Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof …
Yet the government orders churches be shuttered and punishes those who refuse to curtail their practice of religion. … or of the right of the people to peaceably assemble.
Yet the government orders people not to gather and punishes them if they do so.
No person shall be … deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law, nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
Yet the government punishes people for COVID-19 violations without the involvement of the courts, and restricts businesses to the point of their bankruptcy for the “public use” of combating COVID-19, without compensation or due process.
These are our basic constitutional rights, and they have been suspended. The suspension of Constitutional Liberties constitutes Martial Law. Government officials dance around the terms, but Massachusetts and many other states have been operating under Martial Law for months. But Martial Law has no legal standing except when the civil court system cannot function, which is certainly not the case in Massachusetts. The state’s actions are transparently illegal, but no one seems to mind. Our Constitutional Rights have been taken from us and many people applaud it and say the government simply isn’t going far enough.
Blind to irony, people claim we have a right to free college education, health care, abortion, housing, and many other spurious claims, while enthusiastically supporting the suspension of the rights we actually do have.
Some argue that these drastic measures are necessary to prevent people from endangering others, but we, as a people, don’t punish those who endanger others. Drivers endanger other drivers and pedestrians every time they sit behind a wheel. Considering the frequency of medical errors, medical professionals endanger patients every time they practice their craft. Teachers endanger their students with every interaction; a careless word can damage a child’s psyche for life, send them down a spiral towards addiction or suicide, or simply cause them to make ruinous life decisions. We don’t punish the potential to do harm; we punish doing harm, and the burden of proving that harm has been done rests with the accuser. Yet people are being punished with house arrest, fines, and loss of employment and income because they ostensibly may pose a threat to their neighbors, even though no evidence is presented that supports the claim that harm has been done, and the accused is provided no opportunity to challenge the legitimacy of their accuser’s actions in court. The verdicts are rendered without a hearing, while evidence contradicting the state-approved “experts” is quashed, ignoring common sense, science and our right to free speech.
Of course, laws can be passed to restrict personal freedom for the public good, but those need to be legislated, not dictated, and they must respect Constitutional rights, not ignore them. The courts are charged with protecting the people’s rights, but they have abrogated their responsibilities and instead facilitate the authoritarian actions of government officials who no longer execute the law, but implement the dictates of “experts.” I don’t know what the priorities of the US Supreme Court currently are, but given their recent rulings, protecting the Constitutional Rights of the citizenry certainly isn’t high on the list.
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, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men….
As the men who founded this country realized, the only purpose of a government is to protect people’s individual freedom, not to control them, even for their own good. Someone always stands ready to force others to “do the right thing.” Greenfield is full of them. The beauty of the Constitution is that it protects an individual’s right to dissent from that mob and choose their own path. Or, it used to.
But perhaps it’s time, as more than one Democrat has stated, that the Constitution be put through a paper shredder. That, along with ditching the National Anthem, may please the iconoclasts. The anthem no longer applies anyway. With the government commanding our every action, we are certainly no longer the Land of the Free, and with so many people cowering behind masks and begging the government to save them, we are far from being the Home of the Brave.
John Blasiak is a resident of Greenfield. Thoughtful comments are welcome at henrycarlyle@outlook.com