Health & Fitness
Do you realize how many rights you have already lost?
Just how many freedoms and rights have you already lost?
There are some who want you to think it's crazy to say that we've lost rights under the government recently. You'd be surprised to see a list of rights you've already lost.
- The Right to Privacy. Starting with the warrantless wiretaps under Bush, they have been expanded under Obama. The IRS is now saying it can read emails, text messages and other private electronic communications without a warrant. You don't need to be suspected of a crime or any wrongdoing at all. The federal government is even trying to penalize companies for refusing to wiretap, and have given companies immunity from wiretap laws if they play along with their warrantless surveillance.
- Freedom of Speech: If you spoke out against the government, particularly in the run up to the last election, you were likely targeted by the IRS. It looks like top level officials were involved in this as well, unlike what the White House has told us. And it appears it wasn't just non-profit groups, either, but also businesses. There was also intimidation on donors to opposing political groups. Even some MSNBC hosts think that's tyranny.
- Freedom of Religion: During the Obamacare debates, Nancy Pelosi tried to get pastors and priests to push Obamacare from the pulpit. Now they want to do the same with gun control. Religous-based businesses and universities are being forced to pay for insurance coverage on things which they find morally objectionable. We've lost the right to practice our religion the way we want.
- Freedom of the Press: The federal government wiretapped Associated Press reporter's phones for 2 months.
- The Right to Hold Our Government Accountable: Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request rejections are up significantly (link 1) (link 2) (link 3), and when some requests are approved they get redacted. A lot.
- The Right to Fail: We started to lose this right a long time ago, and it continues to be eroded today. It may seem strange that we have a right to fail, but it's absolutely essential in a free society. Free society requires responsibility for your actions and the consequences of your actions. We have the freedom to pursue our happiness, the freedom to live our lives the way we best see fit. When there are bailouts of businesses that fail because they made bad business decisions, that is the loss of the right to fail. Extended unemployment and other entitlements are a form of the loss of the right to fail. People are allowed to not be responsible for their life conditions. Abortion is also a form a the loss of the right to fail. You choose to have unprotected sex, you get pregnant, and abortion is the "bailout" of that consequence.
- The Right to Privacy, Part 2: Next year the IRS will require that you send your health information to them, since they are the enforcers for Obamacare. We lose the right to keep our information private. What does the government need with that information?
- The Right to Educate our Kids The Way We Want: This one is deep and hits us on many levels. In part it is the right to have local school districts decide what should be taught. There is a major push to have an untested curriculum with questionable material standardized across the nation. That prevents local districts from being responsible for the quality of their schools, and it's implemented through the federal government tying education dollars to acceptance of the policy. This one also extends down to home schooling. There is a push to say there is no right to homeschool, which comes in forms such as opposing asylum for a German family who want to homeschool, as well as states outright trying to ban it. Thankfully that one failed, but they're still trying.
- The Right to Bear Arms: I won't go through all the details about the current push for gun control, I will just note that the president says it's only the "beginning".
- The Right to Make Your Own Decisions: Obamacare stripped us of the right to choose to not buy something the government thinks we should buy, namely health insurance.
- The Right to a Trial: President Obama has said the government has the right to kill American citizens without trial. Even the most heinous criminals and terrorists deserve the right to a trial and due process of the law.
These are just the big ones, there are many more like this, and even more variations of these in other areas. Mike Bloomberg thinks the Constitution will have to be re-interpreted to "protect" us. Sorry, but I don't think the government really cares about protecting us. They are using the IRS to intimidate and to collect data they can use against us. They are consolidating power at the federal level, and taking away rights from the people.