Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Minority Rights . . .For All

Minority Rights mean more than the rights of color, class, or cultural groups.

Minority rights, no matter what their style or substance, were inherently intended to be protected by the United States Constitution, a form of government designed to frustrate populist sentiment and elitist ambition.

Fearing the backlash of mob rule, which would easily target the status and rights of certain groups, the Constitution created a government which distilled popular, state, and elite interests, each competing with one another, into a coherent and deliberate process. A judiciary remained in waiting in the event that legislation or executive action conflicted with one another at the federal or the state level. The Supreme Court, instituted to be the weakest of the three branches of government, would be the last recourse for aggrieved individuals, who could enact change more efficiently and morally in the Legislature.

For minority citizens in the United States who feel discriminated because of race, color, creed, etc., they should look no further than the constitutional checks and balances embedded in the United States government.

Yet many parties would contest that the federal government has done nothing, or not enough to secure the rights of minority states.

In fact, when the government does little more than abide by the extensive limitations of the Constitution, government officials can do nothing more than protect the rights of citizens and secure the borders of the nation. The Framers crafted the Constitution to be at its core a limiting instrument on state control, not and expansive invitation to state power.

When the state undertakes to shape conditions in communities, when the state dictates to individuals what they may or may not do in their homes, when the state entices aggrieved parties in the nation to become dependent on the state out of a sense of endemic helplessness and entitlement, necessarily legislators are pushing past the constitutional limits of their authority.

To wit, the Ninth and Tenth Amendments plainly informed all inhabitants, past present and future, that those rights understood in their communities would not annulled because they were not listed en masse in the Constitution. Furthermore, the Bill of Rights outlined clearly that all powers not enumerated in the Constitution would remain with the states or the people. No two Amendments have been egregiously ignored and trampled on than the Ninth and Tenth, which demand strictures on government power and indirectly permit the free markets and local authority to pursue policies in the best interests of their people.

In the event that local governments violate the limited yet extensive rights of the people, they may exercise their rights, with federal protection, against local leaders and miscreants to safeguard their liberties.

Unfortunately, the growing trend has been for local parties to look to the federal government to enhance entitlements at the expense of taxpayers and the proper limits of government. Now more than ever the United States must press all levels of government back to their constitutionally designated boundaries, the only method for protecting the rights of all without bankrupting the nation financially and morally.

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