Liberty comes alive once a year - Bill of Rights Day

Wednesday was the 219th anniversary of the ratification of the Bill of Rights - the first 10 amendments to the Constitution. Bill of Rights Day should be the pre-eminent Anti-Politician Day on the American calendar. Instead, it has become simply another pretext for rulers to delude the ruled, an opportunity that the Obama administration is exploiting.Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1787, "A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference."  The Bill of Rights did not give freedom to Americans; instead, the Bill of Rights expressly prohibited the government from violating pre-existing rights of the people. The Bill of Rights was not "radical" according to the beliefs of Americans of that era; instead, it codified rights long recognized in English common law or that had been carved out over centuries of resistance to English tyranny. The Founding Fathers had difficulty getting the Constitution approved in many states not because it was "radical" in protecting people's rights from the government - but because it was perceived as concentrating too much power within the federal government to violate the rights of the people...more