"No constitutional right, in my view, including my oath, is intended to be absolute."
These are the literal words of Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico.
Imagine it... you're so liberal that you lose the support of gun grabbers like Ted Lieu and David Hogg. YES, THAT David Hogg.
I am not sure I have seen anything like this in my lifetime. Yes liberals have always acted like they do not believe in the absolute rights of the Constitution, despite the fact that it was, is, and will be intended as such, but no matter how crazy liberal they were, from Jimmy Cater to Barack Obama, they have NEVER said that out loud.
Well, except for those who are on the extreme fringe.
So, how do we know that the rights of the constitution were intended to be permanent?
Article V. It reads:
"The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate."
So, here it is in plain text. If something is to change in the constitution, which includes all of the Bill of Rights, it must be done through the amendment process. That is correct, the founders SPECIFICALLY wrote the gridlock into the Constitution to prevent either side from grabbing the country and fundamentally altering it without the full consent of the other side. It specifically REQUIRES 75% of the states to vote yes AFTER 75% of the house and senate have voted yes.
In other words, virtually permanent.
That goes for any right granted by the constitution.
How would Black Americans be able to sleep at night if they did not know that the fourteenth amendment was permanent? If some governor could just wave a wand and revoke it? BLM riots? We'll just suspend the fourteenth amendment and try them all as non citizens and deny them all the rest of their constitutional rights.
Or what if a conservative governor in a state like Utah, where many Mormons live who view drinking alcohol as a sin, decided to enact a public health emergency to repeal the twenty-first amendment and reinstitute prohibition? After all, the public funding necessary in both law enforcement and healthcare for indigent people due to alcohol is astronomical.
What if the governor of a border state declared an emergency and suspended the third amendment in order to force private citizens to house Nation Guard troops and ICE agents due to the increasing cost of protecting the border with the Federal Government refusing to do so?
Let us say that the governor of a state declared crime a public health hazard maybe a governor like in the state of Illinois... and decided to suspend the eighth amendment in order to bring back public hangings to deter crime? Would we want that right to be "not absolute?"
NO!!!
It is specifically because our rights are absolute that we can continue to function as a society. We have a societal contract that we work with, and if one side or the other wants to change it, they need to convince at least half of the people on the other side of the issue that they are right. That is how you keep equilibrium in a society that is full of individuals as opposed to one built on collectivity.
If we had NO FUNDAMENTAL AND ABSOLUTE RIGHTS, then our society would be thrown and tossed back and forth as differing elections happened. Just look at Britain, left, right, left, right, and then left again. Their laws change and so many of their policies change based on which side won the last parliamentary election. We are BUILT to be the exact opposite of that. We are built to have political stability. Yet many want to give it up to obtain what they view as security.
How sad.
The simple fact of the matter is that we operate every single day on the basis of "inalienable" (or irrevocable) rights. Yet we have become a society who would like nothing more than to shove our laws down someone else's throat because of the pendulum effect that has been going on since the "New Deal."
So with all of that as the backdrop, I will return to the focal point of this article. How in the world did a State Governor allow herself to say out loud what many liberal politicians have been saying in their own circles for so long?
The answer? She believes that the population will agree with her.
I think she's wrong.
We will see.
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