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LAW AND GOVERNMENT

America, Lawless

Does the Constitution still matter?

4 min readMar 17, 2025

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Patriot Act opponents at the School for Americas protest, 2006. (Ashleigh Nushawg/Flickr)

The easy answer is No. There is nothing that really separates America right now, with Trump in charge, from many nations around the world that routinely stomp all over a person’s basic rights. The Constitution is a “noble piece of paper,” the poet Gil Scott-Heron. Too bad, it is being ignored now.

America used to brag to the world about what it represented. It was free and open society. You could dissent and not worry about retribution. The First Amendment protected you. The elected leaders respected the country. Everyone wanted to come here.

Now, our leaders reject that ideal. America is not special.

The Bill of Rights provided all of us with protections under the law. Now, do they?

The First Amendment. The Fourth Amendment. The Fifth Amendment. The Sixth Amendment. The Fourteenth Amendment. These constitutional amendments constitute the bedrock of human rights around the world now. Human rights laws go further than this but at a minimum you have to have these kinds of laws if you hold yourself out as a real state that respects human rights.

America is seeking to throw much of this in the trash can under Trump. The true story is also that this began a long time ago…

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'bumpyjonas…
'bumpyjonas…

Written by 'bumpyjonas…

cigar smoker...numbers runner....underworld figure...

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