Statue of Freedom (1857-62)

They'll never love you, the way that I loved you
'Cause if they did, no no, they wouldn't let you die
The had me  thrillin' baby once upon a time (that time, that time)
Human rights risin'
Now just kiss it (I have to kiss it all... Kiss it all)
We must all kiss our asses goodbye now

Na na na na, hey hey-ey, goodbye
Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey-ey, goodbye

Na na na na, hey hey-ey, goodbye
Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey-ey, goodbye

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsaTElBljOE

The Supreme Court did not specify the exact wording to use when informing a suspects of their rights. However, the Court did create a set of guidelines that must be followed. The ruling states:

You have a right to a lawyer - before, during and after questioning, even though the police don't have to tell you exactly when the lawyer can be with you. If you can't afford a lawyer, one will be provided to you. Do you understand these rights as they have been read to you, which, by the way, are only good for the next two weeks?

The Supreme Court made major revisions to the now familiar Miranda warnings this year. The rulings will change the ways police, lawyers and criminal suspects interact amid what experts call an attempt to pull back some of the rights that Americans have become used to over recent decades.

The high court has made clear it's not going to eliminate the requirement that police officers give suspects a Miranda warning, so it is tinkering around the edges, said Jeffrey L. Fisher, co-chair of the amicus committee of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

"It's death by a thousand cuts," Fisher said. "For the past 20-25 years, as the court has turned more conservative on law and order issues, it has been whittling away at Miranda and doing everything it can to ease the admissibility of confessions that police wriggle out of suspects."

The court placed limits on the so-called Miranda rights three times during the just-ended session. Experts viewed the large number of rulings as a statistical aberration, rather than a full-fledged attempt to get rid of the famous 1966 decision. The original ruling emerged from police questioning of Ernesto Miranda in a rape and kidnapping case in Phoenix. It required officers to tell suspects taken into custody that they have the right to remain silent and to have a lawyer represent them, even if they can't afford one.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/02/miranda-rights-trimmed-do_n_667023.html

I have to bring you all back to a time when the Bill of Rights had no applicability to the States. You had no right to counsel or reasonable bail or a jury of your peers or the right to remain silent or the right to free speech or the right to freedom of religion or the right to bear arms and blow your neighbor away with a 357 Magnum. Ha

So a state court could decide that under its constitution, protesters could be denied licenses to protest a burlesque theater or a Jewish Temple.

So a state court could just decide that newspapers could be fined for reporting bribes that were made by corporations to politicians.

So a state court could decide that a person could be imprisoned just for walking the streets without money in her pockets.

I had a criminal law professor back in the early seventies make me recite THE MIRANDA WARNING. It was easy even back then because the tv dramas repeated them every day. 

I viewed a movie in the last year starring Gene Hackman and Morgan Freeman called Under Suspicion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Under_Suspicion_%282000_film%29

Always makes me think of the Terry Stafford song:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAYrMsxMKp8

Hackman is the man being held in custody for a brutal rape and killing and Morgan plays the police inspector who exacts a confession from him.

We learn later that Hackman's character was guilty of many sins--are not we all--but he had nothing to do with the crime for which he was originally charged.

Group dynamics take over in interrogations, social psychology takes over as the only exact science.

Corporate constitutional protections increase.

The right to shoot your neighbor with the correct weapon increases.

Oh we still have protections of a sort. Rush Limbaugh and beckerhead can spew out racial and classist rhetoric against minorities and the poor. They are even allowed to incite their listeners to riot and murder.

Freedom of speech means little when you can just purchase air time.

The only reason we have any rights at all as citizens is because the United States Supreme Court over a period of a hundred years or so decided that the first Ten Amendments to our Constitution applied to individuals. Miranda was really one of those first decisions that set the ground work for all of this.

We would recite the Pledge of Allegiance in school and feel all safe that we were patriotic Americans with a country that loved us as much as we loved it.

And if we have protections, who exactly is we?

Well this country was built by immigrants. Some of us came through Ellis Island after a brief stay at some quarantined infirmary to ensure we were not bringing in some dread disease.  That is what my maternal grandfather did.

I know for sure I had a great grandfather who just came here via Canada with no papers. Hahahaha

They have all this new software and these sites so that you can do your own research to discover where the seeds of your birthrights arose.

Listen to me now

Rights never near you; to comfort and cheer you
When all those sad fears are fallin' baby from the skies
They might be willin' baby to take your rights (my God, my God)
So don't be so willin'
Just to kiss them (I don't wanna see you kiss them. I don't wanna see you kiss them)
Don't go ahead and kiss your ass goodbye, na-na na-na-na na na

Na na na na, hey hey-ey, goodbye
Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey-ey, goodbye

Na na na na, hey hey-ey, goodbye
Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey-ey, goodbye

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsaTElBljOE

Should we start punishing kids for their parents' behavior? Sen. John Kyl (R-AZ) wants to repeal the 14th Amendment, which says that anyone born here is an American citizen. Kyl wants the U.S.-born kids of illegal immigrants to be denied citizenship, the senator said on Face the Nation. He supports a proposal from Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC)--known on the far right as "Senator Grahamnesty" for his earlier pro-immigration stance derided as amnesty--to amend the Constitution to delete this right established in 1868 to prevent Southern states from denying citizenship to slaves. "The 14th Amendment [has been] interpreted to provide that if you are born in the United States, you are a citizen no matter what," Kyl said. "So the question is, if both parents are here illegally, should there be a reward for their illegal behavior?"   thedailybeast

Who exactly is an American? What makes us what we are?  What makes us citizens?

Well there were so many geniuses involved in the crafting of our Constitution that we might be saved after all.

Senator Kyl or our supposedly moderate friend from South Carolina might put on a good show.

But good luck with attempting to amend the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution; an amendment process which is extremely difficult to achieve under the rules of Amendment set out in our Constitution.

Article Five of the United States Constitution describes the process whereby the Constitution may be altered. Altering the Constitution consists of proposing an amendment and subsequent ratification.

Amendments may be proposed by either two-thirds of both houses of the United States Congress or by a national convention. This convention can be assembled at the request of the legislatures of at least two-thirds of the several states. To become part of the Constitution, amendments must then be ratified either by approval of the legislatures of three-fourths of the states or ratifying conventions held in three-fourths of the states. Congress has discretion as to which method of ratification should be used. There is one exception to the three-fourths requirement, specified in the last clause of Article V: "no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate." This clause seems to empower specific states to veto their prospective reduction of representation in the Senate, even over the ratification of 49 other states.  Wiki..

So go ahead. If the Supremes are not working fast enough to cancel all the rights we received during the second half of the 20th century, go ahead and attempt to destroy the primary source of all of our rights: THE 14TH AMENDMENT TO THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION.

IDIOTS!!!

AND CHECK YOUR POCKETS ALL WHO COME HERE AT YOUR PERIL TO READ MY DRIVEL.

DO YOU HAVE YOUR BIRTH CERTIFICATE ON YOU? DO YOU HAVE YOUR PARENT'S BIRTH CERTIFICATES ON YOU?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsaTElBljOE