To succeed in their quest to dismantle the safeguards of all human rights, thugs and tyrants need to convince a large number of people that other human beings are their own biggest problem. Then, they need those who have chosen fear over humanity to accept that some people’s human rights can be infringed, or ignored entirely. This is why those wishing to undermine American democracy want their supporters to hate and fear immigrants.
This is not new; this has been the strategy of tyrannical regimes and mafia governments throughout history. It is the meaning behind the words “phantom menace”. Corrupt and tyrannical leaders create an illusion of menace, promote that illusion relentlessly, cajole people into believing that they are the only ones willing to do ‘what is necessary’, and spread a culture of dehumanization and violence that empowers the tyrant and those linked to their criminal enterprise.
When people begin to accept dehumanization of others, the limiting or denial of others’ rights, and violence against others, they begin to accept their own dehumanization, and so they consent to the denial of their own rights and to the use of violence to crush dissent.
The United States was founded on the self-evident fact that all human beings enjoy all human rights, that those rights are universal and unalienable—no person can be separated from their humanity or from any human right, at any time, for any reason.
- This is why the Preamble of the Constitution of the United States says first of all the republic was created to “establish Justice”;
- it is why the 5th Amendment says “No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law”;
- it is why the 8th Amendment prohibits cruelty, absolutely;
- it is why the 9th Amendment clarifies that all human rights have full protection of the Constitution, even if they are never written down;
- it is why the 10th Amendment ends with the recognition that power resides ultimately with the people, not with any office-holder.
Read the Declaration of Independence in its entirety; then read it again, and again. Take your time. Examine the list of charges against the tyrant king; note how they include manipulations of political process to silence the voice of the people, eliminate opportunities for redress, and empower himself at the expense of the rights and freedoms of everyone else.
The 1st Amendment concludes with an absolute prohibition on limiting the right to seek legal redress. That includes not just crimes by fellow civilians, but also by agents of government. The letter of the law is clear: No agent of government is above the law; any crime can and should lead to a legal process to reverse the harm done or establish justice.
Immigrants who do not yet have permanent residency or citizenship are nearly all in the country lawfully, with lawful and appropriate asylum cases pending. Asylum is an important word for defining the scope and character of American democracy. It means people who have been treated as less than human can come to the United States and be protected against evil; it means American freedom is real and our founding values operative.
True American patriotism is welcoming. The Declaration charges King George III with the crime of opposing immigration. Article I of the Constituton requires Congress to actively support immigration and naturalization. The purpose of the republic is to recognize and uphold the human rights and dignity of all people, wherever they come from.
Rescue from tyranny is the American way.
Those who would persecute asylum seekers—who summarily detain people that fled brutality and torture under despotic regimes, and then deny them food and medicine, in violation of American laws and our founding principles—are attempting nothing less than the overthrow of the Constitution of the United States and the reversal of the American Revolution.
King George III is no longer with us, and King Charles III has recently made clear he is a champion of democracy and human rights and has deep respect for the purpose and accomplishments of the founders of the American democratic republic. Reversal of the American Revolution would not restore the British monarchy, but would institute a new kind of despotism.
That new kind of despotism has as its purpose the nullification of the core principle of American democracy—that human rights, in all cases, have primacy over the exercise of power.
- The five freedoms of the 1st Amendment, which are all forms of witness, are called into question. Critics are persecuted, witnesses harrassed, arrested, even shot and killed.
- Depriving any person of the right to bear witness deprives all of us of the right to live in a society where truth, justice, and freedom, outweigh the desires of those who would abuse public authority.
- Cruelty—despite being outlawed—is used as a coercive threat, an aim that is explicitly described in anti-racketeering law as evidence of an organized criminal enterprise.
- The universality and unalienability of human rights is violently opposed by high-ranking officials, to create a zone of impunity in which they and their allies can profit from harm, with impunity.
- Even the sacred obligation of the state to care for the human needs and dignity of every person lawfully taken into custody is turned over to for-profit interests.
This new despotism seeks to convert the legitimacy and credibility of a free republic into a violent racket structured around dehumanization and impunity. This is happening now, today, in the United States. The effort to dismantle the safeguards of human rights and freedoms, which make the United States a free republic, is underway and moving fast.
The American people are sovereign—not the President. The Congress is sworn to represent the American people well and faithfully, to honor the stated purpose of the Constitution, to “establish Justice… promote the general welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty” now and for the benefit of future generations.
This May 4th, we find ourselves exactly two months from the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence—the start of this great and complicated, courageous shared project in defense of the human rights and dignity of all people.
Let us remember: Power is legitimate only when it honors the transcendent humanity of every person. The blessings of liberty are not to be decided by political office-holders; they are self-evident and secure when all of us are free to be ourselves, to be faithful witnesses, to defend the innocent and give asylum to those in need.
The humanity of everyone else is your humanity. Do not surrender it.
Rescue Rights & Freedoms 