14th Amendment

The 14th Amendment to the US Constitution reads:

"
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.


Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article."

It was passed in 1868, along with the Thirteenth and Fifteenth as a reaction to the Civil War. It was intended to ensure citizenship and equal protection under the law for all residents, and further to determine how to treat those who might act in open rebellion against the nation. Prior to the Civil War, no text in the Constitution dealt with this matter adequately.

For this purpose, it is Section 1 which I am concerned with - however, it is an interesting aside that there is a specific prohibition against questioning the faith and credit worthiness of the United States (Section 4) - it is interesting because so many out there in the land of extremism do so daily.

In Section 1, I mean specifically, "shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

This passage was used to define a "Right to Privacy" by Supreme Court Justices Samual Warren and Louis Brandies in his landmark decision in 1890.
http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.805/articles/privacy/Privacy_brand_warr2.html

The principal point of the decision was that a person has the right to be secure in their actions and person without the intrusion of government without good purpose and due process. They relied HEAVILY on the 14th Amendment, in short finding that the government has no right to intrude or know what you are doing, without good reason.

It was from this decision that the Supreme Court, in 1972, decided that the government could not intrude upon the rights of women to seek medical treatment for pregnancy, including terminating a pregnancy by having an abortion so long as the fetus did not meet the standard of being considered a living person, by legal or medical standards. Meaning, if you aren't harming someone else, then medically approved treatments are your choice to undertake. They found that such prohibitions constituted an unreasonable intrusion upon the rights of women to be secure in their persons against unconstitutional intrusion by the government without due process. In short, the Government was violating the "Right to Privacy" of women, without justification.

Since the time of Roe V. Wade, the Neo-Conservatives have rabidly disputed such a right, despite the enormous respect given to Brandeis as one of the brightest Constitutional scholars in the country's history AND despite the irony/hypocrisy of their incessant claims that the Government should NOT otherwise intrude. They claim that Roe V. Wade is 'activism', legislating from the bench, when the 14th could hardly be more clear that as long as someone is not breaking the law - and medical treatment isn't breaking the law - that the government cannot otherwise intrude upon the privacy of the citizen. They fundamentally abhor the "Right to Privacy" despite its rather clear justification by Brandeis. They abhore it because they know that it is exactly the justification for Roe.

So, how utterly ironic that Michelle Bachmann, a Lawyer, LLM, and staunch Neo-Conservative who doubtless disputes the "Right to Privacy", would use and claim such a right to defend her nonsensical civil disobedience against the Census. She is a Court Officer, she doubtless is both educated and bright enough to know the Census is supported Constitutionally, and by both original Constitution of the Bill of Rights and Section 5 of the 14th Amendment, as well as Section 1, the Government has adequate right to request information. She hypocritically decries Roe - substantiated and underpinned by the 14th and Brandies, and then wraps herself in Brandeis (as do her fawning, unthinking anti-Government sychophants) when it suits her. She advocates for violating the law for no good or meaningful purpose, to appear as a Champion of the little people, but supports States intruding upon a woman's right to seek termination of pregnancy by passing laws to prevent such procedures - in essence dictating that women must carry to term.

So, she takes a 'moral stand' screaming "Don't Tread on Me!" on a fluff, trivial issue like Census questions, but she's all to happy to otherwise tread on our rights, to deny the "Right to Privacy", and to set the government to spying on the people (in fact investigating them for 'anti American sentiments') whenever it suits her purpose. Those of you who see her as defending you from the Government need to get a clue. She's a clever manipulator, taking stands for liberty when it doesn't matter, and complicit in usurping those rights, denying they even exist, when it does.