Originally Posted by
Bruce
I realize this was directed at a specific post (not mine), but something caught my eye here.
The way our country is set up - the Constitution ensures that there exists only one "class" (or "caste" or "level" or "whatever") of citizen. From the President, to individual Senators and Congressmen, to all the Judges, to the cops (including retired feds), to auto mechanics, to telephone operators, to janitors and the burger slingers and french fry makers - we *all* have the same exact Rights; and those Rights are all protected in the exact same way.
Over the past couple hundred years, laws have been passed that violate these Rights. Quite a number of these laws, seemingly by intentional design, remove our 'protected' Rights then dole them out as "privileges" to a select few. The most frightening part of that is - people let the law-makers get away with this when we don't have to.
It can get kind of fuzzy when discussing citizens who are employed by "the government"; because, you see, cops (for example) are employees of the government - so, when they are 'on duty', while they might be "citizens", their employment technically makes them "the government".
The government does not have any "Rights"; therefore, employees of the government, after a fashion, in so far as they are representing and acting in an official capacity on behalf of the government, do not enjoy any Rights as a 'government' employee/representative - until their governmental duties and actions are put aside and they are no longer functioning as a direct representative of our government - only then can they be considered "citizens" again, who, of course, share the same Rights as everyone else. It's very complicated and difficult to explain (and I don't feel I am explaining it well at all) - and most in the government (especially some cops) like that it is complicated and difficult to explain.
The government only has powers and authority as are *granted* to them (persons who constitute "the government" while acting in "official" capacity) by 'the people' (us - the individual citizens that, collectively, they work for). The Civil Rights of citizens, on the other hand, were endowed to us by our Creator by virtue of our being 'created' - the government did not 'give' us our Rights, yet they get their power and authority from us. The government, however, is (according to the Constitution) supposed to protect our Rights.
Very few of the powers and authority that the government has are "protected" by the Constitution - most of their powers and authority (the powers and authority we gave them that are not listed in the Constitution) can all be easily taken away by us (collectively), the constituents of whatever municipality those people work for - usually by a simple majority vote among a municipality (say a Town Council, or a State congress, or the Federal congress) or even from a simple order from a higher department such as our municipal representative (say a Mayor, or a Governor, or the President).
I explain all of this because I've seen more than a few posts throughout the forum where people seem a bit confused between the Rights of citizens and the powers/authority of those acting on behalf of the government (such as cops, for example). It isn't surprising as those lines are easily confused - sometimes it seems that some some certain folks like to intentionally blur those lines; which leads to such silly ideas such as that government employees (like cops, for example) get "special Rights" that us mere "citizens" don't get.
When you have a terrifically *bad* law, like the LEOSA, those lines between a government employee's governmental 'authority and powers' and a private citizen's 'Civil Rights' get even more blurred and difficult to explain.
You said it! Right on!
People are finally starting to become aware of the fact that there are those who (very obviously) want to see our egalitarian society broken up into "classes".
They separate us by economic status, by profession, by skin color - why, they want to see us broken down into the smallest "groups" possible - then they (again, obviously, to anyone who cares to look) try to pit us against each other. All the while, they help to strip citizens of their Rights (usually by telling us that a Right is a "collective" Right - there is no such animal as a "collective" Right) then turn around and dole out those Rights as if they were suddenly a "privilege" - and then, they afford those Rights-become-privileges only to certain "classes" of citizen (the classes they told us that we belong to).
The worst offenders in this horrific atrocity are those who try to separate America into the "political" (or "government") "class" and... well, all the rest of us slobs. It has always been sickening to see people mindlessly accept that a government representative/official is of a "better class" of society than everyone else. It makes me glad when I see people "waking up" to what's been going on.
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