Wow.
I was preparing a response to a Facebook post, and came to a horrible conclusion.
The post was one of those images that said: “Why is the 2nd Amendment the only one that requires a permit.”
This is what I realized.
The 1st Amendment:
The Speech, Assembly, and Journalism clauses are (by “law”) a fast track to the terror watch list.
The 2nd Amendment is highly contentious, but it really does tend to get trampled.
The 3rd Amendment… Well, this one is pretty much the only one that is good to go. I guess it is because it would be SUPER obvious if they fucked with this one.
The 4th Amendment gets new wholes poked in it every few days. There is a constant, gradual, erosion of the definition of reasonable.
The 5th Amendment, thanks to a recent court decision, is admissible as evidence in a court of law. Pleading the 5th now has the same legal impact as pleading guilty.
The 6th Amendment has been questionably enforced darned near from the start. Impartial is often active fought against by lawyers, and peers has rarely been enforced.
The 8th Amendment is a crap shoot at best. It is pretty much entirely at the whim of the judge to decide what is appropriate, as well as what is cruel and unusual.
The 9th Amendment is pretty much ignored by law makers in its entirety. It is almost as if it doesn’t even exist.
The 10th Amendment has been up for dispute pretty solidly… And the rights of the people presented there? I am not sure if that line would have even made it into the constitution if it were drafted at any point after 1900.
So, yeah, the 2nd Amendment gets abused, but it is far from the only one. The bulk of the Bill of Rights is pretty much under constant attack.
It is ok to have pet issues. It is ok to focus your energies on fighting for a single issue, or a few issues. Just don’t burry the other issues in the process. Do not make light of other issues or pretend they don’t exist.
Fight your fight, but don’t make it harder for your neighbor to fight their fight either. When it comes time to stand together, you don’t want to have to question if you are on the same team or not.