“And we will defend all our rights, civil rights, human rights and voting rights, women’s rights and worker’s rights, LGBT rights and the rights of people with disabilities.” That is from Hillary Clinton’s Democratic Convention speech. There are two rights that she would not defend which are defined by the first two amendments of our Constitution. That is because she wants to either alter them or gut them. And she calls Donald Trump reckless.
I always remind people that the First Amendment to our Constitution is first for a reason. Without protecting that we might as well junk everything else. The amendment states: “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.” Yet Clinton has stated that she will propose an amendment to the Constitution to abridge that right within 30 days of her becoming president of the United States.
That is because her party has been whipped into a frenzy over a ruling made by the U.S. Supreme Court on Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission. The ruling has become a rallying cry for Democrats. As you know it gave the right for a non-profit corporation to exercise its rights of free speech by spending money on campaigns. Though the Left feels this is a scorch to humanity, the roots of the ruling center on Hillary Clinton herself. The group Citizens United was being suppressed from running ads and airing a film critical of Hillary Clinton. The proposal was that this form of assembly of citizens was not a proper form, thus they could not run the ad. The Supreme Court ruled Citizens United had the right of free speech. And thus all entities that have banded together have the right of free speech.
There are some ironies here. First that Hillary Clinton, a lawyer, states that corporations are not people. She is right that they do not have arms and legs, but she knows better. Maybe she missed that class in law school despite the fact she probably invoked that the law establishes corporations as people during her stint at the Rose Law Firm. Corporations are separate legal entities; and, I learned that in my business law class in college, that corporations are, in effect, people. I often have to remind people that the corporations they own are separate from them and vice-versa.
Hillary has talked out of both sides of her mouth on many issues -- like taking massive sums from Wall Street while telling us she is going to be tough on them. The second irony is that she has been the principle recipient of benefits from the Citizens United ruling. She intends to exploit it to get into the White House then stop it for others.
The status quo had other forms of organizations – those favorable to Democrats -- being able to band together for political purposes and raise money, but damn if we will let those favorable to our political enemies have any rights. Unions not only can use their members’ dues for political purposes without a vote of the membership, but they also provide massive amounts of unrecorded in-kind contributions like personnel and offices that become the Democrats’ satellite offices during elections. Most of these dues are extorted from members who have no choice other than to join the union and never get to vote on whether they want to retain the union. Yet, that is fine because it is the financial lifeblood of the Democrats.
“And we will stand up against mean and divisive rhetoric wherever it comes from.” In a little noted line from her convention speech, Clinton endorsed the current trend in America to suppress speech by others. This has been rampant on college campuses, for example, but it has never been raised to the level of a presidential acceptance speech … until now. Clinton endorsed the fact that people’s feelings should not be hurt and she is going to continue the suppression of free speech that is destroying our First Amendment. Fifty-one percent of Democrats agree that the First Amendment does not protect “hate” speech. Of course, they get to tell you what is hate speech and what is not.
Then she moves to the Second Amendment where she has proposed allowing people to sue gun manufacturers if the gun they made was used in a crime. That is despite the gun being sold legally to someone by the rules of the state in which they live. If this were to occur, the lawyers would have a field day finding plaintiffs and suing companies that would soon drive them out of business.
Clinton stated “I'm not here to repeal the Second Amendment. I'm not here to take away your guns.” No, she just wants to drive manufacturers out of business. When she says like every other Democrat she just wants to have “common sense” gun laws, she has destroyed the concept of what “common sense” formerly meant. The phrase has been gutted just like she will gut the amendment.
Clinton has not moved on to the Third Amendment yet, which restricts government from housing soldiers in peoples’ homes without their consent. She has not commented on the recent eviscerating of the Fourth Amendment by police departments in drug raids where they confiscate citizens’ property for government use. And she stills defends the Fifth Amendment as many on her staff invoked that while being interviewed about her server.
Clinton has made clear that if she is not able to enact laws that pillage our Constitution, she will appoint U.S. Supreme Court justices who will do such. When demagogues want to accomplish something, they will find a way.
Democrats love to flail about how Trump is too reckless to become president. But we have never had a presidential candidate willingly state they want to ravage the two most sacred parts of our Constitution that protect us from a government oppressor like King George. Those amendments are the core of our freedom.
Clinton’s proposals are reckless. Clinton apparently has read the Constitution and does not like it, so she wants to mold it in her own mental image.
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