Rights Versus Privileges
All our rights are ordained by our Creator. As a free people, our forefathers established both our Federal and State Constitutions and governments to protect those rights. Government can grant us no privileges that have been previously endowed as rights by God.
The recent practice of Government grant of privileges can not extend to rights previously enjoyed. Once we allow government to convert our rights into privileges, they can impose any requirement on those "privileges". US 42 Section 666 imposes such a burden on the "privilege" of driving. Prior to 1970 driving was a right in Maryland. In fact, the US Supreme Court has never ruled that driving is a "privilege". Yet it has many times, over the years, ruled that the "right" to travel is a fundamental right.
Patrick Henry spoke those famous words "Give me Liberty or Give me Death" in a rousing speech that brought Virginia into the war of rebellion against England. What is less well known is the incident that raised his anger to such a heated pitch. While traveling to the legislature, Patrick Henry passed by a man who was held in the public stocks. The man had been whipped so severely that his ribs lay exposed. Henry asked what the man's crime was. He was told that the man was a preacher that refused to take a license from the state to preach.
No rights can be enjoyed entirely unrestricted. Shouting fire in a crowded theater or driving, after one has been convicted of drunk or reckless driving, are actual dangers to the public. Laws restricting the "right" to drive for these offenses are examples of proper use of the state's police powers to regulate right of travel. The danger of converting these rights to privileges is that the state can deny or revoke the privilege for any reason that in no way imposes a real threat to society and can do so without citizen recourse. The state may also charge whatever fee in exchange for the grant of such privileges, so that the poor may not enjoy these privileges. The state may also compel any behavoir from citizens in exchange for such grant of privilege.
We have just seen an attempt in neighboring Virgina to charge $1000 fines for various traffic offenses. Which, because of the citizen out cry, is being rolled back. But the distinction between the right and privilege is still there and provides the means by which we can eventually lose our liberties.
The grant of various true privileges by the state, such as the privilege corporations enjoy of limited liability, carry with them loss of constitutional and common law rights. Since corporations are not human and are not endowed with any natural rights, such a state grant of privlege is reasonable under a state's powers. But what is unacceptable is the recent government practice of creating a legal fiction of artifical persons that stand in place of us humans in courts of law, but have none of our rights. Yet this legal fiction requires us to be responsable for these "artificial" entities that bear our name. For instance, pull out one of your "personal" checks and read the line on which you sign your name. Believe it or not, you will find the smallest "fine print" ever used in a binding contract. Banks are exempt from state laws that were enacted to prevent deception through use of fine print. In reality the checking account in your name, that you thought was your, the human person's, account, is in legal reality an account in the name of an "artificial" person. This has great ramifactions when it comes time to take your money from you without you being afforded common law and Constitutional rights.
You may be suprised to learn that the US governement has established a trust account for every American at birth. This trust account is such a legal fiction described above. The US governement has pledged the assets of these trust accounts as security on the national debt. So in essense every American is now pledged as a "bond servant" to the international bankers.
No one enjoys a right to have others support them financially through welfare, social security or other state sponsored means. This is instead a state provided privilege. The acceptance of such a government "privilege" subjects citizens to government control of their lives. Citizens can not expect to enjoy common law or constitutional protections when they have unwittingly waived them by accepting a government privilege. This fact is something that our government has failed to fully disclose to Americans.
When Citizens are "chewed up by the system", they feel that their "rights" weren't properly protected. In most cases these citizens never knew that the legal jurisdiction they were assenting to was an administrative one and not one that recognized their common law and Constitutional rights. Under the UCC code, any party that does not specifically reserve their common law and Constitutional rights has waived these rights. As your congressman, I will sponsor legislation that prevents such unknowing waiver of rights from being enforced. Since this is falls under the states powers this may require a constitutional ammendment