By Marilyn M. Singleton, MD, JD
Constitution Day passed us by without the celebration it richly deserved. Limiting the powers of the federal government is at the core of our Constitution. Ten years ago, the Affordable Care Act tested the limits of federal powers. The barely-noticed federal takeover of student loans, the mandated purchase of health insurance from a limited list of insurers with a limited list of doctors were only the start. The federally defined “essential” medical services were a roadmap for future government controls. We are now living through the consequences of government deciding what activities are “essential” in the lives of normal, sentient human beings.
Some congresspersons and assorted social justice warriors are treating the Constitution like the COVID-susceptible residents of New York nursing homes: expendable. Or like the 26,000 dementia patients whose death was hastened by the isolation resulting from unscientific lockdowns.
The First Amendment is irrelevant for those whom the leftist mob detests. The mob and its social media enablers reserve freedom of speech for high-minded virtue signalers. Conservatives or libertarians need not apply. COVID-19 provided a justification for abridging freedom of assembly and religious freedom. Is openly professing one’s faith not essential to our well-being? Certainly, religious services where congregations can easily be instructed on safely participating in group worship presents less risk than sauntering through Walmart.
The Second Amendment erosion continues despite gutting police departments and the resultant rapidly increasing violent crime, including 710 more homicides than this time last year. Within hours after a would-be assassin used a handgun to ambush two law enforcement officers, Joe Biden called for a ban on “weapons of war.” Are we to fend for ourselves with kitchen knives and pointy-headed garden gnomes?
The abandonment of the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against unreasonable search and seizure is on the table as the rumblings aboutmandatory COVID-19 vaccines get louder.
We are seeing new methods to erode the Fifth Amendment’s prohibition of the government “taking” of private property by “eminent domain” that go far beyond the infamous 2005 Kelodecision. In Kelo, the Supreme Court liberals expanded the Constitution’s “public use” to include a public “purpose.” The Court concluded that thegovernment could take property from one private owner and transfer it to another private party because the public would benefit from the economic development and increased tax revenue. Sadly, the project for which the plaintiff lost her family home was never built. As dissenting Justice Sandra Day O’Connor noted, “Nothing is to prevent the State from replacing any Motel 6 with a Ritz-Carlton, any home with a shopping mall, or any farm with a factory.” In short, a “public purpose” can be anything the government wants it to be.
We are taking baby steps toward Marx’s ideal society without private property. California, as usual, is the canary in our free society’s coal mine. New legislation will allow 3 homes on single family lots across the state. The federal rules that Joe Biden wants to revive will facilitate cramming us into high-density suburban concrete jungles. How did the “stack and pack” housing in New York Citywhere COVID-19 spread like wildfire work out?
The COVID-19 mandates and lockdowns all but ignore the Ninth Amendment that enshrines the principle that we have natural rights that need not be enumerated.
The Tenth Amendment—perhaps the most powerful amendment—has been lost in the COVID-19 shuffle. Our leaders have ignored the law of the land that provides that when it comes to inalienable rights, the people are ultimately in charge.
The Twelfth Amendment confirms that electors, not the popular vote, shall elect the president despite Mrs. Clinton’s assertions to the contrary. The United States must guarantee that all states, not just New York City and California, have a voice in presidential elections.
The Thirteenth Amendment will no longer have meaning when we are all slaves to Uncle Sam’s whims.
Universal mail-in voting and the attendant fraudgrossly weakens the Fifteenth Amendment.
As Marx predicted, a socialist society would begin by the violent seizure of the government by the people. To achieve their goals, Communist revolutionaries killed at least 100 million people. Appearing to follow in those footsteps, the Marxist Black Lives Matter Foundation, Inc. is decorating the streets with communist symbols and burning down neighborhoods—much to the displeasure of the local Black residents. At least 26 deaths are attributable to the “peaceful protests.” News anchors are calling for burning the f**** thing downor blow the system up if their demands (having nothing to do with racial justice) are not met.
The leftists would like to “reimagine” the Constitution out of existence. When the mobs usher in a government-run dystopia, the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause will merely ensure that we will all “equally share in our misery.”
Rescue the canary. Fight for our Constitutional republic and our freedoms.
About Marylin M. Singleton:
Dr. Singleton is a board-certified anesthesiologist. She is the immediate past President of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS). She graduated from Stanford and earned her MD at UCSF Medical School. Dr. Singleton completed 2 years of Surgery residency at UCSF, then her Anesthesia residency at Harvard’s Beth Israel Hospital. While still working in the operating room, she attended UC Berkeley Law School, focusing on constitutional law and administrative law. She interned at the National Health Law Project and practiced insurance and health law. She teaches classes in the recognition of elder abuse and constitutional law for non-lawyers. She lives in Oakland, Ca.
