern District SD26269, U.S. District Court Western District of Missouri 07-0506-CV-W-SOW Jeep v Bennett, et al, 8th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals 08-1823, motion for rehearing on combined issues Writ of Certiorari to the Supreme Court 07-11115 (http://dgjeep.blogspot.com/).
[30] I would ALSO reference my own SEVEN year struggle against the malice and corruption in State Court Case No.: 03FC-10670M, Missouri Court of Appeals eastern District ED84021, U.S. District Court Eastern District of Missouri Jeep v. Jones et al, 4:07-cv-01116-CEJ, 8th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals 07-2614, Writ of Certiorari to the Supreme Court 07-11115 (http://dgjeep.blogspot.com/).
[31] Harry Jacob Anslinger (May 20, 1892 – November 14, 1975) held office as the first Commissioner of the Treasury Department's Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) on August 12, 1930 until 1962. One of his first major accomplishments was the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937
[32] Stanton Peele, Ph. D., J.D., (born January 8, 1946) is a licensed psychologist, attorney, practicing psychotherapist and the author of books and articles on the subject of alcoholism, addiction and addiction treatment.
[33] Peele admits to an Unconventional View; you have to approach his work with an open mind.  Peele’s seminal work is The Meaning of Addiction (1985/1998).
[34] U.S. Constitution of America Amendment XIV: Passed by Congress June 13, 1866. Ratified July 9, 1868.
[35] U.S. Constitution of America Amendment XIV: Passed by Congress June 13, 1866. Ratified July 9, 1868.
[36] Why? “With 5% of the world's population, our country now houses nearly 25% of the world's reported prisoners.” Are we 5 times as bad?  Are our streets 5 times as safe?  Or have our Rights been taken away?
[38] Paraphrased from the Declaration of Independence July 4, 1776.
[39] John Lyly's 'Euphues' (1578). The quote was "The rules of fair play do not apply in love and war. " John Lyly was a Renaissance English poet and playwright.