There is language in the Bill of Rights that is word for word the same as language in the Magna Carta, signed in 1215, and in the English Bill of Rights of 1689. Bill Norton starts there, because it tells you what these documents are. Words with that much force behind them survive centuries, and the men writing in 1789 knew exactly which ones they were borrowing.
Then he names the two features he says nearly everyone gets backwards.
First: the Bill of Rights does not grant us our rights. It is a protection of rights, not a granting of rights. Norton is blunt about why that matters. If you look at those ten amendments as government giving you something, then you have accepted that government can take them away, regulate them, or redefine them whenever it likes. You cannot have it both ways.
Second: the Bill of Rights is a restriction on Congress. Not on your state, not on your county, not on you. It sits in the federal document and it binds the federal government. Norton walks through what the courts did with the Fourteenth Amendment, applying those protections at every level of government, and makes an argument you do not hear often: once Washington becomes the referee of your rights at the state and local level, Washington also becomes the definer and the enforcer of them. It ends up writing laws about the very things the amendment forbids it to touch, all in the name of policing everyone else.
His position is that states should absolutely respect these rights, and that state constitutions and municipal law are where that belongs.
If you want Congress reminded which direction this document points, the Capitol switchboard is 202-224-3121.
Watch the full lesson at jennybethshow.com. More at teapartypatriots.org.
00:00 — The Magna Carta Language Still Sitting in the Bill of Rights
00:47 — The First Feature: It Does Not Grant You Anything
01:19 — The Second Feature: A Restriction on Congress
01:57 — What the Courts Did With the Fourteenth Amendment
02:27 — Washington Appoints Itself the Referee
02:47 — Where These Rights Should Actually Be Handled
03:15 — Who Defines and Enforces Your Rights
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