The editorial staff at Investor’s Business Daily contends the Democratic Party is taking aim directly at three of the 10 amendments in the U.S. Constitution’s Bill of Rights.
In just the past few months, in fact, members of the Democratic party have targeted the 1st, 2nd and 5th Amendments for attack. Here are the details, in reverse order:
Denying Due Process
Last week, House Democrats staged a sit in to demand a vote on a gun control bill that would have denied anyone on the government’s “no fly” list the right to buy a gun.
The problem is that someone can make it on the list “no fly” based on the flimsiest of evidence, mere suspicion, or for no apparent reason at all.
As a result, denying everyone on this list the right to buy a gun would risk denying them due process, a protection guaranteed by the 5th Amendment, which says among other things that no one can “be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”
Even the gun-control-supporting ACLU game out against such bills for that reason, saying that the watch list is “error-prone and unreliable” and that it would “place individuals on blacklists without a meaningful process to correct government error and clear their names.” …
… Torching the 2nd Amendment
When not trying to limit 5th Amendment protections in their zeal for gun control, Democrats are increasingly calling not just for restrictions on purchases for would-be terrorists or bans on “assault rifles,” but to scrap the 2nd Amendment entirely.
“The Second Amendment needs some changing, because Americans don’t agree with it and we’ve had it,” Rep. Mike Doyle, D-Pa., declared last week. …
… Targeting Free Speech
Incredibly, the Democrats’ disdain for the Bill of Rights includes even the 1st Amendment’s protection of free speech. Party leaders are openly pushing to limit free speech rights when it conflicts with their own viewpoints.
In a speech at an Iowa community college, for example, Hillary Clinton said: “We need to fix our dysfunctional political system and get unaccountable money out of it once and for all, even if that takes a constitutional amendment.”
Left unsaid is that the only way to do what she suggests would be to put restrictions on the 1st Amendment. A couple years ago, 54 Senate Democrats voted for a new constitutional amendment that would do just that.
