Human Rights
Declaration of Independence
is a document that declared why the 13 American colonies had to become
independent of Britain and had to be
free in order to protect the
colonists’
rights. If a government does not protect the
rights of
citizens, people have the right to form a new government. People have
certain
inalienable rights including Life,
Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness.
All Humans are created equal.
Individuals have a
civic duty to
defend these rights for themselves and
others.
Declaration of Independence was adopted by the Continental Congress on July
4, 1776, but America was not officially independent until seven years
later in 1783.
PDF
-
Declaration of
Independence (US History) "We
Hold these Truths to be Self-Evident, that all
men are Created Equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
Inalienable Rights, that
among these are
Life,
Liberty and the
Pursuit of Happiness."
Constitution -
Civil Rights -
Bill of Rights -
UN Declarations
-
Human Values -
Public Interest Law -
Freedom of Speech -
Due Process -
Amnesty -
Democracy -
Solidarity
Liberty
Liberty
is having
freedom of
choice and
personal freedom from
servitude or
confinement or
oppression. Liberty is having
immunity
from
arbitrary exercise of authority.
Liberty is having political independence.
Liberty involves
free will as contrasted with
determinism. In
politics, liberty consists of the
social and political freedoms to which all community members are entitled.
The power to act or
speak or
think without externally imposed
unjustified
or
unfair restraints.
Negative Liberty is
freedom from interference
by other people and freedom from external restraint on one's actions.
Positive Liberty is the possession of the capacity to act
upon one's
free will and having the
possession of the power and resources to fulfill one's own
potential.
A concept of positive liberty
may also include freedom from
internal constraints.
Libertarianism is a collection of
political philosophies
and movements that uphold liberty as a core principle.
Libertarians seek
to maximize
political freedom and
autonomy, emphasizing
freedom of choice,
voluntary association, and
individual judgment.
Liberation is the act of setting
someone
free from imprisonment,
slavery, or
oppression. To be release from
constraint. Having
freedom from limits on thought
or behavior.
Agency -
Equality -
Independent -
Free the Mind -
Libertarian -
Amnesty
Liberate is to grant freedom to someone and
free them from
confinement. To
give
equal rights to women
and minorities. To release someone from a state or situation that limits
freedom of thought or
behavior. To set someone free from a situation, especially imprisonment or
slavery, in which their liberty is
severely
restricted.
To free a country, city, or people from enemy occupation.
Freedom
Freedom is described as
being
free from
oppression and
coercion, and having immunity from
frivolous
exercise of
authority, as well as the
absence of disabling conditions for
an individual and the fulfillment of enabling conditions,
or the absence of life conditions of compulsion, e.g. economic compulsion,
in a society. Although
political
freedom is often interpreted negatively as the freedom from
unreasonable external constraints on action, it can also refer to the
positive exercise of rights, capacities and possibilities for action and
the exercise of social or group rights. The concept can also include
freedom from internal constraints on political action or speech (e.g.
social conformity, consistency, or inauthentic behaviour). The concept of
political freedom is closely connected with the concepts of civil
liberties and human rights, which in democratic societies are usually
afforded legal protection from the state. Political freedom is a central
concept in history and political thought and one of the most important
features of democratic societies.
Freedom is being free in having the power
to
act at
will, and to
speak or
think
without externally
imposed restraints that are proven to be
unfair,
biased
or
harmful. To not be held in
servitude
and to have immunity from unfair obligations or
unfair duties that would
hamper
progress and reduce
creativity and
balance.
Free is being able to
act at will. It's
not being hampered,
and not under
compulsion or restraint. Not held in
servitude. Not taken up by scheduled
activities. Release from obligations or duties. Remove or force out from a
position. Grant relief or an exemption from a rule or requirement to. To
make
information available for publication.
Freedom of
Speech.
Free Energy -
Spontaneous Generation
-
For every Action is
an opposite Reaction
Free Will is the
ability to
choose between different
possible courses of action.
Having
sovereignty and
agency. To be
creative and have
divergent thinking.
Leeway is the amount
of freedom to move or act that is available. Allowing some freedom to move
within limits. A permissible
difference. Leeway is
the amount of drift motion to leeward of an object floating in the water
caused by the component of the wind vector that is perpendicular to the
object’s forward motion.
Give Me Some Slack
is to give someone liberty and freedom, or to sometimes allow someone to
do something that is not usually allowed. To treat someone in a less harsh
or critical way. Not to judge someone as severely as you usually would
because they are having problems at the present time.
Emancipation
is freeing someone from the control of another person, or
freedom from legal or
political restrictions, or to free a
person from a previous restraint
or from a legal disability.
Emancipation is any effort to procure economic
rights and social rights,
political rights or equality,
often for a specifically disenfranchised group.
Emancipate is to give equal rights to women and minorities. To free
people from slavery or servitude.Freedom
does not include
the freedom to be
abusive or the
freedom to be a
scumbag who
spread lies and
hate. Freedom
is a
responsibility. Freedom
gives you choices, but if you make the wrong choices, then freedom can do
more harm than good. Freedom is
like having
power. Both power and freedom can do more harm than
good when they are
misused. The
freedom of choice is only effective when the choice you make is
good,
right and
logical. So you need to learn how to choose
correctly and accurately.
Choosing wisely is a skill, and
skills need to be
learned, which makes learning an
extremely important responsibility too. One of the best types of freedom
is when you free yourself from your own ignorance, and you free yourself
from being negatively affected by
abusive people. You can't
allow ignorant behavior to
get under
your skin. If you are going to protect freedom, you must first protect
yourself. It's a great feeling when
you can control how you feel,
instead of
letting other people control
how you feel. Be
good, and be
good at it. Everyone should have the freedom to do what they need to do,
just as long as it does not
infringe on the
freedoms of other people who also need to do what they need to do. You
can't be free to do what you want if it stops other people from being free
to do what they want. You can't be free to pollute the water if people
have the
right to drink clean water.
You need
Consent.
Freedom
is a right just as long as
you are right.
Don't act like a
criminal or
influence other people to behave badly. You have freedoms, but not the
freedom to exploit laws or inflict harm or intrude on other peoples
freedoms.
You Don't Own Me - Lesley Gore
(youtube).
Freedom in
the World Index measures the degree of civil liberties and
political
rights in every nation and significant related and disputed territories
around the world.
List of
Freedom Indices are produced by several non-governmental organizations
that publish and maintain assessments of the state
of freedom in the world, according to their own various definitions
of the term, and rank countries as being free, partly free, or using
various measures of freedom, including civil liberties, political rights
and economic rights. Racism -
Segregation.
Rights
Rights
are the legal, social, or ethical
principles of freedom or entitlement. Rights are the
fundamental normative rules
about what is allowed of people or owed to people, according to a legal system, social convention, or
ethical
theory. Rights are of essential importance in such disciplines as
law and
ethics, especially theories of
justice and
deontology, which is the normative ethical theory that the morality of
an action should be based on whether that action itself is
right or
wrong under a
series of rules, rather than based on the
consequences of the
action. Rights are often
considered fundamental to civilization, being regarded as established
pillars of
society and
culture, and the history
of social conflicts can be found in the history of each right and its
development. Right should be right,
and not every law is right. This is why we have
repeals and amendments. Humans don't
always get things right the first time. And not every human
follows the law. This is our
current reality until we
change it.
Civil Rights -
Bill of Rights - Inalienable
Rights - Universal Declaration of Human Rights
- Copyrights -
Protection from the Abuse of Power - No Unfair
Restrictions - Natural Law
Personal Rights
are the rights that a person has over their own body. Rights as of
personal security, personal liberty, and private property appertaining to
the person. Among personal rights are associated
rights to protect and
safeguard the body, most obviously protected by the torts of
assault and battery.
Furthermore, aspects of personality are protected, such as a person's
reputation and honor,
by the tort of defamation, and legislation protecting the privacy of
individuals, and freedom of movement.
Right of Self Defense
- Right of Home Defense -
Right of Asylum -
Sovereignty -
Right to Clean Water -
Fourth Amendment -
Right to Assemble -
Right to Protest - Right
of Due Process -
Right to a Fair Trial -
Right to be Silent – Right
to Speak - Right of Free Press -
Right to Privacy -
Right to Die -
Public Interest Law -
Freedom of Thought -
Freedom of Conscience -
Freedom of Movement -
Right to
Education - Freedom of Religion -
Freedom of Association -
Freedom of Expression
My Body, My Choice is the
right to defend an
individual's right of self
determination over their bodies for sexual, marriage and
reproductive choices as rights.
Vaccinations -
Seatbelts.
Freedom of Choice describes an individual's opportunity and
autonomy to perform an action
selected from at least two available
options, unconstrained by external parties.
Bodily Autonomy is defined as the
right to make decisions about
your own body, life, and future, without coercion
or violence. It includes
deciding whether or not to have sex, use contraception, or go to the
doctor.
Bodily Integrity is the Not capable of being violated dishonored, or
infringed of the physical body and emphasizes the importance of personal
autonomy, self-ownership, and self-determination of human beings over
their own bodies. In the field of human rights, violation of the bodily
integrity of another is regarded as an unethical infringement, intrusive,
and possibly criminal
Self-Ownership is the concept of property in one's own body, often
expressed as the moral or natural right of a person to have bodily
integrity meaning the exclusive right to control one's own body including
one's life, where 'control' means exerting any physical interference and
'exclusive' means having the right to install and enforce a ban on other
people doing this.
Personality Rights or the right of publicity, are rights for an
individual to control the commercial
use of their identity, such as
name, image, likeness, or other unequivocal identifiers. They are
generally considered as property rights,
rather than personal rights, and so the validity of personality rights of
publicity may survive the death of the individual to varying degrees,
depending on the jurisdiction.
Self-Determination refers to a people's right to form its
own political entity, and
internal self-determination is the right to representative government with
full suffrage or right to vote.
If every child born was automatically designated a corporation, then every
citizen would have the same rights as corporations.
Natural Rights are those that are not dependent on the laws or
customs
of any particular culture or government, and so are universal and
inalienable. Natural laws cannot be repealed by human laws, though one can
forfeit their enforcement through one's actions, such as by
violating
someone else's rights.
Legal Rights are those bestowed
onto a person by a given legal system, which can be modified,
repealed, and
restrained by human laws.
Legal Recognition of some status or
fact in a jurisdiction is
formal acknowledgement
of it as being true,
valid, legal, or
worthy of consideration
and may involve approval or the granting of rights.
Human Rights
are moral principles or norms,
which describe certain standards of human behavior, and are regularly
protected as legal rights in municipal and
international law. They are
commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights "to which a person
is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being," and
which are "inherent in all human beings" regardless of their nation,
location, language, religion, ethnic origin or any other status. They are
applicable everywhere and at every time in the sense of being universal,
and they are egalitarian in the sense of being the
same for everyone. They
require empathy and the rule of law and impose an obligation on persons to
respect the human rights of others. They should not be taken away except
as a result of due process based on specific circumstances; for example,
human rights may include freedom from
unlawful
imprisonment, torture, and execution.
Genocide.
Human Rights Measurement
is a global initiative to track the human rights performance of countries.
Fundamental Rights are a group of rights that have been recognized by
the Supreme Court as requiring a high degree of
protection from government encroachment.
These rights are specifically identified in a
constitution, or have been found under due
process of law.
Economic and
Social Rights Empowerment Initiative -
Watch Dogs -
Democracy Index
Universal Law or Sovereign Law trumps all others.
1. No man or woman, in or out of government shall initiate force,
threat of force or fraud against my life
and property and, any and all contracts
I'm a party to not giving full disclosure to me whether signed by me or
not are void at my discretion.
2. I may use force in
self-defense against anyone that violates Law.
3. There shall be no exceptions to Law 1 and 2.
Economic, social and cultural rights are socio-economic human rights,
such as the
right to education, right to housing,
right to an adequate standard of living, right to
health, victims' rights
and the right to science and culture. Economic, social and cultural rights
are recognized and protected in international and regional human rights
instruments. Member states have a legal obligation to respect, protect and
fulfill economic, social and cultural rights and are expected to take
"progressive action" towards their fulfillment.
Concession
is a grant of rights, land or property by a government, local authority,
corporation, individual or other legal entity.
Entitlement is a provision made in accordance with a legal framework
of a society. Typically, entitlements are based on concepts of principle
which are themselves based in concepts of
social equality or
enfranchisement. A government program guaranteeing access to some
benefit by members of a specific group and based on established rights
or by legislation. Not the same as believing that you are
entitled to privileges or
special treatment
Privilege in Legal Ethics is a certain entitlement to
immunity granted
by the state or another authority to a restricted group, either by birth
or on a conditional basis.
Prerogative
is a right or privilege exclusive to a particular individual or class.
The Basics - Food - Water - Shelter - Energy -
Education.
International Human Rights Law is the body of
international law
designed to promote human rights on social, regional, and domestic levels.
As a form of international law, international human rights law are
primarily made up of treaties, agreements between sovereign states
intended to have binding legal effect between the parties that have agreed
to them; and customary international law. Other international human rights
instruments, while not legally binding, contribute to the implementation,
understanding and development of international human rights law and have
been recognized as a source of political obligation.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
International Humanitarian Law is a branch of
international law that seeks to
limit the effects of armed conflict by protecting persons who are not
participating in hostilities and by restricting and regulating the means
and methods of warfare available to combatants. The law that regulates the
conduct of war and uses a set of rules that seek to limit human suffering
and stop the restricting of humanitarian aid.
War Criminals -
Genocide
A person can only have rights when other people are aware of those
rights and do not violate those rights. So human rights are not a given
and not a guarantee. People and governments can violate human rights
almost at any time. So in order to have rights you must educate people and
inform people to the highest standard and degree possible, and not just to
educate people about rights, but too protect human rights and enforce
human rights so that no one is above
the law. Ignorance is the
biggest threat to humanity and peoples rights.
Passive is no longer an option.
Fairness
Fair is something that has no
favoritism or
self-interest or
bias or
deception, and is also in accordance
with established standards or
rules. Fair is something that is
equal, something that has
no illogical imbalances. Something
honest.
Fairness is impartial and
just treatment without favoritism or
discrimination.
Fairer is someone who is free from
favoritism or self-interest or bias or deception. Someone who judges
things based on facts instead of fiction. Someone who shows respect by
conforming with established standards or rules that are applied to
everyone equality. Someone who is not excessive or extreme. Someone who is
very pleasing to the eye. Having few alterations or corrections. Hair or
skin that is pale or light-colored. Free of clouds or rain.
Impartial is being
free from undue bias or preconceived
opinions.
Impartiality is a principle of justice holding that decisions should
be based on objective
criteria, rather than on the basis of bias, prejudice, or preferring
the benefit to one person over another for improper reasons.
Even Playing Field or
Level Playing Field is a concept about
fairness where each player has an
equal chance to succeed as
long as everyone plays by the same set of rules. There should be no
external interference that affects the ability of the players to compete
fairly. If the rules affect different participants differently, then they
are not actually the same.
Equality
- Having a Voice - To be Heard - To Contribute -
Not privileged but
worthy of respect.
Good Faith is a sincere intention to be fair,
open, and
honest, regardless of the
outcome of the interaction.
Direct Democracy
- Openness -
Fair Use -
Accountability
Fair and Equal Justice for Everyone
(laws)
Equal
Opportunity is a state of fairness in which job applicants are treated
similarly, unhampered by artificial barriers or
prejudices or preferences,
except when particular distinctions can be explicitly justified.
American Dream.
Freedom of Speech
First Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits the making of
any law that would imped the free
exercise of religion or favor any religion. No law can be made that would
restrict the freedom of speech,
infringe on the
freedom of the press, interfere with the
Right of the
People to Peaceably Assemble, or
prohibit the petitioning for a governmental redress of grievances. It
was adopted on December 15, 1791, as one of the ten amendments that
constitute the Bill of Rights.
People have the
Right to Speak up against cruel and oppressive
Governments and
Corporations, and injustices and
unfairness. Let us not distort this right
by adding scenarios that have nothing to do with this right.
Freedom of
Speech is the right to communicate
one's opinions and ideas without
fear of government
retaliation or
censorship.
Governments can be hypocrites and
punish people for violating free speech laws as these same governments and
corporations spread lies and
propaganda but never get punished. Governments and corporations
control the media and
control the education
system, so citizens will never be educated enough to be aware of the
hypocrisy and double standards.
Freedom of Speech Abuses
Freedom of Speech does not say
that your words or your
voice will be heard, or does it mean
that the people who are allowed to speak are not lying. When
statements are made, and the public is not given a chance to
express a counter argument
or even have an open discussion about the statement, then all you are left with is
a narrow point of view, and that is complete bullshit and
absolutely dangerous. You can't have a rule or a law that can be
circumvented and manipulated, because that leads to chaos, and
that is exactly what happens every seconded of every day
somewhere on this planet. And just because there is no chaos
where you live, that does not mean that chaos does not exist.
Exemptions.
Freedom of Speech: You are free to speak your mind, but you must be
aware of the timing and the place. Lies, hate or
propaganda are extremely
dangerous, for they are weapons that distort information and distort the
truth. Communication is our greatest strength, but
communication is also our greatest
weakness when it is abused and misused. Freedom is a Right as long as your
freedom is not used to deny others their freedom.
Journalism -
Fair Use -
Surveillance Abuses
- SLAPP Suites
Freedom of Thought is the freedom of an individual to hold or consider
a fact, viewpoint, or thought, independent of others' viewpoints.
Freedom of Expression is a principle that supports the
freedom of an
individual or a community to articulate their
opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation,
censorship, or legal sanction. The
term "freedom of expression" is sometimes used synonymously but includes
any act of seeking, receiving, and imparting information or ideas,
regardless of the medium used. Artistic
Freedom.
Intellectual Freedom encompasses the freedom to hold,
receive and
disseminate ideas without
restriction. Viewed as an integral component of a
democratic society, intellectual
freedom protects an individual's right to
access, explore, consider, and
express ideas and information as the basis for a
self-governing, well-informed
citizenry. Intellectual freedom comprises the bedrock for
freedoms of expression, speech, and the
press and
relates to freedoms of information and
privacy. The United Nations upholds intellectual freedom as a basic
human right through
Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which asserts:
Everyone has the right to
freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold
opinions without interference and to seek,
receive and
impart information and ideas
through any media and regardless of frontiers. The institution of
libraries in particular values intellectual freedom as part of their
mission to provide and protect access to information and ideas. The
American Library Association (ALA) defines intellectual freedom as "the
right of every individual to both seek and receive information from all
points of view without restriction. It provides for free access to
all expressions of ideas through which any and all
sides of a question, cause or movement can be explored." The modern
concept of intellectual freedom developed out of an opposition to book
censorship. It is promoted by several professions and movements. These
entities include, among others, librarianship, education, and the Free
Software Movement.
Participation in social science
refers to different mechanisms for the public to express opinions – and
ideally exert influence – regarding political, economic, management or
other social decisions. Participatory
decision-making can take place along any realm of human social
activity, including economic (i.e. participatory economics), political
(i.e. participatory democracy or parpolity), management (i.e.
participatory management), cultural (i.e. polyculturalism) or familial
(i.e. feminism). For well-informed participation to occur, it is argued
that some version of transparency, e.g. radical transparency, is necessary
but not sufficient. It has also been argued that those most affected by a
decision should have the most say while those that are least affected
should have the least say in a topic.
Teach
First Amendment -
First Amendment
Center - First
Amendment Project
First
Amendment Handbook -
First Amendment
Schools
Declarative is a
mood that represents the act or state as
an objective fact. A
declaration.
Declaration is a
statement that is emphatic and explicit spoken or written. A formal
public statement. Declaration in
law unsworn statement that can be admitted in evidence in a legal
transaction.
Proposal -
Proposition
Proclamation is a a
formal public statement. The formal act of proclaiming or
giving public notice.
Announcement is a public statement
containing information about an event that has happened or is going to happen.
Freedom of Speech by Country - Freedom of speech is the concept of the
inherent human right to voice one's opinion publicly without fear of
government censorship or punishment. "Speech" is not limited to public
speaking and is generally taken to include other forms of expression.
(hate speech, obscenity, and defamation laws. No unit or individual may
use the Internet to create, replicate, retrieve, or transmit the following
kinds of information: Inciting to resist or violate the Constitution or
laws or the implementation of administrative regulations; Inciting to
overthrow the government or the socialist system; Inciting division of the
country, harming national unification; Inciting hatred or discrimination
among nationalists or harming the unity of the nationalities; Making
falsehoods or distorting the truth, spreading rumors, destroying the order
of society; Promoting feudal superstitions, sexually suggestive material,
gambling, violence, murder; Engaging in terrorism or inciting others to
criminal activity; openly insulting other people or distorting the truth
to slander people; Injuring the reputation of state organs; Other
activities against the Constitution, laws or administrative regulations.
India - All citizens shall have the
right — to freedom of speech and expression; to assemble peaceably and
without arms; to form associations or unions; to move freely throughout
the territory of India; to reside and settle in any part of the territory
of India; and to practice any profession, or to carry on any occupation,
trade or business. These rights are limited so as not to affect: The
integrity of India, The security of the State, Friendly relations with
foreign States, Public order, Decency or morality, Contempt of court.
Defamation or incitement to an offence.
Czech Republic - Article 17 - (1) The freedom of expression and the
right to information are guaranteed. (2) Everyone has the right to express
their opinion in speech, in writing, in the press, in pictures, or in any
other form, as well as freely to seek, receive, and disseminate ideas and
information irrespective of the frontiers of the State. (3) Censorship is
not permitted. (4) The freedom of expression and the right to seek and
disseminate information may be limited by law in the case of measures
necessary in a democratic society for protecting the rights and freedoms
of others, the security of the State, public security, public health, and
morals. (5) State bodies and territorial self-governing bodies are
obliged, in an appropriate manner, to provide information on their
activities. Conditions therefore and the implementation thereof shall be
provided for by law. Specific limitations of the freedom of speech within
the meaning of Article 17(4) may be found in the Criminal Code as well in
other enactments. These include the prohibition of: unauthorized handling
of personal information (Article 180 of the Criminal Code), which protects
the right to privacy, defamation (Article 184 of the Criminal Code),
dissemination of pornography depicting disrespect to a human, abuse of an
animal, or dissemination of any pornography to children (Article 191 of
the Criminal Code), seducing to use or propagation of use of addictive
substances other than alcohol (Article 287 of the Criminal Code), which
protects public health, denigration of a nation, race, ethnic or other
group of people (Article 355 of the Criminal Code), i.e. hate speech,
inciting of hatred towards a group of people or inciting limitation of
their civil rights (Article 356 of the Criminal Code), spreading of
scaremongering information (Article 357 of the Criminal Code), e.g. fake
bomb alerts, public incitement of perpetration of a crime (Article 364 of
the Criminal Code), public approval of a felony crime (Article 365 of the
Criminal Code), public display of sympathy towards a movement oriented at
curbing rights of the people (Article 404 of the Criminal Code), e.g.
propagation of hate-groups, public denial, questioning, endorsement or
vindication of genocide (Article 405 of the Criminal Code), e.g. Auschwitz
lie, incitement of an offensive war (Article 407 of the Criminal Code).
Most of the limitations of the free speech in the Czech Republic aim at
protection of rights of individuals or minority groups. Unlike in some
other European countries there are no limits on speech criticizing or
denigrating government, public officials or state symbols.
Germany - Freedom of expression is granted
by Article 5 of the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany, which
also states that there is no censorship and that freedom of expression may
be limited by law. The press is regulated by the law of Germany as well as
all 16 States of Germany. The most important and sometimes controversial
regulations limiting speech and the press can be found in the Criminal
code: Insult is punishable under Section 185. Satire and similar forms of
art enjoy more freedom but have to respect human dignity (Article 1 of the
Basic law). Malicious Gossip and Defamation (Section 186 and 187).
Utterances about facts (opposed to personal judgment) are allowed if they
are true and can be proven. Yet journalists are free to investigate
without evidence because they are justified by Safeguarding Legitimate
Interests (Section 193). Hate speech may be punishable if against segments
of the population and in a manner that is capable of disturbing the public
peace (Section 130 [Agitation of the People]), including racist agitation
and antisemitism. Holocaust denial is punishable according to Section 130
subsection 3. Membership in or support of banned political parties
(Section 86). Currently banned parties include the SRP and the KPD.
Dissemination of Means of Propaganda of Unconstitutional Organizations
(Section 86). Use of Symbols of Unconstitutional Organizations (Section
86a). Items such as the Swastika are banned. Disparagement of the Federal
President (Section 90). the State and its Symbols (Section 90a). Insult to
Organs and Representatives of Foreign States (Section 103). (will no
longer be valid as of 2018). Rewarding and Approving Crimes (Section 140).
Casting False Suspicion (Section 164). Insulting of Faiths, Religious
Societies and Organizations Dedicated to a Philosophy of Life if they
could disturb public peace (Section 166). Dissemination of Pornographic
Writings (Section 184). The prohibition of insult, which has been widely
criticized, led to 26,757 court cases, 21,454 convictions and 20,390 fines
in 2013 alone. Politico has called Germany's hate speech laws "arguably
the strictest anywhere in the Western world". Laws which have led to
censorship or chilling effects online include NetzDG and a type of
ancillary copyright for press publishers which is a model for a pan-EU
taxation proposal as of 2018. Outdoor assemblies must be registered
beforehand: Individuals and groups may be banned from assembling,
especially those whose fundamental rights have been revoked and banned
political parties. The Love Parade decision (1 BvQ 28/01 and 1 BvQ 30/01
of 12 July 2001) determined that for an assembly to be protected it must
comply with the concept of a constituent assembly, or the so-called narrow
concept of assembly whereby the participants in the assembly must pursue a
common purpose that is in the common interest.
European Commission Freedom of expression and information.
Digital
Services Act is an EU regulation to modernize the e-Commerce Directive
regarding illegal content,
transparent advertising, and disinformation. Digital Services Act -
Digital Services and amending Directive 2000/31/EC.
Prisoner of Conscience is anyone imprisoned because of their race,
sexual orientation, religion, or political views. The term also refers to
those who have been imprisoned or persecuted for the
nonviolent expression
of their conscientiously held beliefs.
Political Prisoner is someone imprisoned for their political activity.
The political offense is not always the official reason for the prisoner's
detention. Journalists being Killed.
Freedom of Speech Abuses
A Right to Speak or the Freedom of Speech is not a right
to tell lies, or
the right to
spread hatred or the
right to commit fraud, or
the right to be negligent. A right is a power for
good. A right is not for scumbags to
abuse and
misuse, yet
here we are. The media must be held
responsible for giving a voice to criminals and to
people who
constantly lie. The media are
accessories to criminal activity and need to be held
accountable. We can not allow
the truth to be
slandered by ignorant
puppets who believe that
money is an excuse to be a
moron. Of course the root
cause of all this BS is a
dumbed down education which gave rise to
ignorant humans. Now everyone
must suffer from the ignorance of people.
All because scumbags in power wanted to
censor valuable knowledge and information in order to keep people
stupid, docile and easy to control.
False Advertising
- Propaganda - Perjury -
Child Abuse -
Slander - Threats -
Hatred -
Toxic Leadership -
Political Campaign Attack Adds - Discrimination
- Paradox of Tolerance -
Attacking Real Journalism
Clear and
Present Danger is when speech could be criminalized if it
incites
violence or criminal activity.
Bad Tendency
permits restriction of freedom of speech by government if it is believed
that a form of speech has a sole tendency to incite or cause illegal
activity.
Imminent
Lawless Action defines the limits of freedom of speech if speech
merely advocated violence.
Shouting Fire in a Crowded Theater is a popular metaphor for speech or
actions made for the principal purpose of creating panic.
Falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic highlights that
speech that is dangerous and false is not protected, as opposed to speech
that is dangerous but also true.
False Flag Attack -
False Alarms
How do you stop propaganda or
hate speech without
violating free speech? Censorship
is dangerous and sometimes necessary when
filtering. Speak your mind,
but please remember, the
truth is debatable and also
relative. Know what you say, but understand that people can listen and
interpret things differently than
you do.
Communications Decency Act of 1996 was the first notable attempt by
the United States Congress to regulate pornographic material on the
Internet. It attempted to regulate both indecency and obscenity in cyberspace,
especially when available to
children. Second, section 230 of the act has
been interpreted to say that
operators of Internet services are not to be
construed as publishers (and thus not legally liable for the words of
third parties who use their services).
Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act provides immunity from
liability for providers and users of an "interactive computer service" who
publish information provided by third-party users: No provider or user of
an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or
speaker of any information provided by another information content
provider.
Public Forum Free Speech Laws
- Social Networks -
Front Men - Accessories to Crimes
Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act became law on April 11, 2018 to make
it illegal to knowingly assist, facilitate, or support sex trafficking,
and amend the Section 230 safe harbors of the Communications Decency Act
(which make online services immune from civil liability for the actions of
their users) to exclude enforcement of federal or state sex trafficking
laws from its immunity.
Obscenity Laws.
Federal Communications Commission to regulate interstate
communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable. The FCC
maintains jurisdiction over the areas of broadband access, fair
competition, radio frequency use, media responsibility, public safety, and
homeland security. Watchdogs (oversight).
Federal Anti-Terrorism Act allows civil damage claims for aiding and
abetting terrorism. But a
dumbed down education system influences terrorism more than any media
outlet that spreads ignorance. If you're not educated enough to protect
yourself from ignorance, then you will never be free from ignorance. The
people in power want a dumbed down education because ignorant people are
easy to manipulate, the problem with that is that ignorant people are not
just easy to manipulate by terrorists, they are also easy to be
manipulated by anyone else with an ignorant agenda.
Section 230's
protections from lawsuits for internet platforms. Section 230,
however, also has a provision encouraging internet companies to police
their platforms, so as to remove harassing, defamatory, and false content.
Leading the suit is the writers' advocacy group
PEN
America and Penguin Random House, the largest publisher in the U.S.
Joining the suit are five authors whose books have been challenged and two
parents of students currently attending an elementary school in the
district, which includes the city of Pensacola. The plaintiffs say the
lawsuit is the first of its kind in addressing a new nationwide wave of
conservative-led efforts to ban books from schools and libraries that
activists say are sexually explicit or otherwise inappropriate for young
readers.
According to the American Library Association, the number of reported
challenges to books doubled in 2022, and the number of unique titles
facing challenges jumped 40% from 2021.
If your words or actions causes
division and
hatred, and makes people
prejudice, intolerant and
discriminatory
against people who they don't even know, then you are
evil and you're ignorance is
threatening. To damage peoples understanding of themselves and the world
around them causes more harm and more deaths than all the wars combined.
To use labels to define people and to
point fingers at people who
you believe are the cause of your problems, is
narrow minded and extremely
dangerous, which only adds to our problems. You represent everything that
is wrong with people. Why you pretend to understand and why you
lie about being good, is extremely
disturbing and wrong.
As long as people don't mind what you speak, you should
speak your mind. But if you speak your
mind, you should know your mind and you should know how to speak, and also
know what you're talking about.
Case 3:22-cv-01213-TAD-KDM Document
294 Filed 07/04/23 Page 1 of 7 PageID #: 26947
Judge Terry Doughty issued a temporary injunction blocking agencies
from doing things like notifying platforms about specific posts that may
be against their own rules or asking for information about content
moderation efforts. The injunction enjoins tens of thousands, maybe
hundred [of] thousands of federal government employees from having almost
any kind of communication with private platforms about content on their
services to address false and misleading claims. The injunction bans
interactions such as "meeting with social-media companies for the purpose
of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal,
deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free
speech posted on social-media platforms". It also blocks federal agencies
from flagging specific posts that contain protected free speech,
encouraging social media companies to change their guidelines regarding
such posts, or asking the companies to "be on the lookout" for such
postings. The demands by some conservatives for "free speech" on social
media platforms, versus the desire to rein in misinformation and
disinformation that could lead to real-world harm. The AGs' argument ties
into a larger Republican narrative
that conservatives are being
censored on social media for their views. Democrats have faulted the
platforms for not doing enough to police misleading and false claims, hate
speech, and incitement to violence. The ruling provides exceptions for the
government to inform social media companies about posts involving criminal
activity, national security threats, and foreign interference in
elections. The injunction lists social platforms such as Facebook/Meta,
Twitter, YouTube/Google, WhatsApp, Instagram, WeChat, TikTok, Sina Weibo,
QQ, Telegram, Snapchat, Kuaishou, Qzone, Pinterest, Reddit, LinkedIn,
Quora, Discord, Twitch, Tumblr, Mastodon "and like companies. Government
agencies listed that are not allowed to contact these social media
platforms include the departments of Justice, Health and Human Services,
and State, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the FBI and
many individual government officials.
The
First Amendment protects false speech, with very limited
exceptions, including defamation and fraud. Defamation is a false
statement of fact that (1) is communicated to a third party; (2) is made
with the requisite guilty state of mind; and (3) harms an individual’s
reputation. To be defamatory, a statement must be an assertion of fact
(rather than mere opinion or rhetorical hyperbole) and capable of being
proven false. As to state of mind, if the person allegedly defamed is a
public figure, he or she must prove “actual malice” — namely, that the
speaker made the statement either with knowledge of its falsity or with
reckless disregard for the truth. A non-public figure need only prove that
the speaker was negligent in making the false statement.
In
Giboney v. Empire Storage & Ice Co. (1949), the Supreme Court held the
First Amendment affords no protection to “speech or writing used as an
integral part of conduct in violation of a valid criminal statute.” A
robber’s demand at gunpoint that you hand over your money is not protected
speech. Nor is extortion, criminal
conspiracy, or solicitation to commit a specific crime. Abstract advocacy
of lawbreaking remains protected speech.
The First Amendment makes
no categorical exception for false or misleading speech, certain types of
fraudulent statements fall outside its protection. The government
generally can impose liability for false advertising or on speakers who
knowingly make factual misrepresentations to obtain money or some other
material benefit (such as employment). Prohibitions on perjury — knowingly
giving false testimony under oath — also are constitutional.
In
Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969), the Supreme Court of the United States
held the First Amendment does not protect speech that is “directed to
inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or
produce such action.” Mere advocacy of lawbreaking or violence remains
protected speech as long as it is not intended to and likely to provoke
immediate unlawful action.
In
Virginia v. Black (2003), the Supreme Court defined true threats as
“those statements where the speaker means to communicate a serious
expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a
particular individual or group of individuals.” The Court clarified that
the speaker “need not actually intend to carry out the threat.” True
threats are distinguishable from heated rhetoric. For example, the Court
held in Watts v. United States (1969) that the First Amendment protected a
man’s statement — after being drafted to serve in the Vietnam War — that
“[i]f they ever make me carry a rifle the first man I want to get in my
sights is L. B. J.,” as the statement was not a true expression of intent
to kill the president.
Fighting words
are those that, by the very act of being spoken, tend to incite the
individual to whom they are addressed to respond violently and to do so
immediately, with no time to think things over. The fighting words
category is an exceedingly limited classification of speech, encompassing
only face-to-face communications that would obviously provoke an immediate
and violent reaction from the average listener.
There is no First
Amendment exception for so-called hate
speech. The First Amendment fully protects speech that is unpopular or
that some may find downright offensive.
The Supreme Court has held
the First Amendment allows you to wear a jacket that says “Fuck the Draft”
in a public building (Cohen
v. California (1971)), protest a soldier’s funeral with a sign that
says “Thank God for Dead Soldiers” (Snyder
v. Phelps (2011)), burn the American flag in protest (Texas v. Johnson
(1989) and United States v. Eichman (1990)), and give a racially charged
speech to a restless crowd (Terminiello v. Chicago (1949)).
In
Texas v. Johnson (1989), the Supreme Court stated the general rule
regarding protected speech when it held the “government may not prohibit
the verbal or nonverbal expression of an idea merely because society finds
the idea offensive or disagreeable.” Federal courts have consistently
followed this holding when applying the First Amendment.
In the
educational context, the Supreme Court held in
Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education (1999) that
student-on-student harassment consists only of unwelcome, discriminatory
conduct (which may include expression) that is “so severe, pervasive, and
objectively offensive, and that so undermines and detracts from the
victims’ educational experience, that the victim-students are effectively
denied equal access to an institution’s resources and opportunities.” By
definition, this includes only extreme and usually repetitive behavior —
behavior so serious that it would prevent a reasonable person from
receiving his or her education.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression has a mission to
defend and sustain the individual rights of all Americans to free speech
and free thought — the most essential qualities of liberty. FIRE educates
Americans about the importance of these inalienable rights, promotes a
culture of respect for these rights, and provides the means to preserve
them.
Civil Rights
Civil
and Political Rights are a class of
rights that protect
individuals'
freedom from infringement by
governments,
social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's
ability to participate in the civil and political life of the society and state without
discrimination or
repression. Civil rights include the ensuring of peoples' physical and mental
integrity,
life and safety; protection from
discrimination on grounds such as
race, gender,
gender identity, gender expression, gender dysphoria,
national origin,
color,
age,
political affiliation,
sexual orientation (also called
sexual preference),
ethnicity,
religion,
or disability; and
individual rights such as
privacy, the freedoms of
thought and conscience, speech and
expression,
religion,
the press,
assembly and
movement. Political rights include
natural justice (procedural fairness) in
law, such as the
rights of the accused, including the
right to a fair trial;
due process; the right to seek redress or a
legal remedy; and rights of
participation in
civil society and
politics such as
freedom of association, the
right to assemble, the
right to petition, the
right of self-defense, and the
right to
vote. Civil and political rights form the original and main part of
international human rights.
They comprise the first portion of the
1948
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (with
economic, social and cultural rights comprising the second portion).
The theory of
three generations of human rights considers this group of rights to be
"first-generation rights", and the theory of
negative and positive rights considers them to be generally
negative rights.
Hate Crimes - Freedom of Assembly -
Freedom of the Press -
Public Interest Law
Civil Liberties
or personal freedoms are personal guarantees and freedoms that the
government cannot abridge, either by law or by judicial interpretation
without due process. Though the scope of the term differs between
countries, civil liberties may include the freedom from torture, freedom
from forced disappearance, freedom of conscience, freedom of press,
freedom of religion, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, the right
to security and liberty, freedom of speech, the right to privacy, the
right to equal treatment under the law and due process, the right to a
fair trial, and the right to life. Other civil liberties include the right
to own property, the right to defend oneself, and the right to bodily
integrity. Within the distinctions between civil liberties and other types
of liberty, distinctions exist between positive liberty/positive rights
and negative liberty/negative rights.
Compassion.
Civil
Rights Movements are a worldwide series of
political movements for equality before the law, that has been going
on for hundreds of years.
Civil
Rights Act of 1957 enacted September 9, 1957, primarily a voting
rights bill, was the first federal civil rights legislation passed by the
United States Congress since the Civil Rights Act of 1875. The purpose of
the Civil Rights Act of 1957 was to show the federal government's support
for racial equality following the Supreme Court's 1954 Brown decision.
Opposition to the legislation, including the longest one-person
filibuster in history, resulted in limited immediate impact, but the Act
paved the way for a series of more effective civil rights bills in the
1960s.
Civil Rights Act of 1964 enacted July 2, 1964 is a landmark civil
rights and US labor law in the United States that outlaws discrimination
based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. It prohibited
unequal application of voter registration requirements, racial segregation
in schools, employment, and public accommodations.
Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 provides that no person in
the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin,
be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be
subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving
federal financial assistance.
Civil Rights -
Civil Rights Division - Civil Law
Council on American-Islamic Relations is a Muslim civil rights and
advocacy group. It is headquartered on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.,
with regional offices nationwide. Through civil rights actions, media
relations, civic engagement, and education, CAIR promotes social, legal
and political activism among Muslims in America. The government of the
United Arab Emirates has designated CAIR as a terrorist organization.
Critics of CAIR have accused it of pursuing an Islamist agenda and have
claimed the group is connected to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, which
CAIR has rejected and described as an Islamophobic smear campaign.
Civil
Rights Movement - Civil
Liberties Union
Martin Luther King Jr. was an African American minister and
activist who became the most visible
spokesperson and leader in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his
assassination in 1968. King is best known for advancing civil rights
through nonviolence and civil
disobedience, inspired by his Christian beliefs and the nonviolent
activism of
Mahatma Gandhi. King led the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott and later
became the first president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
(SCLC). As president of the SCLC, he then led an unsuccessful 1962
struggle against segregation in Albany, Georgia, and helped organize the
nonviolent 1963 protests in Birmingham, Alabama. He helped organize the
1963 March on Washington, where he delivered his famous "I
Have a Dream" speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. On October
14, 1964, King won the Nobel Peace Prize for combating racial inequality
through nonviolent resistance. In 1965, he helped organize the Selma to
Montgomery marches. In his final years, he expanded his focus to include
opposition towards poverty, capitalism, and the Vietnam War. FBI Director
J. Edgar Hoover considered him a radical and made him an object of the
FBI's COINTELPRO from 1963 on. FBI agents investigated him for possible
communist ties, recorded his extramarital liaisons and reported on them to
government officials, and, in 1964, mailed King a threatening anonymous
letter, which he interpreted as an attempt to make him commit suicide.
King was planning a national occupation of Washington, D.C., to be called
the Poor People's Campaign, when he was assassinated on April 4 in
Memphis, Tennessee. His death was followed by riots in many U.S. cities.
Allegations that James Earl Ray, the man convicted of killing King, had
been framed or acted in concert with government agents persisted for
decades after the shooting. King was posthumously awarded the Presidential
Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal. Martin Luther King Jr.
Day was established as a holiday in cities and states throughout the
United States beginning in 1971; the holiday was enacted at the federal
level by legislation signed by President Ronald Reagan in 1986. Hundreds
of streets in the U.S. have been renamed in his honor, and a county in
Washington was rededicated for him. The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on
the National Mall in Washington, D.C., was dedicated in 2011. Since the
late 2010s activists have made efforts on Martin Luther King Jr. Day to
reclaim the legacy of King. (Martin was born Michael King Jr. on January
15, 1929 – April 4, 1968).
Citizens
Commission - Commission on Civil Rights
- Lydon B Johnson
United States Commission on Civil Rights is a bipartisan, independent
commission of the United States federal government, created in
1957, that
is charged with the responsibility for investigating, reporting on, and
making recommendations concerning civil rights issues in the United
States. Pursuant to 42 U.S.C. 1975d, all statutory authority for the
commission terminated on September 30, 1996, and Congress has not passed
new legislation, but has continued to pass appropriations.
Individual and Group Rights or collective rights, are rights held by a
group qua group rather than by its members severally; in contrast,
individual rights are rights held by individual people; even if they are
group-differentiated, which most rights are, they remain individual rights
if the right-holders are the individuals themselves. Group rights have
historically been used both to infringe upon and to facilitate individual
rights, and the concept remains controversial.
"Liberty will not
descend to a people, a people must raise themselves to liberty; it is a
blessing that must be earned before it can be enjoyed."
Charles Caleb Colton (wiki).
Three-fifths Compromise was an agreement reached during the
1787 United States Constitutional
Convention over the counting of slaves in determining a state's total
population. This count would determine the number of seats in the House of
Representatives and how much each state would pay in taxes. The compromise
counted three-fifths of each state's slave population toward that state's
total population for the purpose of apportioning the House of
Representatives. Even though slaves were denied voting rights, this gave
Southern states more Representatives and more presidential electoral votes
than if slaves had not been counted. It also gave slaveholders similarly
enlarged powers in Southern legislatures; this was an issue in the
secession of West Virginia from Virginia in 1863. Free blacks and
indentured servants were not subject to the compromise, and each was
counted as one full person for representation.
What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July is the title now given to a
speech by
Frederick Douglass delivered on July 5, 1852.
"Oppression makes a wise man mad. Your fathers were wise men, and if they
did not go mad, they became restive under this treatment. They felt
themselves the victims of grievous wrongs, wholly incurable in their
colonial capacity. With brave men there is always a remedy for oppression.
Just here, the idea of a total separation of the colonies from the crown
was born! It was a startling idea, much more so, than we, at this distance
of time, regard it. The timid and the prudent (as has been intimated) of
that day, were, of course, shocked and alarmed by it. What have I, or
those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great
principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that
Declaration of Independence, extended to us?...What, to the American
slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than
all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is
the constant victim."
Frederick Douglass’
Descendants Read His Famous ‘Fourth of July’ Speech | NPR (youtube).
Let America Be America Again by
Langston Hughes. (1935) - Let America be America again. Let it be the
dream it used to be. Let it be the pioneer on the plain. Seeking a
home where he himself is free. (America never was America to me.)
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—Let it be that great
strong land of love. Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme.
That any man be crushed by one above. (It never was America to me.)
O, let my land be a land where Liberty. Is crowned with no false
patriotic wreath, But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe. (There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.") Say, who are you that
mumbles in the dark? And who are you that draws your veil across the
stars? I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart, I am the Negro
bearing slavery's scars. I am the red man driven from the land, I am
the immigrant clutching the hope I seek—And finding only the same old
stupid plan. Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak. I am the young
man, full of strength and hope, Tangled in that ancient endless chain.
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land! Of grab the gold! Of grab the
ways of satisfying need! Of work the men! Of take the pay! Of owning
everything for one's own greed! I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine. I am the Negro, servant to you
all. I am the people, humble, hungry, mean—Hungry yet today despite
the dream. Beaten yet today—O, Pioneers! I am the man who never got
ahead, The poorest worker bartered through the years. Yet I'm the
one who dreamt our basic dream. In the Old World while still a serf of
kings, Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true, That even
yet its mighty daring sings. In every brick and stone, in every furrow
turned. That's made America the land it has become. O, I'm the man
who sailed those early seas. In search of what I meant to be my home—For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore, And Poland's plain, and
England's grassy lea, And torn from Black Africa's strand I came. To
build a "homeland of the free." The free? Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today? The millions shot down
when we strike? The millions who have nothing for our pay? For all
the dreams we've dreamed. And all the songs we've sung. And all the
hopes we've held. And all the flags we've hung, The millions who have
nothing for our pay—Except the dream that's almost dead today.
O, let America be America again—The land that never has been yet—And
yet must be—the land where every man is free. The land that's mine—the
poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME—Who made America, Whose sweat and
blood, whose faith and pain, Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in
the rain, Must bring back our mighty dream again. Sure, call me any
ugly name you choose—The steel of freedom does not stain. From
those who live like leeches on the people's lives, We must take back
our land again, America! O, yes, I say it plain, America never
was America to me, And yet I swear this oath—America will be!
Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death, The rape and rot of
graft, and stealth, and lies, We, the people, must redeem. The land,
the mines, the plants, the rivers. The mountains and the endless plain—All, all the stretch of these great green states—And make America
again!
Let America be America Again poem written in
1935 by American poet Langston Hughes. It was originally published
in the July 1936 issue of Esquire Magazine. The poem was republished in
the 1937 issue of Kansas Magazine and was revised and included in a small
collection of Langston Hughes poems entitled A New Song, published by the
International Workers Order in 1938. The poem speaks of the American dream
that never existed for the lower-class American and the freedom and
equality that every immigrant hoped for but never received. In his poem,
Hughes represents not only African Americans, but other economically
disadvantaged and minority groups as well. Besides criticizing the unfair
life in America, the poem conveys a sense of hope that the American Dream
is soon to come. Hughes wrote the poem while riding a train from New York
to his mother's home in Ohio. He was in despair over recent reviews of his
first Broadway play and his mother's diagnosis of breast cancer. Despite
being a pillar of the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s, he was still
struggling for acceptance as a poet, battling persistent racism, and just
eking out a living. Selling a poem or a story every few months, he called
himself a "literary sharecropper." Fate, he said, "never intended for me
to have a full pocket of anything but manuscripts." Hughes finished the
poem in a night but did not regard it as one of his best. It did not
appear in his early anthologies and was only revived in the 1990s, first
in a public reading by Supreme Court justice Thurgood Marshall, later as a
title for museum shows. The title of this poem was used by Democratic
United States senator John Kerry as a campaign slogan in his 2004
presidential campaign.
Langston Hughes was an American poet, social activist, novelist,
playwright, and columnist from Joplin, Missouri. He moved to New York City
as a young man, where he made his career. One of the earliest innovators
of the then-new literary art form called jazz poetry, Hughes is best known
as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance. He famously wrote about the period
that "the negro was in vogue", which was later paraphrased as "when Harlem
was in vogue." Growing up in a series of Midwestern towns, Hughes became a
prolific writer at an early age. He graduated from high school in
Cleveland, Ohio and soon began studies at Columbia University in New York
City. Although he dropped out, he gained notice from New York publishers,
first in The Crisis magazine, and then from book publishers and became
known in the creative community in Harlem. He eventually graduated from
Lincoln University. In addition to poetry, Hughes wrote plays, and short
stories. He also published several non-fiction works. From 1942 to 1962,
as the civil rights movement was gaining traction, he wrote an in-depth
weekly column in a leading black newspaper, The Chicago Defender.
Elizabeth Peratrovich was an
American civil rights activist and member of the
Tlingit nation who
worked for equality on behalf of
Alaska Natives. In the 1940s, her advocacy was credited as being
instrumental in the passing of Alaska's
Anti-Discrimination Act of 1945, the first state or territorial
anti-discrimination law enacted in the United States in the 20th century.
In 1988, the Alaska Legislature established February 16 as Elizabeth
Peratrovich Day "for her courageous, unceasing efforts to eliminate
discrimination and bring about equal rights in Alaska" (Alaska Statutes
44.12.065). In March 2019, her obituary was added to The New York Times as
part of their "Overlooked No More" series. (Tlingit name: Kaaxgal.aat;
July 4, 1911 – December 1, 1958).
Eyes on the Prize is an American television series and 14-part
documentary about the 20th-century civil rights movement
in the United States. The documentary originally aired on the PBS network,
and it also aired in the United Kingdom on BBC2. Created and executive
produced by Henry Hampton at the film production company Blackside and
narrated by Julian Bond, the series uses archival footage, stills, and
interviews by participants and opponents of the movement. The title of the
series is derived from the title of the folk song "Keep
Your Eyes on the Prize", which is used as the opening theme music in
each episode.
The Leadership
Conference Education Fund. In our increasingly diverse nation, we
provide a powerful voice for human dignity and equality — and a bulwark
against discrimination.
Civil Rights
Lawyers are advocates for human rights, social justice and racial
equality as they are guaranteed by U.S. legislation. Civil rights
attorneys are involved in discrimination cases related to age, race,
national origin, religion, sex and color.
United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division - Assistant
Attorney General for Civil Rights, Appellate Section, Coordination and
Review Section, Criminal Section, Disability Rights Section,
Educational
Opportunities Section, Employment Litigation Section, Housing and
Civil Enforcement Section, Immigrant and Employee Rights Section, Policy &
Strategy Section, Special Litigation Section,
Voting Section.
Inalienable Rights
Inalienable Rights are
rights that cannot be bought, sold, or transferred
from one individual to another. Rights are not subject to forfeiture and can be
lost or surrendered
as a penalty. The
personal
rights to
life
and
liberty
are
guaranteed by the
Constitution of
the United States, they are
inalienable.
Similarly, various types of property are inalienable, such as rivers,
streams, and highways.
Natural Rights and
Legal Rights are two types of
rights. Natural
rights are those that are not dependent on the laws or customs of any
particular culture or government, and so are universal and inalienable (they
cannot be repealed by human laws, though one can forfeit their
enforcement through one's actions, such as by violating someone else's
rights). Legal rights are those bestowed onto a person by a given legal
system (they can be modified, repealed, and restrained by human laws).
Inherent Rights are the rights and
freedoms that every human has inherited is born with rights as a birth
right. But these rights can only be given when someone protects these
rights for you, and when you can protect these rights for yourself and
protect these rights for others. Humans are born with rights that need
protection, just like all animals need protection, the
environment needs protection,
your brain needs protection.
Unalienable is
something incapable of being repudiated or something that you
cannot refuse to acknowledge or
refuse to recognize as
valid, so
no one has the right to violate another
persons rights.
Laws - Charter
- Social Justice -
Natural Person -
Privacy
- Intrinsic Value
Virginia Declaration of Rights was drafted in 1776 to proclaim the
inherent rights of men, including the right
to reform or abolish "inadequate" government. It influenced a number of
later documents, including the United States Declaration of Independence
(1776) and the United States Bill of Rights (1789). Article 1 states that
"all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain
inherent rights of which ... they cannot deprive or divest their
posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of
acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness
and safety," a statement later made internationally famous in the second
paragraph of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, as "we hold these
truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, and are endowed
by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are
Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Section 1. That all men are
by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights,
of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any
compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life
and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and
pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.
The March of
Freedom (Full Episode) | The Story of Us with Morgan Freeman (youtube)
- Morgan Freeman travels around the world in search of a greater
understanding of the concept of freedom. From solitary confinement and
forced labor camps to social taboos and laws that hinder speech and
expression, freedom seems to be a constant struggle. As individuals and as
entire nations, we are confronted with the question: Will we all ever be
truly free?
I serve you, but
I am
not your slave. I am an
individual and a human, and like all humans, we are born with rights
and freedoms. No human can be owned or treated like an object. We respect
each other, we work together,
we live together, we learn together, and we progress together.
Due Process
Due Process is the legal requirement that the state must
respect all legal
rights that are owed to a person. Due process balances the power of law of
the land and protects the individual person from it. When a
government
harms a person without following the exact course of the law, this
constitutes a due process violation, which offends the rule of law.
Due Process Clause in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States
Constitution each contain a due process clause. Due process deals with the
administration of justice and thus the due process clause acts as a
safeguard from arbitrary denial of life, liberty, or property
by the
Government outside the sanction of law. The Supreme Court of the United
States interprets the clauses more broadly because these clauses provide
four protections: The procedural due process in civil and criminal
proceedings, a
substantive due process, a prohibition against vague laws,
and as the vehicle for the incorporation of the Bill of Rights. Due
process ensures the rights and equality of all citizens.
Substantive Due Process is a principle allowing courts to protect
certain fundamental rights from government interference, even if
procedural protections are present or the rights are not specifically
mentioned elsewhere in the US Constitution. Courts have identified the
basis for such protection from the due process clauses of the Fifth and
Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution, which
prohibit the federal and state governments, respectively,
from depriving any person of "life, liberty, or
property, without due process of law." Substantive due process
demarcates the line between the acts that courts hold are subject to
government regulation or legislation and the acts that
courts place beyond the reach of
governmental interference. Whether the Fifth and/or Fourteenth Amendments
were intended to serve that function continues to be a matter of scholarly
as well as judicial discussion and dissent.
Right to a Fair Trial -
Habeas Corpus -
Right to Counsel - Equal Justice Under Law
- Innocent Until Proven Guilty - Not Making Assumptions or
False Accusations -
Avoidance of Censorship -
Frivolous Lawsuits
5th Amendment (allows a witness to
decline to answer questions, or
remain silent).
Sixth Amendment secures the right to the
assistance of counsel, by appointment if necessary, in a trial for any
serious crime. Sixth Amendment grants criminal defendants the
right to a speedy and public trial by an
impartial jury consisting of jurors from
the state and district in which the crime was alleged to have been
committed. Sixth Amendment requires that criminal defendants
be given notice of the nature and cause of
accusations against them. The amendment's Confrontation Clause gives
criminal defendants the
right to confront and cross-examine witnesses, while the Compulsory
Process Clause gives criminal defendants the right to call their own
witnesses and, in some cases, compel witnesses to testify. The Assistance
of Counsel Clause grants criminal defendants the right to be assisted by
counsel. Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution is the part of the
United States Bill of Rights that sets forth rights related to criminal
prosecutions. The Supreme Court has applied the protections of this
amendment to the states through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment.
Equal
Protection Clause states, "nor shall any State deny to any
person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws". It
mandates that individuals in similar situations be treated equally by the
law.
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was adopted on
July 9, 1868. Section 1. All persons born
or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction
thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they
reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the
privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any
State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due
process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws. Section 2.
Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to
their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each
State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any
election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of
the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial
officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied
to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of
age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for
participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation
therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male
citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years
of age in such State. Section 3. No person
shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President
and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the
United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath,
as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a
member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of
any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have
engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or
comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds
of each House, remove such disability. Section 4.
The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law,
including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services
in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But
neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or
obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United
States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all
such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.
Section 5. The Congress shall have power to
enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
First Amendment (freedom of speech)
- Rights (civil)
Natural Justice is technical terminology for the
rule against bias and the
right to a fair hearing. While
the term natural justice is often retained as a general concept, it has
largely been replaced and extended by the general "duty
to act fairly". The basis for the rule against bias is the need to
maintain public confidence in the legal system. Bias can take the form of
actual bias, imputed bias or apparent bias. Actual bias is very difficult
to prove in practice while imputed bias, once shown, will result in a
decision being void without the need for any investigation into the
likelihood or suspicion of bias. Cases from different jurisdictions
currently apply two tests for apparent bias: the "reasonable suspicion of
bias" test and the "real likelihood of bias" test. One view that has been
taken is that the differences between these two tests are largely semantic
and that they operate similarly. The right to a fair hearing requires that
individuals should not be penalized by decisions affecting their rights or
legitimate expectations unless they have been given prior notice of the
case, a fair opportunity to answer it, and the opportunity to present
their own case. The mere fact that a decision affects rights or interests
is sufficient to subject the decision to the procedures required by
natural justice. In Europe, the right to a fair hearing is guaranteed by
Article 6(1) of the European Convention on Human Rights, which is said to
complement the common law rather than replace it. (nemo iudex in
causa sua) (audi alteram partem).
Bill of Rights
The Bill of
Rights is the collective name for the
first ten amendments to the United
States Constitution. Proposed following the oftentimes bitter 1787–88
battle over ratification of the U.S. Constitution, and crafted to address
the objections raised by Anti-Federalists, the Bill of Rights amendments
add to the Constitution specific guarantees of personal freedoms and
rights, clear limitations on the government's power in judicial and other
proceedings, and explicit declarations that all powers not specifically
delegated to Congress by the Constitution are reserved for the states or
the people. The concepts codified in these amendments are built upon those
found in several earlier documents, including the Virginia Declaration of
Rights and the English Bill of Rights 1689, along with earlier documents
such as Magna Carta (1215).
Bill of Rights -
Bill of Rights
Institute - Civil Rights -
Inalienable Rights - Due Process
Right to Life is a moral principle based on the belief that a human
being has the right to live and, in particular, should not be killed by
another human being. The concept of a right to life arises in debates on
issues of capital punishment, war, abortion, euthanasia, justifiable
homicide, animal welfare and public health care.
Rights - The
Right to Remain Silent -
NAACP
Magna Carta
is Latin for "the Great Charter of the Liberties", commonly
called Magna Carta ("the Great Charter"), is a
charter agreed to by King
John of England at Runnymede, near Windsor, on 15 June 1215. First drafted
by the Archbishop of Canterbury to make peace between the unpopular King
and a group of rebel barons, it promised the protection of church rights,
protection for the barons from illegal imprisonment, access to swift
justice, and limitations on feudal payments to the Crown, to be
implemented through a council of 25 barons.
Treaties
Natural Rights are two types of rights. Legal Rights
are those bestowed onto a person by a given legal system (i.e., rights
that can be modified, repealed, and restrained by human laws). Natural
rights are those that are not dependent on the laws, customs, or beliefs
of any particular culture or government, and therefore universal and
inalienable (i.e., rights that cannot be repealed or restrained by human
laws).
Equal Rights Amendment is a proposed amendment to the United States
Constitution designed to guarantee equal legal rights for all American
citizens regardless of sex; it seeks to end
the legal distinctions between men and women in terms of divorce,
property, employment, and other matters. The ERA was originally written by
Alice Paul and Crystal Eastman. The amendment was introduced in Congress
for the first time in October 1921 and has prompted conversations about
the meaning of legal equality
for women and men ever since.
equalrightsamendment.org
Second Bill of Rights is a list of rights that was proposed by United
States President Franklin D. Roosevelt during his State of the Union
Address on Tuesday, January 11, 1944. Roosevelt's argument was that the
"political rights" guaranteed by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights
had "proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness".
His remedy was to declare an "economic bill of rights" to guarantee these
specific rights:
Employment (right to work), food, clothing and leisure with enough
income to support them. Farmers' Rights to a
fair income. Freedom from unfair competition
and Monopolies. Housing. Medical Care.
Social Security.
Education. Roosevelt stated that having such rights would guarantee
American security and that the United States' place in the world depended
upon how far the rights had been carried into practice.
Big 5.
It's Time for the Law to Protect Victims of Gender Violence: Laura L. Dunn
(video and text)
Women's
Rights - Women's News
- Sex Crimes
International Human Rights Law is the body of international law designed to
promote human rights on social, regional, and domestic levels. As a form
of international law, international human rights law is primarily made up
of treaties, agreements between sovereign states intended to have binding
legal effect between the parties that have agreed to them; and customary
international law. Other international human rights instruments, while not
legally binding, contribute to the implementation, understanding and
development of international human rights law and have been recognized as
a source of political obligation.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations
General Assembly on 10 December 1948 at the Palais de Chaillot, Paris.
National Human Rights Institution is an independent institution
bestowed with the responsibility to broadly protect, monitor and promote
human rights in a given country. The growth of such bodies has been
encouraged by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human
Rights (OHCHR), which has provided advisory and support services, and
facilitated access for NHRIs to the UN treaty bodies and other
committees.[1] There are over 100 such institutions, about two-thirds
assessed by peer review as compliant with the United Nations standards set
out in the Paris Principles. Compliance with the Principles is the basis
for accreditation at the UN, which, uniquely for NHRIs, is not conducted
directly by a UN body but by a sub-committee of the International
Coordinating Committee of National Human Rights Institutions (ICC). The
secretariat to the review process (for initial accreditation, and
reaccreditation every five years) is provided by the National Institutions
and Regional Mechanisms Section of the OHCHR.
Human Rights Commission is a body set up to investigate, promote or
protect human rights.
European Convention on Human Rights is an international treaty to
protect human rights and fundamental freedoms in Europe. Drafted in 1950
by the then newly formed Council of Europe, the convention entered into
force on 3 September 1953.
Declaration of
Human Rights -
Human Rights Search Engine
Declaration of Principles on Equality reflects a moral and
professional consensus among human rights and
Equality experts done in
December 2008. It contains 27 principles that establish a new paradigm on
equality, drawing on established and emerging principles of international
law. It has been described by the High Court of Delhi as reflecting the
‘current international understanding of Principles on
Equality.
Alison Crocetta: Bear in Mind -
Social Barriers -
Learn
Liberty
List of Peace Activists - Activists -
List of Civil Rights Leaders (wiki) -
Journalism from Citizens
Choice is a
Vote for something, or a vote against something.
Witness is an
international organization that trains and supports people using video in
their fight for human rights.
The mission of the
Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities is to
eliminate discrimination through civil and human rights law enforcement
and to establish equal opportunity and justice for all persons within the
state through advocacy and education.
"Your freedom ends where mine begins,
and to know exactly where that line is for me and for you, is the beginning
of understanding each other."
We want control and order without infringing on peoples
needs, or put restrictions on people that causes more harm then good. We need
better education and less legislation.
Negative and Positive Rights are rights that oblige either action
(positive rights) or inaction (negative rights). These obligations may be
of either a legal or moral character. The notion of positive and negative
rights may also be applied to liberty rights. To take an example involving
two parties in a court of law: Adrian has a negative right to x against
Clay if and only if Clay is prohibited from acting upon Adrian in some way
regarding x. In contrast, Adrian has a positive right to x against Clay if
and only if Clay is obliged to act upon Adrian in some way regarding x. A
case in point, if Adrian has a negative right to life against Clay, then
Clay is required to refrain from killing Adrian; while if Adrian has a
positive right to life against Clay, then Clay is required to act as
necessary to preserve the life of Adrian. Rights considered negative
rights may include civil and political rights such as freedom of speech,
life, private property, freedom from violent crime, freedom of religion,
habeas corpus, a fair trial, and freedom from slavery. Rights considered
positive rights, as initially proposed in 1979 by the Czech jurist Karel
Vasak, may include other civil and political rights such as police
protection of person and property and the right to counsel, as well as
economic, social and cultural rights such as food, housing, public
education, employment, national security, military, health care, social
security, internet access, and a minimum standard of living. In the "three
generations" account of human rights, negative rights are often associated
with the first generation of rights, while positive rights are associated
with the second and third generations. Some philosophers (see criticisms)
disagree that the negative-positive rights distinction is useful or valid.
Claim Rights and Liberty Rights. A claim right is a right which
entails responsibilities, duties, or obligations on other parties
regarding the right-holder. In contrast, a liberty right is a right which
does not entail obligations on other parties, but rather only freedom or
permission for the right-holder. The distinction between these two senses
of "rights" originates in American jurist Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld's
analysis thereof in his seminal work Fundamental Legal Conceptions, As
Applied in Judicial Reasoning and Other Legal Essays. Liberty rights and
claim rights are the inverse of one another: a person has a liberty right
permitting him to do something only if there is no other person who has a
claim right forbidding him from doing so; and likewise, if a person has a
claim right against someone else, that other person's liberty is thus
limited. This is because the deontic concepts of obligation and permission are De Morgan dual; a person is permitted to do all and only
the things he is not obliged to refrain from, and obliged to do all and
only the things he is not permitted to refrain from.
American Rights at Work
Affirmative Action a policy of favoring members of a disadvantaged group who
suffer or have suffered from discrimination within a culture. Some
countries, such as India, use a quota system, whereby a certain percentage
of government jobs, political positions, and school vacancies must be
reserved for members of a certain group. In some other regions where
quotas are not used, minority group members are given preference or
special consideration in selection processes.
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is a federal agency that
administers and enforces civil rights laws against workplace
discrimination. The EEOC investigates discrimination complaints based on
an individual's race, color, national origin, religion, sex, age,
disability, gender identity, genetic information, and retaliation for
reporting, participating in, and/or opposing a discriminatory practice.
13th Amendment abolished slavery and involuntary servitude,
except as punishment for a crime.
Speech Now -
State Voices -
JFK Library
Freedom of Information Act - Data Protection
Transparency (accountability) -
Democracy -
Global Policy
Public Agenda
- International Committee of the Red Cross
Rights of Man is a book by
Thomas Paine written 1791 that included 31 articles, posits that popular political
revolution is permissible when a government does not safeguard the natural
rights of its people. Using these points as a base it defends the French
Revolution against Edmund Burke's attack in Reflections on the Revolution
in France (1790). It was published in two parts in March 1791 and February 1792.
Amnesty
Amnesty is a
period during which offenders are exempt from punishment. Amnesty in law
is a warrant granting release
from punishment for an offense or the formal act of
liberating
someone. To grant a pardon
to a group of people.
Amnesty International
- Amnesty USA - Asylum
-
Refugees - Citizenship -
Immigration -
Open Society Foundations
Human Rights Watch -
RFK Center -
European Court of Human Rights -
Citizens Commission on Human
Rights - War Crimes -
Genocide
Right of Asylum is
when a person is persecuted by their own country may be protected by
another sovereign authority, such as another country or church official.
Rights.
Constitution - Principles - Precedents
We the People—affirm that the
government of the United States
exists to serve its citizens. It is
not for corrupt individuals to serve
themselves at the expense of others. Most people can't see corruption or
fully comprehend how damaging corruption is. When you give money to a
business to pay for needed services, you expect to receive those services.
If you do not receive the services that you paid for under contract, this
is what is called fraud, theft,
waste and
negligence, which are criminal
violations punishable by law in every state in America. But just
prosecuting people who violate these laws does not fix the problem of
corruption, because corrupt individuals are easily replace with other
corrupt individuals. So you can't fire everyone, but you can educate
everyone. September 17, 1787, 38 delegates
signed the
Constitution, which is a model for the governance of a state with
separate and independent powers and areas of
responsibility, so that the
powers of one branch are not in
conflict with the powers associated with the other branches, creating
distinct branches to limit any one branch from exercising the core
functions of another. This was supposed to stop corruption from forming,
but it did not succeed as planed. Corruption is a systemic problem that
can not be solved with just a few documents or using just a few laws. We
have very little accountability
or transparency because we have
very little education and not enough information. We are essentially blind
because too many people are not knowledgeable enough to understand
themselves or understand the world which we all live in. And we can easily
fix this problem if we all agree to educate ourselves and inform ourselves
about the reality that we live in. We have proven that we can
work together. But we need
to define our responsibilities and honor these agreements. The
Constitution describes the rights and responsibilities of state
governments, and the states in relationship to the federal government.
Since the Constitution came into force in 1789, it has been
amended 27 times, including one amendment
that repealed a previous one, in order to meet the needs of a nation that
has profoundly changed since the eighteenth century. In general, the first
ten amendments, known collectively as the Bill of Rights,
offer specific protections of individual liberty and justice and place
restrictions on the powers of government. The majority of the seventeen
later amendments expand individual civil rights protections. Others
address issues related to federal authority or modify government processes
and procedures.
The U.S. Constitution contains
7,591 words including the 27
amendments. In all it contains
4,543 words, including the signatures and
has four sheets, 28-3/4 inches by 23-5/8 inches each. The Constitution was
ratified by specially elected conventions
beginning in December 1787.
Individuals Working
Together, like the millions of cells and microbes do in our bodies.
State Constitutions -
City Management
Allegiance -
Leadership -
Oversight -
Interpretation -
Unconstitutional
Constitution
is a set of fundamental principles or established
precedents according to
which a state or other organization is governed. These rules together make
up, i.e. constitute, what the entity is. When these principles are written
down into a single document or set of legal documents, those documents may
be said to embody a written constitution; if they are written down in a
single comprehensive document, it is said to embody a codified
constitution. Some constitutions (such as the constitution of the United
Kingdom) are uncodified, but written in numerous fundamental Acts of a
legislature, court cases or treaties. Constitutions concern different
levels of organizations, from sovereign states to companies and
unincorporated associations. A treaty which establishes an international
organization is also its constitution, in that it would define how that
organization is constituted. Within states, a constitution defines the
principles upon which the state is based, the procedure in which laws are
made and by whom. Some constitutions, especially codified constitutions,
also act as limiters of state power, by establishing lines which a state's
rulers cannot cross, such as fundamental rights. The Constitution of India
is the longest written constitution of any sovereign country in the world,
containing 444 articles in 22 parts, 12 schedules and 118 amendments, with
146,385 words in its English-language version, while the Constitution of
Monaco is the shortest written constitution, containing 10 chapters with
97 articles, and a total of 3,814 words. The U.S.
Constitution is 7,591 words, including 27 amendments.
United States Constitution is the supreme law of the United States of
America. The Constitution, originally comprising seven articles,
delineates the national frame of government. Its first three articles
entrench the doctrine of the
separation of powers, whereby the federal
government is divided into three branches: the legislative, consisting of
the bicameral Congress; the executive, consisting of the President; and
the judicial, consisting of the Supreme Court and other federal courts.
Articles Four, Five and Six entrench concepts of federalism, describing
the rights and responsibilities of state governments and of the states in
relationship to the federal government. Article Seven establishes the
procedure subsequently used by the thirteen States to ratify it.
Constitution Image (photo) -
PDF.
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a
More Perfect Union,
establish Justice, insure domestic
Tranquility, provide for the
common defense, 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.
Our
is of or belonging to us.
Us is the
objective case of we, the persons speaking.
We is plural of "I".
All is everyone and everybody, all people.
Plural is composed of more than one member,
a set, or a kind. Plural in writing is a grammatical number category
referring to two or more items or units. The form of a word that is used
to denote more than one.
Of connects
a noun with the preceding word. Expresses possession or connection.
Indicates parts, content, or quality. Indicates a point of reference. A
reason or cause.
Constitutional Law is a body of law which
defines the role, powers, and structure of different entities within a
state, namely, the executive, the parliament or legislature, and the
judiciary; as well as the basic rights of citizens and, in federal
countries such as the United States and Canada, the relationship between
the central government and state, provincial, or territorial governments.
Lawyers - Judges
- Justice - Due
Process
Constitute is to
form or compose. Create and charge with a task or
function. Represent and
set up or lay the
groundwork for.
Constitution is the act of
forming or
establishing something, like laws that determine the
fundamental
political principles of a government or the way in which someone or
something is composed.
Reconstituting is to
construct or form a new or provide with a new
structure.
Transform.
Compose is to put
together something out of existing information or material. Make up
plans or basic details for
something.
Establish is the
validity of something, as by
an example, explanation or
experiment. Use as a basis for or
found on. To bring about and build or establish something
abstract.
Institute is to
advance or set forth in court.
Set up or lay the groundwork for.
US
Constitution -
U.S.
Constitution -
Constitution
of America
Pocket Constitution -
Pocket Justice
Constitution of May 3, 1791 (wiki)
Rights Foundation -
Center for Constitutional
Rights - Our Documents
- Interpretation
Constitutionalism is a compound of ideas, attitudes, and patterns of
behavior elaborating the principle that the authority of government
derives from and is limited by a body of fundamental law.
Unconstitutional Laws
Unconstitutional means that a law or
action went against what is allowed in the
Constitution. A paradoxical decision
based on flawed reasoning.
Frivolous.
Madison, 5 U.S. 137 (1803) - The Supreme Court held that
Congress cannot pass laws that are
contrary to the Constitution, and it is the role of the Judicial
system to interpret what the Constitution
permits.
Supremacy Clause
core message
is simple: You cannot make a law that violates federal laws or violates
constitutional rights. The Constitution and federal laws of the types listed in the
first part of the clause, take priority over any
conflicting rules of state law.
Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The federal
government possesses only those powers delegated to it by the United
States Constitution. All remaining powers are reserved for the states or
the people.
Rule According to Higher Law is a statement which expresses that no
law may be enforced by the government unless it
conforms with certain universal principles of
fairness, morality, and
justice. Thus, the rule according to a
higher law may serve as a practical legal criterion to qualify the
instances of political or economical decision-making, when a government,
even though acting in conformity with clearly defined and properly enacted
legal rules, still produces results which many observers find
unfair or
unjust.
From 1960–2019, the Supreme Court has held
483 laws unconstitutional in whole or in
part.
Nullification is a legal theory that a state has the right to nullify,
or invalidate, any federal laws which they deem unconstitutional with
respect to the United States Constitution.
Amendments to the United States Constitution (wiki) -
Repeals
Laws that are unfair or
contradictory can be overturned.
Repeal is the rescission of an existing
law by subsequent legislation or constitutional amendment. Also referred
to as abrogation.
Repeal can be explicit or implicit.
Laws Held Unconstitutional in Whole or in Part by the Supreme Court -
Drug War -
Constitution-Free Zone
State Laws Held Unconstitutional - Secret Laws
- Means, Motive, Opportunity
Indian
Child Welfare Act may be the most unconstitutional law ever
enacted. Not only is it race-based, but it also forces states to enforce
federal regulations in violation of what courts call the
“anti-commandeering” rule.
A Law
repugnant to the Constitution is void.” -
Chief Justice Marshall (wiki)
Only a governmental entity can
violate the constitution, or indirectly, an individual exercising
responsibility for that
governmental entity. Each of us, as private
citizens, cannot violate the Constitution.
Above the Law -
Charlatans -
Strange
State Laws (pdf)
Both federal
and state officers are required to take oaths
pledging to uphold the Constitution as part of the duties of the
office they hold. As sworn guardians of the Constitution, it's vital that
law enforcement officers have a deep and detailed understanding of how the
Constitution informs their goal of protecting and
serving the public.
"I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the
duties incumbent upon me under the Constitution"
Sworn law
enforcement officers are those who have taken an oath to
support the Constitution of the United States,
their state, and the laws of their agency's jurisdiction. Sworn officers
also have the responsibility to ensure the safety and quality of life of
the communities they serve.
The Supreme Court has held that
judges lack immunity from prosecution for
violating constitutional rights under 18 U.S.C. § 242 because Congress
acted to proscribe criminal conduct by judges in the Civil Rights Act of
1866.
18 U.S.C. § 242: This
provision makes it a crime for someone acting under color of law to
willfully deprive a person of a right or privilege
protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States. It is not
necessary that the offense be motivated by racial bias or by any other
animus or feeling of ill will arousing active hostility.
According to
the FBI, the most common civil rights violations are those that are done
under color of law. Other common
violations involve racial violence or hate violence.
Examples of Constitutional and Civil Rights
violations include :: Freedom of speech, Freedom of
religion, Police misconduct, Censorship in public schools or libraries,
Fairness in school or prison discipline, Privacy and other protections
from government intrusion, Inhumane jail or prison conditions, Unfair
treatment by government.
What, am I to argue that
it is wrong to make men brutes,
to rob them of their liberty, to work them without wages, to keep them
ignorant of their relations to their fellow men, to beat them with sticks,
to flay their flesh with the lash, to load their limbs with irons, to hunt
them with dogs, to sell them at auction, to sunder their families, to
knock out their teeth, to burn their flesh, to starve them into obedience
and submission to their masters? Must I argue that a system thus marked
with blood, and stained with pollution, is wrong? ... At a time like
this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. O! had I the
ability, and could I reach the nation’s ear, I would, to-day, pour out a
fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and
stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the
gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the
earthquake. ~ Frederick Douglass.
Void for Vagueness is when a law is unenforceable because it is too
vague for the average citizen to understand. This is because
constitutionally permissible activity may not be chilled because of a
statute's vagueness (either because the statute is a penal statute with
criminal or quasi-criminal civil penalties, or because the interest
invaded by the vague law is sufficiently fundamental to subject the
statute to strict scrutiny by a court determining its constitutionality).
There are several reasons a statute may be considered vague; in general, a
statute might be void for vagueness when an average citizen cannot
generally determine what persons are regulated, what conduct is
prohibited, or what punishment may be imposed. For example, criminal laws
which do not state explicitly and definitely what conduct is punishable
are void for vagueness. A statute is also void for vagueness if a
legislature's delegation of authority to judges or administrators is so
extensive that it could lead to arbitrary prosecutions. A law can also be
"void for vagueness" if it imposes on First Amendment freedom of speech,
assembly, or religion.
Indeterminacy Debate in legal theory is a debate in the philosophy of
law that debates whether or not the law is indeterminate, such as whether
or not there is any determinate
interpretation to be had of the law for its correct application. If a
facial challenge is successful, a court will declare the statute in
question facially invalid, which has the effect of striking it down
entirely. This contrasts with a successful as-applied challenge, which
will result in a court narrowing the circumstances in which the statute
may constitutionally be applied without striking it down.
Indeterminate is something not precisely
determined or established; not fixed or known in advance. Something
uncertain or ambiguous. Not leading to a definite ending or a particular
result.
Overbreadth Doctrine is primarily concerned with
facial challenges to laws under the
First Amendment. A facial challenge is a challenge to a statute in
which the plaintiff alleges that the legislation is always
unconstitutional, and therefore void. It is contrasted with an as-applied
challenge, which alleges that a particular application of a statute is
unconstitutional.
Highway Robbery
- Fourth - Fifth
Seat Belt Law - Seatbelt laws
violate
constitutional rights. Seat-belt laws infringe a
person’s rights as
guaranteed in the Fourth, Fifth, and the Ninth Amendments, and the civil
rights section of the Fourteenth Amendment. Such laws are an unwarranted
intrusion by government into the personal lives of citizens. A person has the
right to
determine one’s own individual personal health-care standard, especially
if it doesn’t put any other person in danger. Wearing a seatbelt or not
wearing a
seatbelt does not stop accidents or does it cause accidents. There is no
logical argument for wearing a seatbelt, except for children, but not for
adults. While seat-belt use might
save some people in certain kinds of traffic accidents, there is ample
evidence that in other kinds, people have been more
seriously injured and even killed only because
they used seat belts. Besides such facts, a person has the right to
refuse any health-care recommendation. No nonpsychiatric doctor would dare
attempt to force a person to use a medical device
or take a drug or have surgery or other medical treatment without full
consent. Yet politicians force motorists to
use a health-care device, a seat belt, against their will under threat of
punishment that could include jail. Some people have been saved from death
in certain kinds of accidents only because a seat belt was not used. In
those cases, the malicious nature of seat-belt laws is further revealed:
such persons are subject to fines for not dying in the accident while
using a so-called safety device arbitrarily chosen by politicians. As for
the promise that seat-belt laws would reduce auto insurance rates, there
is no record of any insurance company ever reducing its rates because a
seat-belt law was passed. Wearing a seatbelt may increase your odds of survival, but
wearing a seatbelt could also kill you if
your car catch's fire or sinks into a lake. So there is ample evidence
that people have been more seriously injured and even killed only because
they used seat belts. In a collision, it's sometimes better to be thrown
out of the car than to be belted-in. And some seatbelts can malfunction or
fail to work, which can cause death or injury. Every car accident is
different. The most
contributing factors in car deaths were
human error, or related to
alcohol, or related to excessive
speeding, which accounts for more than 30 car accidents per day. The seatbelt
enforcement should be secondary, that is, the police
should not stop a
motorist for not using a seatbelt unless the officer witnessed another
traffic violation. Wearing a seat belt can reduce the
risk of fatal injury to
front-seat passenger car occupants by 45%, and risk of
moderate-to-critical injury by 50%, but wearing
seatbelts can also cause damage to your ribs because the impact can
lead to bruised, fractured or even broken ribs due to the “locking”
functionality of the seat belt. But every car accident is different, so
there is no definitive risk
factor, because it depends on the type of crash, the person, the car,
and the conditions. Over two million people are hurt in traffic accidents
every year, and 7% of motorists in the US have been in at least one car
accident in their lifetime, and the average driver will file an insurance
claim for an auto collision once every 17.9 years. An estimated 1,593,390
car crashes resulted in injuries and 3,621,681 caused property damage in
2020. That's a total of 5,250,837 collisions that happened over the course
of a single year, but only 14,955 people died because they did not wear a
seatbelt in a particular type of crash, and the type of crash is never
known because the traffic report is not released to the public.
Over half of the 42,915 people who die in
car crashes were wearing seatbelts. So you
die anyway. Air bags in cars reduce the death rate by 15 percent in
frontal crashes, but depending on the car, air bags don't help in partial
frontal, side, or rear crashes. A study released in August 1988 by the
Highway Loss Data Institute compared auto-accident injury claims before
and after the enactment of
seat-belt laws in eight states and could find no clear-cut evidence
that belt-use laws reduced the number of injuries. “These results are
disappointing,” the report added. The hundreds of millions of dollars
spent in support of seat-belt laws have been wasted. Not one penny of that
money has ever prevented even a single traffic accident, the real cause of
highway fatalities. We don’t need millions of dollars for stricter
seat-belt law enforcement. Instead, we need more responsibly educated
drivers, safer vehicles, and better roads to prevent traffic accidents.
When it comes to school buses,
most school buses still don't have seat belts. One reason is called
compartmentalization, which says that children are protected from crashes
by strong, closely -spaced seats that have energy-absorbing seat backs.
The interior of large buses protect children without them needing to
buckle up. There are approximately
114 school bus accidents in a year. School bus-related crashes
killed 108 people
nationwide in 2021, up 50% compared to the pandemic-related low number of
54 deaths in 2020. There are approximately 9
billion bus trips taken per year, which means that each time you
board a bus, there is less than 1 percent chance that you will get into a
bus accident. Adding seat belts to school buses can be expensive.
Kids are more at risk when approaching or leaving a school bus.
Why do motorcycle riders don't need to wear helmets?
Double Standard. Why don't children
have seat belt's in buses? Negligence
- Drug War.
But no one gets
pulled over for smoking a cigarette while driving. Cigarette
Smoking is responsible for more than
480,000 deaths per year in the United States, including more than
41,000 deaths resulting from
secondhand smoke exposure. And
226.7 Billion dollars personal healthcare
expenditures because of cigarette smoking in 2014 for the U.S.
From 2010-2014, an estimated 11.7% (95% CI = 11.6%,
11.8%) of U.S. annual healthcare spending could be attributed to adult
cigarette smoking. Of every $10 spent on healthcare in the U.S., almost 90
cents is due to smoking. (yet we pull people over for not wearing a seat belt, but not
for smoking, which kills more people and does more damage.
Hypocrisy).
Constitutionality of the Mandatory Seat Belt Use Law.
Certain
laws can also be used as a loophole
for Police to get away with murder or
violence.
Fourth Amendment - Protects people from
unreasonable searches and
seizures by the government, nor be deprived of
life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.
Fifth Amendment - Right to a
speedy and
public trial, and be confronted with the witnesses against him.
Barker v. Wingo, 407 U.S. 514 (1972), was a United States Supreme
Court case involving the Sixth Amendment to the U.S.
Constitution,
specifically the right of defendants in criminal cases to a speedy trial.
The Court held that determinations of whether or not the
right to a speedy
trial has been violated must be made on a case-by-case basis, and set
forth four factors to be considered in the determination.
Ninth Amendment - The powers not delegated
to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the
States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
No State shall make or enforce any law
which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United
States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or
property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its
jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Fourteenth Amendment -
Right to
liberty and due process.
Unenforced Law or symbolic law, or dead letter law, is a law which is
formally in effect (de jure), but is usually de
facto or not penalized by a
jurisdiction. Such laws are usually ignored by law
enforcement, and therefore there are few or no practical
consequences for breaking them.
Decriminalization or decriminalization is the legislative process
which removes prosecutions against an
action so that the action remains illegal but has no criminal penalties or
at most some civil fine.
Victimless Crime is an illegal act that typically either directly
involves only the perpetrator or occurs between
consenting adults.
Local Laws may do more harm than good.
Nuisance laws can backfire, resulting in less safety in communities when
residents fear reporting violence to the police and perpetrators gain
impunity. Research shows that jaywalking laws
don’t actually make streets safer. Community-generated complaints
can cause unfair outcomes when motivated by bias such as prejudice against
renters or residents of low-income neighborhoods.
Preemption has rapidly become the tool
of choice for many state legislatures to hinder local government’s power
to create laws that improve people’s lives.
When fines are combined with court costs,
numerous add-on fees, and potential late fees, the costs of a citation
offense such as a speeding ticket can add up quickly. Failure to pay can
then lead to disproportionate consequences ranging from a suspended
driver’s license all the way to jail time for minor traffic violations. In
effect, these cascading fees create a system in which the poor are
penalized for being poor, even to the point of serving time in modern-day
debtors prisons.
Fines and Fees in American Courts. State and local courts sentence
millions of Americans to pay fines every year as punishment for an
extraordinary range of offenses. Too often, they sentence struggling
people to pay amounts they simply cannot afford and then punish them again
for “failing” to come up with the money. Monetary sanctions are a
necessary accountability tool, but in the United States they are so widely
misused and abused that they effectively criminalize poverty.
Request Fine and Fee Reduction Without Going to the Courthouse.
An experienced criminal defense attorney can help you negotiate a lighter
sentence and establish a payment plan for court fees and surcharges.
Contact a criminal defense attorney in your area to learn more about your
options.
Those presented with a fine need not do anything and can ignore the
invitation to pay the fine; as it is merely an invitation to pay the fine
- which can be Legally and Lawfully be declined without prejudice.
It seems that some laws are made to victimize people of color and
harass minorities. So
it seems that ignorant racist
scumbags pass laws to be assholes to people they don't like. Like the
drug war laws did and like
bail bonds laws do.
Stop-and-Frisk was a state sponsored tactic used by police that was
misused to aggressively offend and
search citizens on the street, which violated the Fourth Amendment of the
United States Constitution. The majority of those stopped by police were
people of color, and a vastly disproportionate number are Black people,
which is racial profiling and unconstitutional. Many of these stops have
been unlawful and that some have led to violent police misconduct. The
NYPD has conducted millions of stop-and-frisks in New York City over two
decades.
The
Supreme Court ruled that 'stop and frisk' fell under the fourth
amendment decrees in that citizens have a right to
walk freely without being stopped and
harassed by the police. The police must have a reasonable suspicion that a
crime has been committed, or is being committed, or is about to be
committed by the suspect. Police can't reach into your pockets and clothes
or squeeze your body or pocket contents while frisking, unless they feel
something like a weapon or have a suspicion that the person may be armed.
To this day there is still very little evidence that aggressively
searching mostly minority people makes New Yorkers safer.
Your Papers,
Please is an expression or trope associated with
nazi
police state functionaries demanding identification from citizens
during random stops or at checkpoints. It
is a cultural metaphor for life in a police state. It has also been used
to refer to interactions with citizens during police stops and immigration
enforcement. Arizona's controversial SB 1070 law requiring people to carry
identification was dubbed the "Papers, Please" law.
Stop and identify statutes are laws in several U.S. states that
authorize police to lawfully order people whom they
reasonably suspect of committing
a crime to state their name. If there is not
reasonable suspicion that a person has
committed a crime, is committing a crime, or is about to commit a crime,
the person is not required to identify themself, even in these states.
Cherry Picking
is the manipulation of the facts
by choosing only certain evidence while
suppressing other evidence so as to alter the meaning of research or
to misrepresent the truth of
an investigation. So the data
may seem to confirm a particular position, but in reality, it
contradicts that position and
perverts the understanding of
that position by leaving out important factors
that paint a different picture. This deceptive practice is used by
religious charlatans who use
beliefs as reasons for attacking human rights. And used by greedy and
corrupt pharmaceutical companies
who lie to push dangerous drugs on innocent people. Lying scumbags who
falsify evidence and commit
fraud.
Half-Truth is a deceptive statement that includes some element of
truth, but only part of the whole truth, in order to
misrepresent the
facts with the intent to deceive and
manipulate peoples understanding,
just like propaganda does and
circular talk does. These idiots are just full of shit.
Radar Speed Signs work best to control
speeds of drivers. Automated Speed Cameras are just a money making scam
that
disproportionately affects Black and brown drivers for some reason.
Automated Speed Cameras are generating literally millions of dollars in
revenue from speed camera-issued speeding tickets. Automated Speed Cameras
don't slow cars down because people have no idea the speed cameras are
there. But Radar Speed Signs are clearly visible and work best at
controlling speeds of drivers.
Automated Speed Cameras is a camera which may be mounted beside or
over a road or installed in an enforcement vehicle to detect motoring
offenses, including speeding. Critics say speed cameras can be a financial
burden on those who are least able to pay.
The 11 MPH cushion is fraudulent when everyone goes 10mph over the posted
speed limit. So anyone passing a car would be considered speeding, when in
fact they are only going a few miles an hour faster then the other
drivers. Drivers have been falsely cited due to an inaccurate speed limit
programmed into the system. View system test certificates. View
calibration certificates. View maintenance instructions.
Automatic Number-Plate Recognition is a technology that uses optical
character recognition on images to read
vehicle registration plates to create vehicle location data.
Red Light Cameras are stationary and
positioned at intersections, and captured red light violations. In the
tiny city of West Miami, for instance, the cameras are expected to
generate $1.45 million this year — more
than 15% of total revenue, and the second largest source of funds after
property taxes. Every month, the town of about 7,000 residents regularly
snaps thousands of automated photos of people suspected of violating
traffic laws. The money derived from six red light cameras amounts to more
than 15% of the city’s total revenue, far higher than most other cities
that run the programs. The cameras are expected to generate a total of
$1.45 million in revenue for the city this year, making them the second
largest source of funds, after property taxes. The total estimated revenue
for the city this year is $9.2 million.
Entrapment -
Highway Robbery
Radar Speed Sign or Speed Feedback Sign
is a road side speed-measuring device which displays the speed of
approaching motorists who are driving in their vehicle. The sign is
constructed of a series of LED lights that displays big numbers and big
letters. The purpose of radar speed signs is to slow cars down by making
drivers aware of their speed, especially when they are driving at speeds
above the posted limits. They are used as a traffic calming device in
addition to or instead of physical devices such as speed bumps and rumble
strips. Radar Speed Signs are also much more effective than Automated
Speed Cameras using car plate readers which send you a fine, sometimes
days or weeks later. The radar speed signs have no cameras and do not take
any photos of offending drivers for enforcement purposes. A radar speed
sign will slow traffic down somewhere from 1 mph to 11 mph compared to
conditions before the sign. Radar speed signs have been proven to be
highly effective in calming traffic and reducing the likelihood of fatal
accidents involving pedestrians and automobiles. Unlike the money scamming
system used by Automated Speed Cameras.
Constitutional Documents
Constitutional Documents of the entity are the documents which define
the existence of the entity and regulate the structure and control of the
entity and its members. The precise form of the constitutional documents
depends upon the type of entity.
UN Declarations.
Articles of Association is a document which, along with the memorandum
of association (in cases where the memorandum exists) form the company's
constitution, defines the
responsibilities of the directors, the kind of business to be
undertaken, and the means by which the shareholders exert control over the
board of directors. It refers to that document of the company in which
rules of internal management to achieve the objective laid down in the
memorandum of association are stated.
Historic Documents that Influenced
the American System of Government. Magna Carta, 1215. The
House of Burgesses, 1619. The Mayflower Compact, 1620. The
Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, 1636. English Bill of Rights, 1689.
The Declaration of Independence, 1776. The Articles of Confederation,
1781.
Some of the 10 Most Important
Documents in American History. Common Sense (1776). The
Federalist Papers (1784-1788). Northwest Ordinance (1787). Seneca
Falls "Declaration of Sentiments" (1848). Emancipation Proclamation
(1863). Gettysburg Address (1863). Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S.
Constitution (1868). Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points (1918)
Federalist Papers is a collection of 85 articles and essays written (under
the pseudonym Publius) by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay
promoting the ratification of the United States Constitution.
Seventy-seven were published serially in the Independent Journal and the
New York Packet between October 1787 and August 1788. A compilation of
these and eight others, called The Federalist: A Collection of Essays,
Written in Favour of the New Constitution, as Agreed upon by the Federal
Convention, September 17, 1787, was published in two volumes in 1788 by J.
and A. McLean. The collection's original title was The Federalist; the
title The Federalist Papers did not emerge until the 20th century. Though
the authors of The Federalist Papers foremost wished to influence the vote
in favor of ratifying the Constitution, in "Federalist No. 1", they
explicitly set that debate in broader political terms: It has been
frequently remarked, that it seems to have been reserved to the people of
this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important
question, whether societies of men are really capable or not, of
establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they
are forever destined to depend, for their political constitutions, on
accident and force.
The American Dream
America is a great example of why it is so extremely important to
give people freedom and the opportunities to explore, discover and learn.
We have advanced our civilization in many fantastic ways, except for one
critical area, education. Though we have
improved education in some ways,
education did not improve enough to match our level of knowledge that we
have acquired in the last 100 years. We have failed miserably, and 99
percent of people on the planet don't understand how our inadequate
education is. That is because they do not have the necessary knowledge and
information that is needed to understand these
inadequacies. Our
inadequate education, along with our inadequate and
irresponsible media
and news outlets, have been solely responsible for the deaths of millions
of people, as well as the suffering of 100's of millions of people, and
the devastating consequences of poison air, poison water, poison food,
poison products and
poison land. It is absolutely necessary to improve education, if not, our own
ignorance will be the death of us all.
American Revolutionary War was fought primarily between the Kingdom of
Great Britain and her Thirteen Colonies in America, resulting in the
overthrow of British rule in the colonies and the establishment of the
United States of America. also known as the American War of
Independence,(1775–1783).
Patriot protests against
taxation without representation followed the
Stamp Act and escalated into boycotts, which culminated in 1773 with
the Sons of Liberty destroying a shipment of tea in Boston Harbor. Britain
responded by closing the harbor and passing a series of punitive measures
against Massachusetts Bay Colony. Massachusetts colonists responded with
the Suffolk Resolves, and they established a shadow government which
wrested control of the countryside from the Crown. Twelve colonies formed
a Continental Congress to coordinate their resistance, establishing
committees and conventions that effectively seized power.
Evacuation Day on November 25 marks the day in 1783 when the British
Army departed from New York City on Manhattan Island, after the end of the
American Revolutionary War. In their wake, General George Washington
triumphantly led the Continental Army from his headquarters north of the
city across the Harlem River, and south through Manhattan to the Battery at its southern tip.
European Court of Human Rights or the Strasbourg Court, is an
international court of the Council of Europe which
interprets the European Convention on Human Rights. The court hears
applications alleging that a contracting state has breached one or more of
the human rights enumerated in the convention or its optional protocols to
which a member state is a party. The European Convention on Human Rights
is also referred to by the initials "ECHR". The court is based in
Strasbourg, France. An application can be lodged by an individual, a group
of individuals, or one or more of the other contracting states. Aside from
judgments, the court can also issue advisory opinions. The convention was
adopted within the context of the Council of Europe, and all of its 46
member states are contracting parties to the convention.
Interpretations of Law
Living Constitution is the claim that the Constitution has a
dynamic meaning or it has
the properties of an animate being in the sense that it changes. The idea
is associated with views that contemporaneous society should be taken into
account when interpreting key
constitutional phrases. interpreting the Constitution in accordance with
its original meaning or intent is sometimes
unacceptable as a policy
matter, and thus that an evolving interpretation is necessary, and
constitutional framers specifically wrote the Constitution in broad and
flexible terms to create a dynamic
living document. the
Constitution should be changed through the
amendment process. Allowing judges to determine an ever-changing
meaning of the constitution can easily undermine democracy.
Amendments -
Repeals - Unconstitutional
Originalism is a concept regarding the
interpretation of the
Constitution
that asserts that all statements in the constitution must be
interpreted
based on the original understanding of the authors or the people at the
time it was ratified. This concept views the Constitution as stable from
the time of enactment, and that the meaning of its contents can be changed
only by the steps set out in Article Five. This notion stands in contrast
to the concept of the Living Constitution, which asserts that the
Constitution should be interpreted based on the
context of the current
times, even if such interpretation is different from the original
interpretations of the document.
Separation of Powers -
Separation of Church and State -
Corrupt Judges -
Extremism
Constitution in Exile refers to the situation resulting from
provisions of the United States Constitution allegedly not having been
enforced according to their "original intent" or "original meaning". Some originalists might argue, for example, that the Commerce Clause and
Necessary and Proper Clause do not authorize economic legislation dating
all the way back to the New Deal.
Strict Constructionism involves judges interpreting the text only as
it was written; once a clear meaning has been established, there is no
need for further analysis, based on this way, which advocates that judges
should avoid drawing inferences from
previous statutes or the constitution and instead focus on exactly what
was written. For example, Justice Hugo Black argued that the First
Amendment's wording in reference to certain civil rights that Congress
shall make no law should mean exactly that: no law,
no exceptions.
Statutory Interpretation is the process by which courts interpret and
apply legislation. Some amount of interpretation is often necessary when a
case involves a statute. Sometimes the words of a statute have a plain and
a straightforward meaning. But in many cases, there is some ambiguity in
the words of the statute that must be resolved by the judge. To find the
meanings of statutes, judges use various tools and methods of statutory
interpretation, including traditional canons of statutory interpretation,
legislative history, and purpose. In common law jurisdictions, the
judiciary may apply rules of statutory interpretation both to legislation
enacted by the legislature and to delegated legislation such as
administrative agency regulations.
Chevron Deference, or Chevron doctrine, is an administrative law
principle that compels federal courts to defer to a federal agency's
interpretation of an ambiguous or unclear statute that Congress delegated
to the agency to administer.
Judicial Interpretation is the way in which the
judiciary construes
the law, particularly constitutional documents, legislation and frequently
used vocabulary.
Government by Judiciary argues that the U.S. Supreme Court has
interpreted the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution
contrary to the original intent of
the framers of this Amendment and that the U.S. Supreme Court has thus
taken control by force the authority of the American people to
govern themselves and decide
their own destiny.
The Supreme Court's originalism is
white supremacy. The
conservative supermajority
has weaponized this harmful judicial philosophy as a way to embrace a
racist, patriarchal narrowing of political rights.
Judicial Terrorists -
Christian Taliban -
Religious Charlatans
Corrupt scumbags in positions of
authority love to interpret
information in a way that protects them, or protects other criminals, or
manipulates the truth. And they can
also interpret that same information in a different way so that it can be
used to prosecute innocent people they don't like.
Scumbags love to Cherry Pick.
Textualism is a formalist theory in which the
interpretation of the
law is primarily based on the ordinary meaning of the legal text, where no
consideration is given to non-textual sources, such as intention of the
law when passed, the problem it was intended to remedy, or significant
questions regarding the justice or rectitude of the law.
Plain Meaning Rule dictates that statutes are to be interpreted using
the ordinary meaning of the language of
the statute. In other words, a statute is to be read word for word and is
to be interpreted according to the ordinary meaning of the language,
unless a statute explicitly defines some of its terms otherwise or unless
the result would be cruel or absurd. Ordinary words are given their
ordinary meaning, technical terms are given their technical meaning, and
local, cultural terms are recognized as applicable. The plain meaning rule
is the mechanism that prevents courts from taking sides in legislative or
political issues. Additionally, it is the mechanism that underlies
textualism and, to a certain extent, originalism. Plain meaning rule is
also known as the literal rule and is one of three rules of statutory
construction traditionally applied by English courts. The other two are
the "mischief rule" and the "golden rule".
Document Writing in Plain Language
Mischief Rule is used to determine the exact scope of the "mischief"
that the statute in question has set out to remedy, and to help the court
rule in a manner which will "suppress the mischief, and advance the
remedy".
Golden Rule can be used to avoid the consequences of a
literal interpretation of the wording of a
statute when such an interpretation would lead to a manifest absurdity or
to a result that is obnoxious to principles of public policy. The rule can
be applied in two different ways, named respectively the narrower approach
and the wider approach.
Purposive
Approach is an approach to statutory and
constitutional interpretation under which common law courts interpret
an enactment (a statute, part of a statute, or a clause of a constitution)
within the context of the law's purpose.
State Constitutions
State Constitution is the statement of basic principles and highest
laws of a state. Every
state constitution reflects the diverse elements of
its constituency, representing a microcosm of its people, traditions and
political cultures. State constitution is the
governing document of a U.S.
state, comparable to the United States Constitution which is the governing
document of the United States. Some states have had multiple constitutions
and since each state drafts its own, there is great diversity between
them, though all have some basic concepts in common. The average
length of a state constitution is about
39,000 words. The shortest is the
Constitution of Vermont, adopted in 1793 and currently 8,295 words long. The longest
state governing document is that of Alabama, which has approximately
389,000 words. That document is also the most amended state constitution
in the Union, with nearly 950 amendments. The average state
constitution has been amended about 115 times. The oldest state
constitution still in effect is that of Massachusetts, which took effect
in 1780. The newest is the Rhode Island Constitution, which was ratified
by voters in 1986 after a constitutional convention was held which
proposed deleting superseded language and reorganizing the state's 1843
Constitution. The Georgia Constitution is the next youngest and was
ratified in 1983. Both the federal and state constitutions are organic
texts: they are the fundamental blueprints for the legal and political
organizations of the United States and the states, respectively.
Sovereign States.
Songs of Praise - Songs of Devotion
Anthem is a song of devotion or loyalty, or a song of praise.
Anthem is a
musical composition of celebration, usually used
as a symbol for a distinct group, particularly the national anthems of
countries. Originally, and in music theory and religious contexts, it also
refers more particularly to short sacred choral work (still frequently
seen in Sacred Harp and other types of shape note singing) and still more
particularly to a specific form of Anglican church music.
America the Beautiful -
Words by Katharine Lee Bates, Melody by Samuel Ward
(wiki).
O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain
majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed his
grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to
shining sea!
O beautiful for pilgrim feet
Whose stern
impassioned stress
A thoroughfare of freedom beat
Across the
wilderness!
America! America!
God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm
thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!
O beautiful for
heroes proved
In liberating strife.
Who more than self their country
loved
And mercy more than life!
America! America!
May God thy
gold refine
Till all success be nobleness
And every gain divine!
O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine
alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From
sea to shining sea!
O beautiful for halcyon skies,
For amber
waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the enameled
plain!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
Till souls
wax fair as earth and air
And music-hearted sea!
O beautiful for
pilgrims feet,
Whose stem impassioned stress
A thoroughfare for
freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America!
God shed
his grace on thee
Till paths be wrought through
wilds of thought
By pilgrim foot and knee!
O beautiful for glory-tale
Of
liberating strife
When once and twice,
for man's avail
Men
lavished precious life!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
Till selfish gain no longer stain
The banner of the free!
O
beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine
alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
Till nobler men keep once again
Thy
whiter jubilee.
God Bless
America -
American patriotic song written by Irving Berlin in 1918 and revised
by him in 1938. The later version has notably been recorded by Kate Smith,
becoming her signature song.
God Bless America, Land that I love.
Stand
beside her, and guide her
Thru the night with a light from above.
From the mountains, to the prairies,
To the oceans, white with foam.
God bless America, My home sweet home.
Additional verse
"While the storm clouds gather far
across the sea,
Let us swear allegiance to a land that's free,
Let
us all be grateful for a land so fair,
As we raise our voices in a
solemn prayer."
My country, 'tis of thee -
My Country, 'Tis of Thee (wiki).
My country, 'tis of thee,
Sweet
land of liberty,
Of thee I sing;
Land where my fathers died,
Land
of the pilgrims' pride,
From ev'ry mountainside
Let freedom ring!
My native country, thee,
Land of the noble free,
Thy name I
love;
I love thy rocks and rills,
Thy woods and templed hills;
My
heart with rapture thrills,
Like that above.
Let music swell the
breeze,
And ring from all the trees
Sweet freedom's song;
Let
mortal tongues awake;
Let all that breathe partake;
Let rocks their
silence break,
The sound prolong.
Our fathers' God to Thee,
Author of liberty,
To Thee we sing.
Long may our land be bright,
With freedom's holy light,
Protect us by Thy might,
Great God our
King.
Additional verse to celebrate Washington's Centennial:
Our joyful hearts today,
Their grateful tribute pay,
Happy and
free,
After our toils and fears,
After our blood and tears,
Strong with our hundred years,
O God, to Thee.
Additional verses
by Henry van Dyke:
We love thine inland seas,
Thy groves and
giant trees,
Thy rolling plains;
Thy rivers' mighty sweep,
Thy
mystic canyons deep,
Thy mountains wild and steep,--
All thy
domains.
Thy silver Eastern strands,
Thy Golden Gate that stands
Fronting the West;
Thy flowery Southland fair,
Thy North's sweet,
crystal air:
O Land beyond compare,
We love thee best!
Additional Abolitionist verses by A. G. Duncan, 1843:
My country,
'tis of thee,
Stronghold of slavery, of thee I sing;
Land where my
fathers died,
Where men man’s rights deride,
From every mountainside
thy deeds shall ring!
My native country, thee,
Where all men are
born free, if white’s their skin;
I love thy hills and dales,
Thy
mounts and pleasant vales;
But hate thy negro sales, as foulest sin.
Let wailing swell the breeze,
And ring from all the trees the black
man’s wrong;
Let every tongue awake;
Let bond and free partake;
Let rocks their silence break, the sound prolong.
Our father’s God!
to thee,
Author of Liberty, to thee we sing;
Soon may our land be
bright,
With holy freedom’s right,
Protect us by thy might, Great
God, our King.
It comes, the joyful day,
When tyranny’s proud
sway, stern as the grave,
Shall to the ground be hurl’d,
And
freedom’s flag, unfurl’d,
Shall wave throughout the world, O’er every
slave.
Trump of glad jubilee!
Echo o’er land and sea freedom for
all.
Let the glad tidings fly,
And every tribe reply,
“Glory to
God on high,” at Slavery’s fall.
This Land Is Your Land -
Written by American folk singer Woody Guthrie in 1940.
This land
is your land, this land is my land
From California to the New York
Island
From the Redwood Forest, to the Gulf stream waters
This land
was made for you and me
And I went walking that ribbon of highway
And saw above me that endless skyway
I saw below me the golden valley
This land was made for you and me
I roamed and rambled and followed my
footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts
And all
around meT, a voice was sounding
This land was made for you and me
There was a big high wall there that tried to stop me
A sign was
painted said: Private Property
But on the back side it didn't say
nothing
This land was made for you and me
When the sun come shining,
then I was strolling
In wheat fields waving and dust clouds rolling
The voice was chanting as the fog was lifting
This land was made for
you and me
This land is your land, this land is my land
From
California to the New York Island
From the Redwood Forest, to the Gulf
stream waters
This land was made for you and me
Star-Spangled Banner -
The
Star-Spangled Banner.
O say can you see, by the dawn's early
light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O'er
the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets'
red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that
our flag was still there;
O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
On the shore
dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host
in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the
towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory
reflected now shines in the stream:
'Tis the star-spangled banner, O
long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of
war and the battle's confusion,
A home and a country, should leave us
no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight,
or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth
wave,
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
O
thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and
the war's desolation.
Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the Heav'n
rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto:
'In God is our trust.'
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall
wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Everything I
Do, I Do It For You -
Everything I
Do, I Do It For You by
Bryan Adams, is a great song when you imagine that the song is about
America. The video would show images of America and showing Americans
doing good things.
Look into my eyes
– you will see
What you mean to me.
Search your heart, search your
soul
And when you find me there you'll search no more.
Don't
tell me it's not worth tryin' for.
You can't tell me it's not worth
dyin' for.
You know it's true:
Everything I do, I do it for you.
Look into your heart – you will find
There's nothin' there to hide.
Take me as I am, take my life.
I would give it all, I would sacrifice.
Don't tell me it's not worth fightin' for
I can't help it, there's
nothin' I want more
You know it's true:
Everything I do, I do it for
you, oh, yeah.
There's no love like your love
And no other could
give more love.
There's nowhere unless you're there
All the time,
all the way, yeah.
Look into your heart, baby...
Oh, you
can't tell me it's not worth tryin' for.
I can't help it, there's
nothin' I want more.
Yeah, I would fight for you, I'd lie for you,
Walk the wire for you, yeah, I'd die for you.
You know it's true:
Everything I do, oh, I do it for you.
Everything I do, darling.
You will see it's true.
You will see it's true.
Yeah!
Search your
heart and your soul
You can't tell it's not worth dying for
I'll be
there
I'd walk the fire for you
I'd die for you
Oh, yeah.
I'm
going all the time, all the way.