Do you get it yet?

I am so damn sick of hearing about the oil disaster. Really, I am. It's not that I don't care - it's that there isn't really anything any of us can do. Oil will continue to spill out until relief wells are drilled sometime a few months down the road - the pressure must be released before you can stop the leak.

There is one interesting story connected to the gulf that I'm not sick of seeing - the news blackout. That the Federal government has seen fit to kowtow to BP (gee, the US government doing the bidding of a large corporation rather than the will of the people? Shocking, I know), and violate the first amendment of the US constitution, by preventing journalists from getting good shots of the destruction.

The interesting part, for me anyway, is not the current blackout - it's the continued trampling of our constitutional rights.

Amendment 1: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. (emphasis mine)

The "archaic" meaning of abridge (in other words, the word as meant by the writers of the Bill of Rights and Constitution as that is archaic English) is, according the Merriam-Webster dictionary, "to reduce in scope: diminish" (It is fitting that the example of usage displayed is: "attempts to abridge the right of free speech")

Now, this is not a law of congress that allows for a press blackout - it's a decision made outside of any law. That means that our leaders are, directly, violating the very foundation of our laws.

Not new. Not new at all. Hell, you need to get a permit to peaceably assemble (ie to protest. You have to apply for, and pay for a permit to protest - and you can be denied on any grounds - it's entirely up to the city you want to protest in). That sounds like one hell of an abridgment to me.

Now, one could argue for a sort of loophole, seeing as it wasn't Congress that made these laws requiring a permit to protest, but cities and states. However, the Congress, composed of the US Senate and the House of Representatives, has the authority to make laws that effect the entire country (assuming they are constitutionally sound - or, more recently, considering the USA PATRIOT ACT, if they were made after TERRORISTS attacked US [oh noes! scary terrorists! Let's abandon the founding principles of the republic or the terrorists will win!]). Congress does not have the authority to make a law which abridges, in any way, the right to free speech (we will leave to the side cases involving pornography, which the supreme court has said is not protected by the 1st amendment - which is odd, because the 1st amendment makes no exception for expression of depravity).

But anyway, all needlessly complicated paragraphs aside (parenthesis within parenthesis are never a good thing, sorry about that), it is not within the authority of any governing body, City, County, State, or Federal, to make a law which abridges the first amendment - which logically includes any law that requires the use of a permit, as that is an abridgment, a limitation, of said rights. The only way to abridge first amendment rights would require a new constitutional amendment, amending the 1st amendment to something like: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,
or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or limiting the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to
assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. Except cities can demand that people pay them for the right to protest government policy, and the white house can ban the press from taking pictures of bummer stories like massive oil spills or the flag-draped coffins of dead American soldiers - that's OK (only said in overly complicated legalese, as modern laws are written).

So. We have decades-old abridgment of constitutional principles. Big deal, right? We are still allowed to complain, and display discontent in regards to company policies.

Yeah. Big deal. Did you see this last year?







What broadcasted from the sound cannon before the high pitched squeal (cut out of this video - but it is so loud that it can easily damage hearing within seconds)? "By order of the city of Pittsburgh chief (of) police, I hereby declare this to be an unlawful assembly. I order all those assembled to immediately disperse. You must leave the immediate vicinity. If you remain in this immediate vicinity, you will be in violation of the Pennsylvania crimes code..." Blah blah, face arrest and other police action, blah blah.

The Pennsylvania crimes code is in violation of the first amendment. No state law may supersede the constitution (it may supersede Federal law, according to the 10th amendment - of course, if the Federal raids of California's medical marijuana growers are any indication, the 10th amendment is about as valuable as the 1st).

Any crime code that allows for police to arrest people without evidence or probable cause or them having committed a crime (being at a protest is not a crime - being at a protest where some others within the protest may have smashed a shop window is also not a crime) is unconstitutional. It's very simple - an open and shut case.

Our government has been ignoring the parts of the constitution that are supposed to guarantee our rights. This has been going on for years - it wasn't new to the Bush administration (and it certainly hasn't disappeared under Obama). It dates back to the Vietnam era in this country - when the national guard was called down upon protesters - and it's only been getting slowly worse since then. (The national guard wasn't called down because of violence used by protesters, I'll have you know - they were called down because the protests had such strength that they were shutting down public buildings. That's a threat to the establishment, and don't call me conspiratorial - power clings to power, it always has, it always will)

THAT... is what I still find interesting about the situation on the gulf. The continued trampling of our rights.

I wonder... when are we going to take them back?