When the Founding Fathers created the Constitution, besides setting a
blueprint for how the young country would be governed, they devised the
first ten amendments as protections for the people and aptly named them
“the Bill of Rights,” and designated certain areas the government could
not intrude on citizens in a free society. Shortly after Barack Obama
began his first term in 2009, so-called patriots began decrying their
loss of liberty because an African American sat in the Oval Office, and
since then have kept up a steady cry that the President was “shredding
the Constitution” and encroaching on their rights as freedom-loving
patriotic Americans despite any evidence their constitutional rights
were being trampled on. However, there is a group of Americans
attempting to force, through legislation, a segment of the population to
give up their constitutional rights and it is not President Obama, but
repugicans and their legislative arm the corporate-controlled American
Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).
The founders sought to protect Americans from government agents
indiscriminately targeting citizens and searching them, and wrote the
Fourth Amendment that
says; “
The
right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and
effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be
violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause,
supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place
to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” Besides
legal protection, it guaranteed Americans could be secure in their
private lives and that without good reason, no government or law
enforcement agent could search for or seize private property based on
appearance, gossip, or stereotype borne of financial standing, race, or
associations. Prodded by ALEC, seven states enacted their
model legislation
allowing states to unreasonably search low-income, unemployed, and sick
Americans’ bodies for no other reason than they were victims of
Republicans’ job-killing economic agenda.
After a federal appeals court
struck down
Florida’s unreasonable search provision demanding drug testing of
welfare recipients, a repugican in the House, Stephen Fincher (r-TN)
introduced a bill last Friday
requiring
any state wanting full funding for welfare assistance to force citizens
to waive their Fourth Amendment rights and submit to drug testing.
Fincher’s bill, the
ALEC-named
Welfare Integrity Act 2013, attempts to circumvent the Constitutional
protection against unreasonable search by forcing states to provide a
form that gives applicants a choice to either give up their Fourth
Amendment rights and submit to drug testing, or give up their right to
apply for programs such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families
(TANF).
Under Fincher’s bill, a state refusing to deny citizens their
Constitutional rights is penalized by forfeiting 10% of their TANF
funding for non-compliance of an unconstitutional law revoking citizens’
Fourth Amendment Rights, and requires states to pass their own
unconstitutional law. Fincher argued that demanding citizens to give up
their constitutional rights is not forced because applicants have the
option to give up their right to apply for food assistance, but the
appeals court said a forced waiver violates the doctrine of
unconstitutional condition that “
the government may not require a
person to give up a constitutional right in exchange for a discretionary
benefit conferred by the government.”
The appeals court recognized what any American watching repugicans denigrate the poor knows and rightly said that Florida “
presented
no evidence that simply because an applicant for TANF benefits is
having financial problems, he is also drug-addicted or prone to
fraudulent and neglectful behavior,” because there is none. The panel of judges also remarked that “
there is nothing inherent to the condition of being impoverished that supports the conclusion that there is a “concrete danger”
that impoverished individuals are prone to drug use,”
except for repugicans’ wont to demean poor people who are suffering
Republicans refusal to create jobs or raise the minimum wage.
In 2012 at ALEC’s urging, Congress gave states the right to require
drug testing to receive their unemployment benefits, and in Texas, Rick
Perry took it a step farther
pushing a law
requiring unemployment beneficiaries, people applying for food stamps,
and welfare applicants to be drug tested because they are suffering repugicans’ economic agenda. ALEC’s legislation is gaining traction in
other Republican-controlled states, and it is noteworthy that repugicans are not requiring unconstitutional drug tests for
beneficiaries of other government programs and subsidies such as state
legislators, governors, oil company executives, corporate CEO’s, or
members of Congress. Despite no empirical data that the unemployed,
disabled, or working-poor are guilty of illegal drug use, repugicans
are singling out the poorest Americans for scrutiny. It is typically repugican and Draconian to single out the poor, unemployed, and
disabled for unconstitutional intrusions into their persons, but simply
outrageous that ALEC and repugicans are also creating the economic
conditions that force Americans to require assistance to begin with.
There appears to be no end of repugican attacks on Americans,
especially those barely surviving in a brutal economy created by the repugican cabal's
intransigence to create jobs or help the people prosper. Indeed, their
persistent assault on jobs through perpetual spending cuts plays a major
role in why so many working Americans need assistance to begin with,
but to demand American citizens give up their constitutional rights
belies their alleged allegiance to the Constitution they are shredding
because a legion of corporate heads deemed it necessary to single out
the poorest Americans for unreasonable treatment, but based on their
four-year war on Americans, nothing should shock and awe the people; not
even repugicans trampling on Americans Constitutional rights.
