Letter to the editor: Constitutional rights are inalienable, not imaginary
To the editor,
The recent letter titled, “Instead of complaining about imaginary rights, help us all get through the crisis,” makes me sick to my stomach. As a military veteran who took an oath to uphold the constitution, I am confused by this reader’s assertion that our rights are “imaginary.” They are actually inalienable and written very clearly in the constitution, therefore, far from imaginary. I understand the reader’s concern for the safety of the people and himself, but we must be careful as a society not to give up these rights at times like this. After 9/11 we all gave up a lot of our privacy rights and we are seeing the abuses of that with the FISA court issues. We are constantly giving up our privacy rights to our phone carriers, Facebook, Instagram, and many others.
Now in the face of this pandemic, we are being deprived of our first and in some cases our second amendment rights. The first amendment says clearly that “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.” Peacefully assemble: I read an article this morning where a man was handcuffed in front of his 6-year-old for playing T-Ball in a park with her and his wife. Not close to anyone else. This is a clear violation of my non-imaginary first amendment right. A church pastor in Florida was arrested for holding services in his church. Arrested! Another clear violation of this non-imaginary right.
The second amendment is constantly under attack so we do not even want to pretend that this is not a perfect opportunity for some to try to infringe on that right in the name of public safety. This is not acceptable. If it is OK to go buy groceries in a store where the entire town is assembling, then buying ammo or guns should be equally allowed. As a matter of fact, there is no verbiage in the constitution prohibiting the government from infringing on any right to buy food, but there is clear language on the former.
Asking the public to self-quarantine, asking the public to avoid crowds, asking business to shut down, are all reasonable asks. But when the government begins to enforce these asks, then we start to have a problem.
For the reader:
Inalienable:
adjective
not transferable to another or not capable of being taken away or denied; inalienable: Inherent in the U.S. Constitution is the belief that all people are born with an unalienable right to freedom.
Imaginary:
adjective
existing only in the imagination or fancy; not real; fancied: an imaginary illness; the imaginary animals in the stories of Dr. Seuss.
Our constitution was written by the founders of this country, not Dr. Seuss. We were born with these rights, they were not given to us by our Government. The Bill of Rights, was not written to control what we can and cannot do, it was written to control what the government can and cannot do.
Thank you.
Gary Brown
Paso Robles
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