There are these sick whack jobs out there who feel that there is nothing wrong with having their war protest within a few hundred feet of a military funeral. Is it just me or are these people sick? I mean, I don’t like drunk driving, but I’m not about to go protest it outside a victim’s funeral.There are better ways to protest the war. Ways that don’t interfere with the grieving families of fallen troops. Try this one for example; write a letter to your elected officials – you know, someone who can actually do something about it!

Thankfully there are some states who are stepping in to prevent these atrocities from happening anymore. New Jersey became the 12th state to limit these protests at funerals.

Some will argue that the protesters have freedom of speech, and therefore should have the right to continue with their protests at military funerals. But you have to remember that when speech is intended to cause harm or incite violence (i.e. yelling “fire” in a crowded theatre) certain speech can be illegal. In my book, these protests do nothing but incite violence, and if nothing violent happens to be done at a particular funeral all that shows is the restraint and discipline of the other soldiers in attendance.

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“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.-That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”When Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence, the document which the previous paragraph came from, he and every American patriot knew what the term “unalienable Rights” meant. Today however there are few Americans who could give an accurate definition. Unalienable Rights are rights, which are incapable of being denied by or transferred to another person. As used in the Declaration of Independence, they go a step further and say that they are also God given rights.

Modern day “rights” consist of access to food, housing, medical care, and privacy. Rights at the time of the Declaration of Independence consisted of freedom of speech, freedom of religion (not from religion), the right to keep and bear arms and other necessary rights of a free people.

Today the line between Rights and Liberties has been blurred. The recent argument against wiretaps invade our Constitutions Rights to privacy is bogus. Read the Constitution from “We the People…” all the way to the last word of the 27th amendment and nowhere will you find the word privacy. The “right” to privacy is a fabricated right, stemming from the misinterpretation of the 4th amendment. This is the reason why some claim that Americans have the “right” to an abortion, or the “right” to privacy.

Other fabricated “rights” have no Constitutional basis whatsoever. They are merely “feel-good rights” that help politicians gain votes. The “right” to gain access to food through food stamps, or the right to “fair housing” through low-income housing aren’t rights at all.

Rights are things that exist among everybody at the same time and impose no commitment on anyone else. For example, the right to bear arms is a right that you have, I have and every other American has. The fact that I have exercised my right to bear arms doesn’t obligate you or anyone else to do anything. There is no government subsidy funding my gun collection, and the fact that I own a gun doesn’t mean that you can’t.

If you follow my definition of a right, and apply it to the “right to fair housing” for example, you will see that it really isn’t a right. You will notice that someone who is well off making a decent living isn’t entitled to live in subsidized housing. Therefore this “right” doesn’t exist among everybody. On the opposite side of the coin, when a poorer person lives in subsidized housing they force the government to collect additional taxes from Americans to fund their housing. This creates an obligation on taxpayers to foot the bill for someone else’s housing.

My right to speech requires from someone else only that they allow me to speak. It doesn’t require them to pay for the computer that I’m writing on or pay for a microphone and the stage for me to stand on.

The definition of a right needs restoration before the line between rights and liberties becomes so blurred that we no longer have access to our rights.

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There recently has been a proposal for a Constitutional Amendment allowing foreign born citizens to become President of the United States. The idea being that people like Austrian born Arnold Schwarzenegger will be able to run for President. It sounds like a great plan on it’s surface, but stop and think about it realistically. Sure, Arnold would probably make a decent President, but if you allow him to become President, what’s to stop a Muslim radical from moving to the US, become a citizen, and run for President?If you’ll recall your high school world history, Germany made this same mistake about 70 years ago. And if I recall correctly, it was an Austrian born person who rose to power so quickly in Germany. Now I’m not saying that Arnold, by sharing the same home country as Hitler is in any way similar to Hitler, but that’s not the point. The point is that if the Constitution is amended to allow foreign born citizens become President, it opens the door for any foreign radical to become President.

Now don’t get me wrong. There is a time and a place for amendments to the Constitution. In cases where the original text of the Constitution is inadequate (i.e. it doesn’t address a particular topic, which needs to be addressed, such was the case with the Bill of Rights) amendments are absolutely necessary. But that isn’t the case here. Article II, Section I, Clause 5 of the Constitution clearly addresses this issue.

In fact, John Jay writes in Federalist Paper No. 64, “By excluding men under thirty-five from the first office (the President), and those under thirty from the second (the Vice-President), it confines the electors to men of whom the people have had time to form a judgment and with respect to whom they will not be liable to be deceived by those brilliant appearances of genius and patriotism which, like transient meteors, sometimes mislead as well as dazzle.” As history taught us, the German people were “deceived by those brilliant appearances of genius and patriotism.” I just pray that Americans don’t succumb to the same fate.

The only way to guarantee this does not happen is to make sure this amendment does not pass. We don’t need Arnold for President in 2008, 2012 or any year for that matter. There are plenty of good, home grown Americans, available to do the job. Arnold may be a good leader, but I would never sacrifice American sovereignty just for one man to become President. It is simply just not worth it.

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How many Americans have actually read the U.S. Constitution in its entirety? And I mean really read it from “We the People…” all the way through the Twenty Seventh Amendment (not only that, but how many people actually know how many amendments there are to the Constitution)? I would bet there are very few who have, outside of lawyers and law students, and even with them, I would bet that there is a relatively small percentage who actually read it all the way through. My point is, if we never read the Constitution, then how are we to know if the laws our elected officials pass are constitutional or not?Even some amendments to the Constitution are in direct violation of other amendments. Look at the Fourth Amendment. It strictly prohibits unreasonable seizures of property without (a) probable cause, and (b) a warrant. The Ninth and Tenth Amendments in brief say that just because a particular right isn’t specifically stated in the Constitution, doesn’t mean that the people, or the states don’t have those rights, and that the powers not granted to the federal government in the Constitution, or denied to the states by the Constitution are reserved to the states or the people. So far so good, no conflicting amendments. Then, Congress thought it would be a good idea to pass the Sixteenth Amendment. It says that Congress has the power to lay and collect taxes on our income from whatever source it may have come from without apportionment among the several States.

Now do you see the conflict? No? Well let me explain. The money you earn everyday, “from whatever source derived”, is that not your property? Then why does a certain percentage of every paycheck you receive go directly to the government? Is there any probable cause for the government to seize your property, and if so, have you ever received a warrant indicating their intention to do so? I know I haven’t. And that’s not it. Nowhere in the Constitution (other than the Sixteenth Amendment) does it say that Congress can collect taxes without apportionment among the states. There are only 3 places in the actual body of the Constitution, (Article 1 §2 Clause 3, §8 and §9 for those of you who haven’t read the Constitution yet), where the federal government’s authority to tax is mentioned, and in those 3 places, nothing is said about taxing without apportionment. So much for the Ninth and Tenth Amendments!

The Sixteenth Amendment was ratified almost 91 years ago, and we still are just sitting back and allowing the federal government to unjustly seize our property. If an amendment like this can be passed without much opposition to it, who’s to say that the government can’t pass an amendment saying that you must testify against yourself (violating the Fifth Amendment), or you can no longer bear arms (violating the Second Amendment).

The Sixteenth Amendment is only one of the unconstitutional laws that are passed all the time, most of which pass right under the radar of most Americans, and therefore are left unchallenged.

Just because Congress says a law is a law, doesn’t mean that it is a Constitutional law. Read the Constitution and the Federalist Papers to learn what the founding fathers really meant when they wrote the Constitution. Then challenge laws at the federal, state and local levels for their Constitutionality, and tell your friends, neighbors, relatives and co-workers to do the same, before their First Amendment rights are taken away as well.

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