With the implementation of a state of military siege against the population of Boston last week, the American ruling class has crossed a historical, legal and political Rubicon. The die is cast and the sun is setting on the democratic forms of rule that have existed in the United States for the past two centuries.
What history will remember as most significant about the events in Boston will not be the bombing near the marathon’s finish line or the perpetrators or their motives. What will be remembered instead will be the unprecedented military lockdown of an entire major American city, with military vehicles in the streets and heavily armed soldiers going house to house—tromping through living rooms, bedrooms and kitchens, staring down their assault rifles at terrified, barefoot families in their pajamas.What the author does not seem to understand is that the Bill of Rights was tacked on the original Constitution because of widespread opposition by people in the original 13 semi-autonomous states of the United States. The newly formed capitalist class needed to add "a spoonful of sugar" in order to get their property centered constitution ratified by the states. Their promotion of this constitution was essentially a coup engineered by the major property holders of the states while attending a convention that was only supposed to be modifying the Articles of Confederation.
They knew perfectly well that under their constitution that they could control a powerful centralized government from any democratic inference from below, and therefore they need not worry about the amendments. To illustrate how seriously the "founding fathers" took these amendments, bear in mind that only nine years after the Constitution went into effect they passed the Sedition Act which made it a crime...
To write, print, utter or publish, or cause it to be done, or assist in it, any false, scandalous, and malicious writing against the government of the United States, or either House of Congress, or the President, with intent to defame, or bring either into contempt or disrepute, or to excite against either the hatred of the people of the United States, or to stir up sedition, or to excite unlawful combinations against the government, or to resist it....