The true meaning of the Ninth Amendment is that there are rights that people have which are not created by the constitution but precede it, and these rights are recognized by the U.S. Constitution just as rights such as free speech are “enumerated” or explicitly stated. The supreme natural right of a person is the right to live and to protect one’s own life. If this supreme right is “disparaged,” hence ignored or disregarded, or denied, then no other rights have meaning.
These Justices have ruled that the right to life isn’t implied in the Constitution, which means that they are denying the Ninth Amendment itself. If this renders the Ninth dead, then by rights that portion of the Bill of Rights is no longer recognized by the Federal Judicial System.
The first duty and moral purpose of the government is to protect life and liberty.
Morally I charge that when a government such as this one uses its powers to murder, steal and destroy, it is no different than when one of us does so. And like us they should be prosecuted under the fullest extent of the law.
Forget democracy, a constitution or even religious authority, none of these morally absolves a government from enforcing the rule of law that protects its citizens, all its citizens, not just the chosen few.
The origins of the ninth amendment can be traced to the debate surrounding the ratification of the Constitution.
The Antifederalists, who opposed ratification, concentrated much of their attack on the absence of a bill of rights. Although many Antifederalists were probably more concerned with defeating the Constitution than with obtaining a bill of rights, they repeatedly pressed this charge because it struck a responsive cord with the people. Because the federal government was one of enumerated and limited powers, it would have no power to violate the rights of the people. “Why, for instance,” asked Hamilton, “should it be said that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed?”
Second, they argued that a bill of rights would be dangerous. Enumerating any rights might suggest to later interpreters of the Constitution that the rights not specified had been surrendered. An enumeration of rights could thereby lead to an unwarranted expansion of federal power and a corresponding erosion of individual rights.
Neither argument against a bill of rights carried the day. Anti-federalists responded that the Constitution already enumerated some of the rights of the people��"such as the protections against ex post facto laws and bills of attainder in Article I, Section 9, and the right to a jury trial in criminal cases in Article III, Section 2. If an incomplete enumeration was dangerous, as the Federalists had so strenuously argued, then the severely incomplete list of rights already in the Constitution was dangerous indeed. No further harm could be done by expanding the list.
Representative James Madison pointed out that a bill of rights was needed, not only to quiet the fears and suspicions of those who still doubted the new Constitution, but also to better protect the liberties of the people. As Madison observed:
“If they are incorporated into the constitution, independent tribunals of justice will consider themselves in a peculiar manner the guardians of those rights; they will be an impenetrable bulwark against every assumption of power in the legislative or executive; they will naturally be led to resist every encroachment upon rights expressly stipulated for in the constitution by the declaration of rights.”
Despite their many differences, the framers of the Constitution shared a common belief that although the people may delegate certain powers to their agents in a government, they still retain their natural rights. When explaining to the House the nature of the various rights in his proposal, Madison stated that, “in some instances they specify rights which are retained when particular powers are given up to be exercised by the Legislature.” Madison’s notes for this part of his speech read: “Contents of Bill of Rights.... 3. natural rights retained as speach [sic].”
That the term “retained” rights referred to natural rights is further reinforced by one provision of a recently discovered draft of a bill of rights written by Representative Roger Sherman, who served with Madison on the House Select Committee that drafted the Bill of Rights:
“The people have certain natural rights which are retained by them when they enter into Society, Such are the rights of Conscience in matters of religion; of acquiring property, and of pursuing happiness & Safety; of Speaking, writing and publishing their Sentiments with decency and freedom; of peaceably assembling to consult their common good, and of applying to Government by petition or remonstrance for redress of grievances. Of these rights therefore they Shall not be deprived by the Government of the united States.”
The Ninth Amendment is the heart and soul of the U.S. Constitution, it recognizes ALL our natural rights and prohibits the Federal Government from denying and disparaging those rights.
All governments the United States included routinely violate human and natural rights, but they derive their constitutional authority from their promise to protect those rights.
Now the Federal Judiciary of the U.S. has said that our Constitutional protections are null and void. The spirit of the U.S. Constitution has been destroyed by our protectors, the spirit of liberty is now dead.
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