Does Voting Matter? | Bill of Rights Breakdown

By Gabriel Green

One of my more controversial beliefs is that voting is our least important tool for change.

It’s not that voting is not worth doing; far from it. Everyone absolutely should vote!

But, voting only happens one day every 4, 2, or 1 year. Maybe twice a year in some towns.

The rest of the way you affect change is 365 days out of the year.

A Better Way to Read the Bill of Rights

I like to explain this by starting with the Bill of Rights, which if you don’t remember is the first 10 amendments to the Constitution.

Seriously, no judgement on your knowledge about this stuff. Even I need to look up some of the amendments every time I do this to keep ‘em straight. Basically 5-7 are a real blur to me…past 10 I only know the highlights. And I’m a SUPER NERD about this stuff.

Everyone’s good at some things, and in the right setting you’d school me!

First Amendment = MOST of your Power

The 1st Amendment is my favorite amendment, because it’s jam-packed with privileges that guarantee us the ability to make change.

And not just governmental change, though that’s their main purpose. This amendment also protects your right to make social change and persuade other people on things the government has no business getting into.

Social issues ought to be solved by society, and what that means above all is: “you ought to be free to exercise your first amendment rights without restrictions.”

These rights are:

• Freedom of Religion

• Freedom of Speech

• Freedom of Press

• Freedom of Assembly

• Freedom of Petition

Understood properly, these rights all give you the ability to affect meaningful change. And their violation ought to never be tolerated.

Freedom of Religion is your right to believe what you want, worship how you want, and to not be restricted from professing your beliefs either.

Freedom of Speech extends your rights to profess your beliefs beyond religion, and entitles each of us to our opinions and our right to pursue any new information.

Freedom of the Press helps to provide us with that new information, and allows each of us to share what we learn with others through public forums that anyone can access.

Freedom of Assembly also protects our access to public forums, and our rights to gather together peacefully to demonstrate solidarity, or even simply to fellowship communally.

Finally, Freedom of Petition allows us and our fellows from all manner of communities (religious, social, academic, journalistic, etc.) to voice our opinion to the government.

All of this is how we affect change OUTSIDE of election season.

2nd Amendment: Guarantor of Freedom

This brings me to my favorite “part” of the constitution; the way that the second amendment flows naturally from the first.

See, those rights in the first amendment guarantee us the ability to make change — both governmentally and socially — along with our right to vote for our elected leaders.

But, if they don’t listen or refuse to relinquish power after an election, what should we do?

Refer to the 2nd amendment!

“A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state; the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

Breaking this down just a little bit, we can see the following:

“A well-regulated militia,” meaning a private citizenry separate from the armed forces of the state, which is well-armed and well-trained in the use of their arms.

“Being necessary” is self-evident, but “to the security of a free state” is intriguing.

Obviously a “state” could be secure if it were defended by an army. But, a “free state” demands a “well-regulated militia,” with private arms and skill with those arms, to preserve freedom. Without it, a government and its military (the state) could oppress the people, and it would no longer be a free state.

Next it affirms "the right of the people." This is neat because it again emphasizes how this a right is for the people to use to protect and preserve themselves from the government; not for the great or the nobility or their lackies.

“Keep and bear” is to me the operative statement in the end, with “shall not be infringed” again self-evident.

"Keep and bear" is where the rubber meets the road, and it’s clear that citizens ought to be unrestricted in their carrying of arms and their ability to access them quickly.

We need to be unencumbered so we can respond to foreign and domestic threats.

Minute Man, style.

I have my own thoughts on improving our capacity for militia defense, which I’ll save for later.

In essence, if the government ain’t listening to your first amendment calls for change; give ‘em the 2ndamendment. And keep your weapons ready, and familiarize yourself with them, so that if you need to fight the government it’s not impossible.

If Afghanistan and Vietnam can give us a run for our money, I promise the people of Wyoming can at least put up a decent scrap. And, fortunately, I think MOST of our military would still side with the people against even a government led by someone they support.

I am not advocating violence.

Rather, I am encouraging all Americans to be ready for the day that your constitutional right to bear arms is necessary to defend yourself and your neighbors from tyranny.

How do we know when we're suffering from tyranny?

When the other amendments are being threatened!

The Third through Eighth Amendments

The next set of amendments, 3-8, are pretty similar to each other in design and purpose.

These amendments exist so you know if the government has gone too far, and if it’s time to whip out the ol’ 1st amendment…and then potentially the 2nd if it should come to that.

As a reminder, these amendments give all Americans the rights to:

• 3: Not have the military randomly store troops in your house outside of a time of war

• 4: Not have the government search or seize you or your property without a warrant

• 5: Not be tried for the same crime twice, or to be convicted without a trial, or to have your property confiscated without compensation, or to be forced to confess

• 6:  Not to be tried without any evidence, or held without trial for an unreasonable amount of time, and the right to a lawyer

• 7: Right to a trial by a jury of your peers

• 8: Protection against cruel and unusual punishment, AND excessive bail or fines

What are 3-8 for?

All of these amendments serve the same general purpose. If they’re violated, or if you feel like they’re being infringed or ignored, you need to immediately be suspicious of the government and what it’s doing.

You need to use your first amendment rights to voice your displeasure.

And you need to prepare to use your second amendment rights, because a government infringing on any of the third-through-eighth amendments is nearing the point of needing to be resisted via the second.

You Can And Should Take Action

Now, if you currently think those rights are being violated, you need to do something. But there’s still time to prevent violence from happening at all.

We should be prepared to use the 2nd amendment; not resorting to it immediately.

You need to use your first amendment rights to force the government to change.

And, you can use your first amendment rights to support things like the DINO movement, or to start your own movement, long before you will get a chance to vote again.

You should vote. But, don’t forget to make change before the next election, too.

Res Publica!

What about the 9th and 10th Amendments

As a bonus, let’s end with the 9th and 10th amendments, which conclude the “Bill of Rights.”

Those are fun, but have been ignored by the feds for a while…I want to change that.

Nine basically says that something not being EXPLICITLY laid out in the constitution doesn’t mean it’s not there.

For instance, the word “Privacy” never appears in the constitution, but anyone paying attention — to the history of our national founding, the intention of amendments like the 3rd and 4th, and the themes of our entire structure of government — would recognize that Privacy is a fundamental American right that ought to be preserved.

Heck, even the 1st amendment practically guarantees some privacy with the free exercise of religion, though as laid out above it’s mostly a “public” freedoms sort of amendment.

Ten is a favorite of folks like me, because it ensures local governance.

It basically says that if the constitution doesn’t

• A) set a power aside for the federal government, or

• B) ban governments from doing something like what’s laid out in the Bill of Rights (first ten amendments) or the rest of the amendments, then

• C) the states can do what they damn well please.

Fortunately, we’ve written new amendments that further limit the states, some of whom were led by folks whose “as they damn well pleased” was legitimately evil.

What’s neat about the tenth amendment is that we also have a pretty clear instruction guide for the sort of the things the feds shouldn’t be wandering into; namely, anything that isn’t in the constitution or a later amendment!

Good local government is the best guarantor of freedom outside of the 2nd amendment.

An easy way to prevent tyranny is by ensuring that states, counties, municipalities, and even neighborhoods are doing most of our governing; not the federal government.

Conclusion

To wrap up, the Bill of Rights is kind of an instruction manual for Americans.

And it shows how voting, while important, is the least important way we can affect change.

The first amendment is how we can most affect our community, society, and government.

The second amendment is how you make sure the government can’t oppress you.

The third through eighth amendments are how you know if you're being oppressed.

The ninth and tenth protect localities and people's rights to otherwise pursue happiness.

My primary goal is to restore and elevate everyone's' 1st amendment rights, and to better restrain all government within the original structure of our Republic's Bill of Rights.