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Hannah Arendt was right, we need to guarantee the Right to Our Rights [1]
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Date: 2023-03-07
The Right to Rights, a Proposed Amendment
Section. 1. Application
The Right to the Inalienable Rights, Liberties, Privileges, Immunities, and Responsibilities of the People, both enumerated and unenumerated in this Constitution, is the most basic Right of the People of the United States and is essential for the establishment of Justice, the promotion of the general Welfare, and securing the Blessings of Liberty; the Congress and the States shall pass no Law infringing, nor shall the Judiciary construe any exemption to the People’s Right to engage in the Free Exercise of these Rights, Liberties, Privileges, Immunities, and Responsibilities.
The Government of the United States shall be Obligated to utilize the powers granted by this Constitution to provide for the Common Defense of the People therein and to secure the Rights, Liberties, Privileges, Immunities, and Responsibilities of the People guaranteed in this Constitution.
Section. 2. Structural definitions
Within this Constitution, the words “Person,” “Persons,” and “People” shall be exclusively construed to define naturally born, living human beings, and shall not include artificial Legal Entities created by Law.
Family shall be construed as the parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings, spouses, children, and grandchildren related through birth, adoption, common Law, legal guardianship, or marriage, with children and spouses considered to be immediate family. The age of majority of the Person shall be set at eighteen years of age, and the age of seniority of the Person shall be set at sixty-eight years of age. A Child shall be held to refer to any Person who has yet to obtain the age of majority.
The Jurisdiction of the United States shall be defined as the Various States, Native American Nations, Commonwealths, Territories, legal possessions, and facilities under the auspices and control of the Government of the United States. It shall be held that the Jurisdiction of the United States shall be applicable to all Persons and artificial Legal Entities created by law found within the bounds of these areas, except in matters concerning the Ministers, Ambassadors, and Consuls of Foreign Nations.
High Crimes and Misdemeanors shall be defined as those offenses set forth within this Constitution, and such offenses established through duly passed Laws enacted by the Congress.
Section. 3. Citizenship
A Citizen shall be held to be a native born or naturalized Person who is a member of United States and owes their allegiance to this Constitution.
Any Person born outside the Jurisdiction of the United States to a Person or Persons who are Citizens shall be granted full Citizenship of the United States with all the Rights, Liberties, Privileges, Immunities, and Responsibilities enumerated in this Constitution. Any child who has yet to attain the age of majority as set forth in this Constitution, and who resides in the United States, or any Territory under its Jurisdiction, shall be granted full Citizenship upon the granting of Citizenship to their parents or guardians through naturalization or upon adoption by a Parent who is a Citizen.
All Persons born or adopted within the United States and any Territory under the Jurisdiction of the United States shall be provided record of birth and Citizenship immediately upon birth or adoption or upon return to the United States if born or adopted outside of the Jurisdiction of the United States. The Congress and all Inferior Governments Under the Jurisdiction of the United States shall make no Law and the Judiciary shall construe no exclusion prohibiting or limiting a Person, and those records of any Child of the Person who has yet to reach the age of maturity, from accessing their records of birth and Citizenship, nor requiring an undo personal burden or financial expenditure to access them.
Citizenship shall not be revoked except in cases of naturalization where it can be proven in a Court of Law there is clear, convincing, and unequivocal evidence that the Person who has gained Citizenship by deliberately and knowingly providing false testimony regarding their qualifications for Citizenship. Further, it shall be held, in general, that no Citizen may have been considered to have relinquished their Citizenship unless there is clear, convincing, and unequivocal evidence of an intent to formally and deliberately relinquish their Citizenship of United Sates.
Section. 4. Enjoinder of Rights
In all criminally and civilly related matters brought forth by the State, all Persons within the Jurisdiction of the United States shall be advised of their Rights and Privileges, in a means and manner that the Person may understand and comprehend during the entirety of proceedings, including interviews, interrogations, arrest, arraignment, hearings, and/or trial. Within these Rights and Privileges, the People shall have the right to be free from unreasonable deceptive or coercive methods and practices to obtain a confession or incriminating statement.
Where there is clear and convincing evidence that a Person is unable to understand and comprehend the nature of the act for which they are accused at the time of the commission of the criminal act so accused, unable to rationally assist in their own defense, unable to understand the nature and the subject of the proceedings in which they are participating, or unable to understand their Rights and Immunities as presented, whether by mental illness; intellectual, cognitive, or developmental disabilities or injuries; or other mental defect the People may not proceed with trial until such time that the accused regains adjudicative competence as determined by an independent medical authority.
In Civil matters involving a child who has not attained the age of majority as set forth in this Constitution, the right to express their opinions and to have those opinions heard and acted upon when appropriate shall not be infringed. In Criminal matters involving a child who has not attained the age of majority, they shall not be subject to cruel or unusual forms of punishment as part of any sentencing, and all sentencing shall be made in a manner that gives due weight in accordance with the age and intellectual maturity of the child.
The Free Exercise of an Person’s Rights shall not exempt the conduct of the Person from the obligation to comply with valid and neutral laws of general applicability, nor shall the Free Exercise of one Person’s Rights be construed to allow for the deprivation or denial of another Person Rights or the engagement in the Free Exercise of their Rights.
The deliberate and willful deprivation by any other Person or Entity of the Free Exercise or enjoyment of the Liberties, Rights, Privileges, Immunities, and Responsibilities of any Person secured to them by this Constitution or the laws of the United States, or because of them having Freely Exercised said Liberties, Rights, Privileges, Immunities, and Responsibilities shall be considered a High Crime; any Person, Government, or Legal Entity duly convicted of said deprivation shall be subject to the criminal and civil penalties and punishments set forth within this Constitution and by Law. Any Person, Government, or Entity found to be engaged in said deprivation shall be subject to any civil proceedings brought forth by those Persons so deprived of these Rights, Liberties, Privileges, Immunities, and Responsibilities.
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 of the Various States, to support the Constitution of the United States, who has been duly convicted of the deliberate and willful deprivation of the Liberties, Rights, Privileges, Immunities, and Responsibilities secured to them by this Constitution or the laws of the United States. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability. Congress shall not provide any exemption for any civil or criminal penalties that said Persons shall be held responsible for.
Section. 5. Reservation of Rights
The Liberties, Rights, Privileges, Immunities, and Responsibilities of the People enumerated within this Constitution are reserved solely for the People, and shall not be transferred to any Legal Entity, the Various States and Territories, or the Government of the United States.
The Liberties, Rights, Privileges, Immunities, and the Duties and Obligations of the Various States and Territories enumerated within this Constitution are reserved solely for the Various States and Territories, and shall not be transferred to any Person, Legal Entity, or the Government of the United States.
The Liberties, Rights, Privileges, Immunities, and the Duties and Obligations of the Government of the United States enumerated within this Constitution are reserved solely for the Government of the United States and shall not be transferred to any Person, Legal Entity, or the Various States and Territories.
The Liberties, Rights, Privileges, Immunities, and Responsibilities of the People enumerated within this Constitution shall not be abrogated as a requirement of commerce, contract, education, employment, or property. Further, no Person shall be barred from or discriminated against while engaging in commerce, contract, education, employment, or property for engaging in the Free Exercise of their Rights.
No Person shall be denied the Liberties, Rights, Privileges, Immunities, and Responsibilities enumerated in this Constitution on account of their legal status within the Jurisdiction of the United States.
Section. 6. Uniformity of Rights
The Liberties, Rights, Privileges, Immunities, and Responsibilities enumerated within this Constitution shall be fully respected within the entirety of the Jurisdiction of the United States and shall be applicable to all Persons therein.
Section. 7. Uniformity of application
The provisions of this article shall also apply to any Inferior Government under the Jurisdiction of the United States.
Section. 8. Enforcement
The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
Section. 9. Implementation
This amendment shall take effect on the 1st day of October following the ratification of this article.
The New Federalist Papers
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. — Federalist No. 1
The Federalist Papers were a collaborative series of essays printed in the State of New York written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay with the intent to sway the people of that state to ratify the newly written Constitution. While not as eloquent of profound as these Founding Fathers were in their writings on the importance of adopting this new form of government, I hope that my particular explanations and reasoning will help People understand the importance of each section and clause presented here.
I also wanted to note that while the majority of this flowed fairly freely, I had a significantly difficult time pulling together the initial opening of my my arguments. Unpacking political philosophy is not one of strong suits, and I know what I wanted to say but could not figure out how to say it. To overcome my block, I decided to cheat a little and utilized OpenAI’s ChatGPT to generate a starting point which I then built upon to express how Hannah Arendt’s works supported my proposed Amendment in relation to the rest of this whole shebang.
1. The Right to Rights
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. The Declaration of Independence
Here is the basis of this Amendment — the Rights we as a People hold are in fact inalienable Natural Rights inherent to us as a People. Rights are not granted by the Constitution and Bill of Rights, but are instead articulated in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Essentially, the Constitution establishes that one of the primary purposes of Government is to recognize, respect, promote, and defend these Natural Rights in the name of the People from whom it derives its power. In the United States, it was Thomas Jefferson’s eloquently expressed statements regarding these inalienable Rights found in the Declaration of Independence are foundation of our modern concept of Human Rights.
However, Jefferson did not come to believe in Human Rights on his own, he instead derived his beliefs from what is known as Natural Law — the fundamental belief that all people have inherent Rights that are not conferred by acts of legislation but are instead inherent to all People as granted by "God, nature, or reason." He derived his beliefs and subsequent writings on the subject from the works of philosophers Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean Jacques Rousseau who in turn based their writings and philosophies on the works of Saint Thomas. It was St. Thomas who posited since humans have the gift of reason, and because reason is a spark of the divine, all human lives are sacred and of infinite value compared to any created object, meaning all humans are fundamentally equal and bestowed with an intrinsic basic set of Rights that no human can remove. (I lifted that last line directly from Wikipedia.)
The right to have rights should be recognized as a precondition for the protection of every human right. ― Hannah Arendt
As I stated, the intent of this Amendment is to ensure and codify the Right of the People to freely exercise their Rights, one of the primary duties and obligations of our government is to recognize that Rights are inherent to all People and humanity, and that it is its responsibility to the People is to ensure that our Rights are protected. I believe that the intent of it fits squarely with the philosophical writings and beliefs of Hannah Arendt.
Arendt was a political theorist who wrote extensively about the nature of power and the relationship between individuals and the state. In her book "The Origins of Totalitarianism," she explored the idea of the "Right to have Rights," which she saw as a fundamental human Right that was often denied to people in times of political crisis. According to her, this Right is the most basic and fundamental Right that every human being possesses. It is the Right to belong to a political community, to have legal status, and to be recognized as a person with dignity and worth.
With the rise of the Nazi regime in the 1930s, Arendt was forced to flee her native Germany in 1938. For the next 17 years she lived as a stateless refugee, stripped of the Rights formerly accorded to the Citizens of Germany and existing in a state of limbo regarding her social and legal status as a Person in the nations she took refuge. Her time as a refugee who lacked these fundamental Rights and whose social and legal status was marginal or nonexistent lead her to conclude that there is a conflict between a nation’s commitment to universal human Rights and its claim to national sovereignty.
In the United States, the Right to Have Rights is partially enshrined in the Constitution’s 5th and 14th Amendments, which, as stated, is supposed to guarantee our various civil and political Rights, such as the Right to Freedom of Speech, Assembly, and Religion found in the 1st Amendment. However, Arendt argued that the mere existence of these Constitutional protections is not enough to ensure that People are able to engage in the Free Exercise their Rights.
Arendt believed out that the Right to have Rights is not a natural or inherent Right as Jefferson espoused in the Declaration of Independence, but rather a socially constructed one. It is created and sustained through the actions of individuals and communities. In other words, the Right to have Rights is only meaningful if it is recognized and enforced by society.
Furthermore, Arendt argued that the Right to have Rights is not just an individual Right, but a collective one that belongs to society. It is only through participation in political life and the formation of communities that individuals can ensure that their Rights are protected and respected.
Overall, her concept of the Right to have Rights emphasizes the importance of political participation and community building in ensuring that individuals can exercise their Rights and live with dignity and worth. In the United States, this concept serves as a reminder that legal protections alone are not enough to guarantee the Rights of all citizens and that collective action is necessary to create a truly just and equitable society.
The Right to have Rights should be recognized as a precondition for the protection of every human Right, and that those Rights should exist regardless of membership in a state or political community. Thus, the intent of this proposed amendment is to recognize the inalienable Rights that all People do have and ensconce it in our Constitution. It may seem to run counter to the Arendt’s assertions that enshrining these legal protections and Rights in the Constitution are not enough to guarantee Rights are respected, but I believe the social acceptance of these Inalienable Rights through political participation and community building that grows out of the granting of these Rights will change the mindset of the American People.
It can be said that this has shown this is not the case, but we have actually seen the political and social mindset can be bent towards cause of equality in multiple cases in American history:
The push back to the Dobbs decision in even the most conservative communities and states such as Kansas shows us that the majority of American people will not accept striping half of the population of their personal autonomy.
The gradual acceptance of Obamacare across the political spectrum as more and more state governments are forced by their citizens to accept the American people are coming around to the belief that access to affordable medical care is a Right.
Polls are showing the public support that all everyone has the Right to Marry the person they love has become part of the American social mindset because of Obergefell v. Hodges and Virginia v. Loving.
Those who have been trying to deny or strip people of their Rights are discovering that once Rights are granted, and the social acceptance of those Rights have reached critical mass, it is very hard to take those Rights away from the American People and they will fight like hell to keep them.
2. Structural Definitions — Setting the terms used here and elsewhere
The reasoning of defining terms here is to establish clear definition of how these words and terms are used in the Constitution. This is done to remove any ambiguity regarding them to prevent a legislature, the Courts, or the Congress from playing games with the terms, which has been done before in the past and will happen again in the future unless prohibited at the absolute highest level.
3. Citizenship — Cleaning up the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment
"The right of every American to first-class citizenship is the most important issue of our time." ― Jackie Robinson
The intent of this section is to remove the abilities of the People and the Government at all levels to act on our darkest impulses to ensure that Citizenship does not become weaponized against the other or those People on the edge of society.
The Right of Citizenship has two parts, the first is the legal rights and benefits conferred by Citizenship of the United States, and the the second, less definable part is the moral implications and responsibilities of the Citizen:
The Legal concept of a Citizen — the associated Rights, Liberties, Privileges, Immunities, and Responsibilities that come with being a Citizen; how, where, and to whom Citizenship is granted; and the requirements and qualifications necessary to maintain and retain Citizenship. The Moral concept of Citizenship — This concept is a bit more ethereal in that moral beliefs simply cannot be legislated. Because this moral concept is rooted deeply in the psyche of the person — everyone thinks differently and has different opinions on what constitute morals and moral behavior which in turn greatly colors the opinions regarding nature of the moral responsibilities of the citizen or who should “deserve” to be a Citizen.
Because there have been and will always be legal challenges to the Right of Citizenship, we need enumerate Citizenship as an inalienable Right of the People, provide protections for that Right to those People on the “edge”, and to protect Citizenship form being revoked for moral crimes.
The case for inalienable Citizenship
The primary problem that we have to address with Citizenship is that it can be revoked. Easily. This exact conundrum has already encountered multiple times in multiple cases as the result Supreme Court decisions and laws passed by the Congress. Until 1965, the Supreme Court held that Congress had the right to revoke a person’s nationality as a consequence of performing voluntary actions such as marrying a foreign national, holding dual Citizenship, or voting in a foreign election. This concept of being unable to revoke a person’s citizenship is again based upon a Supreme Court case, Afroyim v. Rusk, a 1965 decision finding that Citizenship is protected by an unenumerated Right granted by Due Process Clause in the 5th and 14th Amendments. Afroyim is a decision that overturned an earlier 1958 case, Perez v. Brownell, a decision that found Congress can revoke Citizenship at will based on perceived actions of the Citizen. Additionally, a followup 1971 decision, Rogers v. Bellei, narrowed the nature of the Afroyim decision by allowing the Congress to apply requirements on maintaining the Right of natural-born Citizenship, in this case a formal residency requirement within the United States.
These cases have real consequences in the how Citizenship is perceived, and who is granted it.
The strongest examples of the effects these decisions and their effect on the United States in everyday life is how they shaped the governance of the United States in the last two decades, specifically regarding the People who have chosen to run for the Office of the President and Vice President. In the last twenty years four people have sought, and two have won, the Presidency along with one person winning the Vice-Presidency as the direct result of these decisions. The eligibility of Barack Obama, Donald Trump, Kamala Harris, Ted Cruz, and John McCain to run for, win, and hold these offices were a direct result of these decisions.
I have to note another significant unenumerated right guaranteed by the 14th Amendment effecting these elections which has been targeted by Clarence Thomas’ attack on our Rights in his Dobbs concurrence — Loving v. Virginia, which guarantees the Right to inter-racial marriage. The Loving decision ties into the concept of moral citizenship as well, for the belief in the immorality of miscegenation has a vicious history in the United States along with the condemnation of those people in engaged in inter-racial relationships.
Barack Obama’s election hinged specifically on Loving, Afroyim, and Rogers. His mother, Ann Dunham, and her Right to marry a black man was guaranteed by Loving, and her ability to retain her citizenship after marrying a foreign national by Afroyim. Obama also spent spent many years living outside the United States as a child, an act that could have jeopardized his eligibility under Rogers and any theoretical law passed because of it. Ted Cruz’s Canadian birth and Birthright Citizenship of Canada along with his foreign national father, Rafeal Cruz, would have disqualified him if his mother, Eleanor Darragh, had not had her Citizenship guaranteed by Afroyim and her inter-racial marriage by Loving. During the 2008 Presidential election, John McCain's’ Panamanian birth on a US Military facility under the Jurisdiction of the United States that was still located outside of the United States raised questions of his eligibility for Presidency, even though both of his parents were Citizens. Kamala Harris is possibly the biggest beneficiary from these decisions — a natural-born citizen of immigrants, immigrants in a multi-racial, inter-faith marriage, and who is herself in a inter-racial, inter-faith marriage to a Jewish man. Her Vice-Presidency would have been unobtainable before any of these decisions.
Trump’s eligibility for office show’s the capricious nature of these decisions and the laws they upheld or overturned. His mother, Mary Anne MacCleod, was an undocumented, foreign national residing in the United States on an expired work visa who married a male Citizen, Frederic Trump. Fred Trump’s action of marrying a foreign national did not raise questions regarding his intent to retain his Citizenship nor was he the subject to an inquiry into possible loss of his Citizenship, a policy that was codified into law by the Expatriation Act of 1907. Fred Trump’s Citizenship, thus Donald’s legal qualifications for office, were guaranteed by the simple fact Donald’s American Citizen parent was a man.
Moral qualifications for Citizenship
It is the concept of the morality of the Citizen that is the most troubling, and the theoretical problems that arise trying to decide who is morally deserving of retaining their Citizenship is even more so problematic and deeply concerning. Again, this is where Thomas’ Dobbs concurrence comes into play — these unenumerated 5th and 14th Amendment protections can be taken away at the whim of a capricious Supreme Court whose stated desire is reshape the country in its own image.
Keeping it simple, what would prevent a future radicalized Supreme Court from deciding that it is permissible revoke the Citizenship of a Person, or whole groups of People, because they failed to meet some abstract concept of morality? Using this decision, a highly gerrymandered, partisan Congress could enact laws that establish the act of committing a crime as a moral violation of one’s Citizenship, and establishing that those who have engaged in a criminal act will have their Citizenship revoked for failing to be a moral Citizen. Inter-racial or inter-faith Marriage? Immoral act. LGBTQ+? Immoral act. Had an Abortion? Immoral act. The list of possible moral crimes goes on and on and so does the desire to criminalize them. You add these all together you get a very possible and very frightening scenario. The Courts have already made it possible to revoke certain Rights such as Voting as a consequence of criminal convictions, so this is a very logical, if not completely totalitarian, extension of that legal concept of revoking Rights for committing crimes.
For this, an so many other reasons and possible outcomes, this section is a blunt necessity.
4. Enjoinder of Rights — a forceful, legal command securing the 5th, 6th and 8th Amendments
“When an individual is taken into custody or otherwise deprived of his freedom by the authorities and is subjected to questioning . . . he must be warned prior to any questioning that he has the right to remain silent, that anything he says can be used against him in a court of law, that he has the right to the presence of an attorney, and that if he cannot afford an attorney one will be appointed for him prior to any questioning if he so desires.” ― Earl Warren
Guaranteeing Miranda
We’ve all heard of the Miranda warning, the classic “You have the Right to remain silent...” heard in police procedurals and legal dramas for decades now. This notification of one’s Rights in a criminal proceedings such as an arrest or interrogation are a result of Miranda v. Arizona, a seminal 1966 case that ensures that the a Person under criminal investigation is properly informed of their 5th Amendment Right protecting them from self-incrimination and their 6th Amendment Right to legal counsel. (A brief history of Miranda)
Again, these Rights are under assault by the Supreme Court which has issued multiple decisions repeatedly narrowing the scope of the Miranda decision. This narrowing of Miranda goes back to Richard Nixon who famously presented himself as a President who respected and promoted “Law and Order” (I am not even going to attempt to go down that hypocritical rabbit hole). Nixon successfully changed the direction of the Court with four Justices appointed during his his terms in office. It was Nixon’s nomination of Warren Burger to the position of Chief Justice in 1969 that began the narrowing down of Miranda in with the first major decision attacking Miranda, Harris v. New York in 1971. This case began a steadily increasing tendency of the Court to weaken and de-fang the protections enshrined in Miranda, attacks that continues through the modern Roberts court.
Here are some of the most recent highlights:
In 2004, Yarborough vs. Alvarado found that if a suspect has not officially been taken into custody, Miranda does not apply.
In 2012, Howes v. Fields found that in cases where a Person is interrogated about an unrelated matter to a crime they are accused or convicted, Miranda does not apply.
In 2022, Vega v. Tekoh, removed the civil liabilities of police officers and police departments for failing to provide a notification of Miranda to a person upon arrest or booking.
This is where Clarence’s Dobbs concurrence again rears its ugly head, this Court has basically announced its intent to roll back decisions it doesn’t like, regardless of the importance of precedents established, and Miranda has been and continues to be one of the central targets of those intentions.
To prevent the continuing erosion of these Rights by the Court, this clause establishes the importance and requirement of the Notification of a Person’s Rights guaranteed under the Miranda decision in every legal situation by codifying them as a Constitutional Right. It also ensures that these rights are presented in a manner that is clear and understandable by the Person at each stage of the Legal process. I also sought to extend the Right of Miranda beyond the initial phases of a criminal investigation into the judicial phase to ensure the Person’s 4th Amendment right to a fair trial is upheld.
Defending Due Process in regards to competency
“...of their disabilities in areas of reasoning, judgment, and control of their impulses, do not act with the level of moral culpability that characterizes the most serious adult criminal conduct.” ― United States Supreme Court, Atkins v. Virginia 2002
The purpose of the Competency Clause is to enshrines the legal protections that are necessary to ensure People with mental illness, intellectual, cognitive, or developmental disabilities or injuries are given fair, just, and equal treatment in matters of legal consequence, both criminal and civil.
Defending the Rights of the Child
"the child, by reason of his physical and mental immaturity, needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, before as well as after birth" ― United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child
To ensure that the Rights of the Child are guaranteed in United States jurisprudence, the Children’s Clause enshrines the legal protections that are necessary to ensure a Child is given fair, just, equal, and age appropriate treatment in matters of legal consequence, both criminal and civil.
In 1989 the United Nations adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child, a multinational treaty that establishes civil, political, economic, social, health and cultural rights of children across the globe. During the drafting of the treat the United States not only provided its input and commentaries to this document, it directly authored seven of the major articles contained in the document.
Nearly thirty-five years later every nation in the world has ratified this treaty with the lone exception of one — the United States. Since Ronald Regan first signed the United States on to this endeavor, six presidents have been elected and none have submitted it to the Senate for ratification.
This is an embarrassment. We as a Nation and as a People guided and shaped one of the most significant declarations of Children’s Rights globally, and we have yet to take these Rights to heart and adopt them in our own governance.
While there are legal and Constitutional protections regarding the Rights of the Child in American law and jurisprudence, they vary greatly from state to state, and between state and federal law. Their is no baseline guarantee of these rights, only (again) inferences to unenumerated right through the Due Process clause found in the 14th Amendment.
The Convention has multiple areas of concern, including familial, educational, and legal rights along with protections for culture, history, and issues of Identity. The Definitions and Citizenship sections contain the initial weaving of these Rights into the Constitution, with this section tackling the Legal Rights of the Child.
Defending the Free Exercise of Rights
“You Keep Using That Word, I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means.” — Indingo Montoya The Princess Bride
There is an increasing tendency of the modern Supreme Court to upend the Free Exercise Clause of the 1st Amendment so that it provides a shield for those who do not believe the law applies to the because their religion stands in opposition to the Laws of the United States. This is not and never has been the purpose of the Free Exercise Clause.
This Clause states that the Rights you have do not permit you to disregard laws of general applicability, nor do they allow you to deprive another Person of their Rights. We have seen time and again that the certain groups have claimed that their 1st Amendment Right to the Free Exercise of Religion allows them to deny other groups their rights or ignore laws that are not religiously oriented. Whether it is denying private or public services of one form or another to LGBTQ+ persons (Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, Miller v. Davis) or demanding laws that support their religious beliefs such as the outlawing of abortion (Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc.), the Supreme Court has swung dangerously close to overturning the Establishment Clause separating church and state.
This Clause is at the heart of the Right to have Rights and clearly states that the free exercise of one Person’s Rights does not allow the denial of another Person’s free exercise of their Rights. It also prevents People using the claim of Freedom of Religion to ignore laws of “general applicability”, or laws that have no intent to interfere with or promote religious beliefs.
Establishing consequences for the Deprivation of Rights
As Vega v. Tekoh shows us, the court is not just satisfied in the weakening of these Rights, it also seeks to remove any threat of punishment for those who actively deprive the People of the Rights established in as well as any of the other Rights guaranteed by the Constitution.
It is in this Clause the teeth of enforcement are reestablished in full force by enumerating that the willful deprivation of these Rights, and all other Rights established in the Constitution, is not just a simple crime, but is in fact a High Crime requiring the strongest criminal and civil punishments available to those who seek redress for the attacks on their inalienable Rights, Liberties, Privileges, Immunities, and Responsibilities.
The primary punishment for the deprivation of Rights is the same as the punishment for participating in an insurrection — the disqualification of holding a position in the government. If a person is unable to uphold the Constitution, they are unqualified to serve it.
5. Reservation of Rights — Reserving rights for whom they are intended
“Corporations are People too, my friend...” — Mitt Romney
No Mitt, they are not.
The purpose of Section 5 is to clarify what rights belong to whom and does so by establishing a delineating line between the Rights. It also established that a Person’s rights cannot be relinquished as a requirement of employment, education, or contract.
The first clause of Section 5 is the Reservation Clause. The Reservation Clause establishes that Rights of the different classes, the People, the States, the Federal Government, and Legal Entities, are reserved exclusively to the class they are intended for, are non-transferable, and cannot be applied to another class. This is designed to prevent Congress or the Courts from granting rights to Legal Entities, i.e. companies, that are reserved for the People.
The core purpose of the Reservation Clause is to undo cases such as Citizens United v. FEC, the notorious 2010 Supreme Court case which assigned legal entities the right to participate in the political process, mainly through money; and Burwell v Hobby Lobby Stores, the 2014 case that assigned legal entities the Religious Rights of their owners and the gave the ability to said owners to force their beliefs on their employees.
Despite Mitt Romney's assertion that "corporations are people too…" they aren't, and the Supreme Court shouldn't be granting them the rights of the people. While legal entities do require some rights in order to do business, they should not be elevated to the same status as a natural born person. As seen in Burwell, the Supreme Court granted to a corporation, Hobby Lobby, some of the same religious rights that its owner enjoy. In turn, the Court exempted the company from parts of the Affordable Care Act specifically pertaining to reproductive health that the owner of Hobby Lobby, David Green, objected to on religious grounds. This exemption had the effect of allowing a religious Person, or group of People, to utilize their position of power as the owner of a company to force their religious beliefs on their employees; it goes against the idea of religious independence guaranteed by the 1st Amendment.
Additionally, a Person or group of People should not be able to use their position of power as the owner or executive of a company to force their political beliefs on their employees, the public, or the democratic processes of the United States. If these people wish to participate in the electoral process they may do so with their own funds, not use the vast resources of the companies they own or operate to inundate the people with their message.
Another major intent of the Reservation Clause is to prevent the outsourcing the duties and obligations of the Federal and State governments to private entities — a restriction of the privatization of Government functions. The Reservation Clause does not refer to services and operational functions such as janitorial services, cafeteria and food services, or transportation services like school buses but instead refers to the privatization of Government duties and obligations such as prisons, Social Security, education, or military services.
Finally, the Reservation Clause helps to reinforce the Supremacy Clause of of Article VI in the Constitution. There has been a tendency of Certain States to try to inject themselves into areas that are the constitutional purview of the Federal Government. Matters such as immigration and border security are probably are the most controversial examples of States trying to interfere with the Federal policy and law, with the Martha's Vineyard migrant crisis being the most egregious case of State-level interference. Like the Supremacy Clause does for the the Laws of the United States, the Reservation Clause establishes the duties and obligations of the Government of the United States solely as belonging the the Federal Government and disallows the States from enforcing or claiming those duties and obligations for themselves.
The second clause of Section 5 is the Relinquishment Clause. The Relinquishment Clause establishes that the Rights of the Person and Citizen may not be required to be relinquished as a condition of commerce, employment, or education. This is in response to cases such as AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion, a 2011 Supreme Court case that allowed Legal Entities to require People to relinquish their 1st Amendment Right to seek redress of grievances before the Courts and instead agree to binding arbitration if they desired to engage in commerce.
The effect of this decision has allowed Legal Entities to strip the People of the ability to sue companies in court and force binding arbitration in legal disagreements or require a waiver to relinquish the right to bring together a larger group of people in a class action. It also allows one party to enforce a gag order that prevents on another person or party to speak out about any decisions or outcomes that may have arisen in arbitration or court cases. The purpose of the contractual requirements is to weaken the position of the People in legal disputes and tilt the scales toward the other party; this contractual requirement has already made its way into just about every contract that a person signs today in the United States.
6. Uniformity of Rights — The Rights guaranteed apply everywhere in the United States
The Uniformity Clause is the fulfillment of the Declaration of Independence’s statement that “all men are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights...” This section is the straight forward requirement that all Persons residing under the Jurisdiction of the United States are deserving of their basic human Rights regardless if they are Citizens or not. This section does not extend the Rights that are exclusively granted to Citizens of the United States, such as Voting or Social Security, to non-citizens but instead ensures that there is a baseline of Rights inherent to all people.
Section 6. extends the Rights enumerated in the Constitution to the entirety of the Jurisdiction of the United States, with the intent of addressing the Insular Cases and the denial of Rights of the People who reside within unincorporated Territories, territories that often came to the possession of the United States as the result of 19th century Imperialism.
7. Uniformity of Application — All Governments have to respect our rights
This is an Incorporation clause which states that the Rights of the People shall be both respected by and applicable to any Inferior Government under the Jurisdiction of the United States. The Incorporation Clause is a simple yet firm statement that the Liberties, Rights, Privileges, Immunities, and Responsibilities delineated in this amendment shall apply to all Inferior Governments.
For a majority of the history of the United States the Supreme Court held that the Rights enumerated in the constitution did not apply to the states; instead it was held that the state constitutions would guarantee the Rights of the People. It was only after the ratification of the 14th Amendment that the idea that these Right should and do apply to the States.
The concept that the Rights being guaranteed and applicable to all inferior governments is based upon inferences to the either Due Process Clause or the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the 14th Amendment, depending of the constitutional opinions of the various Supreme Court Justices. Incorporation came about through a series of decisions beginning in the early 20th century when the Court Began to reverse itself in these matters.I will reiterate this again — this clause is necessary because of the Dobbs v. Jackson decision, especially when tied into Clarence Thomas’ Concurrence, calls the very Right to our basic Rights into question.
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