Our vanishing civil liberties

A lot of things have changed in my lifetime that I am completely convinced would cause our Founding Fathers to roll in their graves over what seem to be rapidly vanishing civil liberties. I'm not sure what, if anything, can be done about this. There seems to be a very well organized group of right wingers who decry the loss of their "freedoms" while going out of their way to suppress others rights and freedoms. For example, they are completely against any kind of gun registry, citing the Second Amendment to the Constitution as the basis for their objections, and yet, we are required to register our cars with the state - make, model, year, etc. as well as the fact that we must prove that we have insurance on our vehicles as well. No, owning a car is not a Constitutionally protected right like owning a gun is, but still, there seems to be a real disconnect here somewhere. Voting is a Constitutionally protected right, but they want to make it far more complicated and difficult to cast a vote by mandating that people produce a legal state identification card, which can cost money and which I consider a poll tax of sorts for those individuals who do not or can not drive and have a license. In essence, they want to make it easier to get a gun than to vote, which makes no sense whatsoever, given that one gives you the right to kill or seriously injure someone and the other to elect someone to a public office of some sort, be it school board, city council, municipal judge or even President of the United States of America. I find this all so utterly baffling, confusing and frankly, just bizarre. These same folks want to weaken the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution as well, something that was the result of a very long, very bloody war that divided our country for four long years. The rights that we have won over the years have not come cheaply or easily. Wars have been fought, people have bled and died for them in our 200+ year history of this nation.

One of the rights that seems to have vanished in its entirety is privacy. There are a number of things that are commonly accepted practices to which I staunchly object, including what I call "pee-in-a-cup" tests. Now, I get why it is felt that they should be administered and I do agree with it in theory, but not in practice. Of course I feel that it is important for people operating public transportation, be it a bus, train, airplane, truck or what have you, to not be doing drugs or anything else for the sake of public safety. I get that. I really do. Of course I want the pilot of the airplane or driver of the bus or engineer of the train or whatever I am riding on to be drug free. Who doesn't? But I guess that there are some things on which I have a slightly Libertarian leaning despite my normally reliable liberal views. I guess what upsets me about this is that we have a Fourth Amendment that guarantees no illegal search or seizure, and although the Supreme Court has upheld that the "pee-in-a-cup" test is within the Constitutional parameters, still, something about it rankles me. There's something about demanding your bodily fluids that just strikes me the wrong way. But this is just me expressing my opinion, nothing more, and I am entitled to free speech and the expression of my beliefs, so there you have it. I'm also uneasy with "cyber-spying" by employers on their employees. Again, I suppose I can understand in theory why they might wish to do this, but it seems to me that this crosses a line of sorts. People should be free to express themselves without fear of retribution from their employers. If we start squelching free speech to where you are no longer allowed to express your views for fear of some kind of retribution, then we have entered into some very dangerous territory where our civil liberties are being impinged upon and that's going down a very slippery slope that I do not even want to think about. It seems as if we're still living with too much post-9/11 fear of terrorism to where in some cases, free speech is being curtailed in very subtle ways. Sadly, in 1991 when our Constitution celebrated its Bicentennial, a survey found that the majority of Americans had no idea what was contained in the Bill of Rights, and an ignorant and uneducated society is far easier to manipulate than one where people are apprised of their rights and can and will fight back against oppression. People continue allowing their rights to be eroded little by little every year. It may be too late to turn a corner and reclaim what has been lost. If that's the case, then I am very sad that we have lost rights that people spent over 200 years fighting and dying for and their sacrifice will have been in vain. Again, my opinion, and my right to express it, for what it is worth. Feel free to disagree with me. It's your right.