River Cities’ Reader
• Vol. 18 No. 787 • September 15 - 28, 2011
Business • Politics • Arts • Culture • Now You Know • RiverCitiesReader.com
Calling All Communities: NO PURCHASE OR SERVICE NECESSARY TO PARTICIPATE.
Must be 18 or older (19+ in Alabama and Nebraska) and legal resident of the 48 eligible United States/D.C. Void in Florida and New York, outside the eligible states and where prohibited. Other restrictions on participation apply. Any publicor private school (K–12; home schools excluded) within the 48 eligible states and D.C. is eligible (except previous winners). One vote per person per day. Voting ends 11:59:59 p.m. (CT) on October 6, 2011, at which time codes expire. The 18 winning schools with the most votes will be announced by November 2011.School with highest number of votes wins $150,000; others win $50,000 each. Ends October 6, 2011. This offer is subject to the complete Official Rules, by which all participants are bound. See Official Rules at uscellular.com or in-store. ©2011 U.S. Cellular.---
To learn more, visit
U.S.
Cellular’s Facebook
®
page and
uscellular.com
or call
1-888-BUY-USCC
.
___
Nettelhorst Elementary used last year’s Calling All Communities winningsto renovate their science lab. Here students enjoy the improvements.
Want your school to wina share of
$
1,000,000?
Start voting.
Helpyour school be one of
18
winners in the
U.S.
Cellular
®
Calling All Communitiesprogram.
Education is facing lots of challenges. So we’re giving the school withthe most votes
$150,000
and the next
17
schools
$50,000
each.To vote for your school, go to a
U.S.
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®
store and get an onlinevoting code. Vote daily from
9/9
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.It’s a great way to get involved with your school and community—and be with the happiest customers in wireless.
River Cities’ Reader
• Vol. 18 No. 787 • September 15 - 28, 2011
Business • Politics • Arts • Culture • Now You Know • RiverCitiesReader.com
GUEST COMMENTARY
protect the freedom to speak your mindand protest in peace without being bridledby the government. It also protects thefreedom of the media, as well as the right toworship and pray without interference. Inother words, Americans cannot be silencedby the government. Yet despite the clearprotections found in the First Amendment,the freedoms described therein are underconstant assault. Students are often strippedof their rights for such things as wearing aT-shirt that school officials find offensive.Incredibly, one California school officialactually forbade students from wearing T-shirtswith the American flag on them. Likewise,local governments and police often opposecitizens who express unpopular views in public.Peace activists who speak out against thegovernment are being arrested and subjected toinvestigation by the FBI, while members of thepress are threatened with jail time for reportingon possible government wrongdoing andrefusing to reveal their sources.
The
Second Amendment
was intended toguarantee
“
the right of the people to keep and bear arms.
”
Yet while gun
ownership
has beenrecognized by the U.S. Supreme Court as anindividual citizen right, Americans remain
Constitution Day: Is the Bill of Rights Dead?
by John W. Whitehead
F
or all intents and purposes, the Constitu-tion is on life support and has been forsome time now.Those responsible for its demise are noneother than the schools, which have failedto educate students about its principles; thecourts, which have failed to uphold the rightsenshrined within it; the politicians, wholong ago sold out to corporations and specialinterests; and “we the people,” who, in ourignorance and greed, have valued materialismover freedom.We can pretend that the Constitution,which was written to hold the governmentaccountable and was adopted on September17, 1787, is still our governing document.However, the reality we must come to termswith is that in the America we live in today,the government does whatever it wants. Andthe few of us who actively fight to preservethe rights enshrined in the Constitution (agroup whose numbers continue to shrink) doso knowing that in the long run we may befighting a losing battle.A review of the first 10 amendments to theConstitution shows that the Bill of Rights may well be dead.The
First Amendment
is supposed to
Continued On Page 12
powerless to defend themselves against thegovernment. In fact, in 2011, the IndianaSupreme Court broadly ruled that citizensdon
’
t have the right to resist police officerswho enter their homes illegally, which isthe law in most states. And consider howmany individuals have been killed simplyfor instinctively reaching for any kind of weapon, loaded or not, during the initialtrauma of a SWAT-team raid. Thus, as local police departments become more and morelike paramilitary units, dressed in black riotgear and armed with assault weapons, theability of the citizenry to protect itself fromthe government will become more and moredifficult.The
Third Amendment
reinforces the principle that civilian-elected officials aresuperior to the military by prohibiting themilitary from entering any citizen’s homewithout “the consent of the owner.” Today’smilitary may not as of yet technicallythreaten private property. However, with the police increasingly posing as military forces – complete with weapons, uniforms, assaultvehicles, etc. – a good case could be made for the fact that SWAT-team raids, which break down the barrier between public and private property, have done away with this criticalsafeguard. Indeed, the increasing militarizationof the police, the use of sophisticated weaponryagainst Americans, and the government’sincreasing tendency to employ military personnel domestically have eviscerated theThird Amendment. At all levels (federal,local, and state), through the use of fusioncenters, information sharing with the nationalintelligence agencies, and monetary grants for weapons and training from the Pentagon, thelocal police and the military have for all intentsand purposes joined forces. In the process, the police have become a “standing” or permanentarmy, one composed of full-time professionalsoldiers who do not disband, which is exactlywhat the Founders feared.The
Fourth Amendment
prohibits thegovernment from searching your homewithout a warrant approved by a judge.Unfortunately, the Fourth Amendment has been all but eviscerated by the passage of the USA PATRIOT Act, which opened thedoor to unwarranted electronic intrusions bygovernment agents into your most personal
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River Cities' Reader Issue #787 - September 15, 2011
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