[Phlyer]

The issue is not whether we have other rights. The issue, for me, is whether the federal government has any authority to enforce or constrain those rights. I agree that the right to defend oneself is a 'natural right,' but in he absence of the 2nd Amendment, it wouldn't be the federal government's job (or authority) to enforce it.

Your point about SCOTUS confusing things is, of course, correct. I think you can make a direct linkage from the 17th Amendment in 1913 to the problems we face today. The 17th Amendment changed the Senators from representatives of the States into representatives of the people (therefore redundant with the House of Representatives, with the positions dependent not on sustaining the States in their authority but on concentrating power in Washington). A generation later Roosevelt was trying to pack the Supreme Court with those who didn't care what the Constitution actually said - and then didn't have to because the federal-government-empowered Senate approved enough Justices to get what he wanted anyway. And a generation later we had LBJ and the beginning of state socialism. And a generation later we have a blatant socialist as president. As a result of that degradation, even Robert Bork, at his confirmation hearings, said he thought the 14th Amendment made the 10th Amendment moot. That's like saying that if we have a law that says you have to drive on the right side of the road, that makes speed limits moot.

As Reagan said, liberty is always only a generation away from being lost. In our case, it's been lost in stages rather than all at once, but we now face exactly the kind of state socialism that has caused more human misery than any other human invention.

[Jacquerie]

Yeah, the 17th was an incredible mistake. That decade was awful. WWI, the 16-18th Amendments fundamentally changed the relationship between citizen and government. FDR was a constitutional catastrophe.

As for our rights and the 9th Amendment, it was only this past summer that I did some serious reading as to its background.

I came to appreciate much more the times and education of our founders/framers and how close we came to losing the Revolutionary War. There isn't a single throw away line in either the Declaration or Constitution.

“That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men” is a near forgotten clause. It means that the purpose of government is to secure our Unalienable, Natural Rights and nothing else!

During the ratification debates in the individual states, nine of them required additional rights be added to the Constitution. Defense of our Natural Rights was a common demand and it appeared in the final bill as the 9th Amendment.

A close examination of the Constitution shows that it “flows” directly from the Declaration in that our Founders and people in the several states were deeply concerned with our Natural, God given rights that are superior to man made law.

As demonstrated by tyrannies throughout history, they get into trouble and lose popular support when they deprive the people of their Natural Rights.

IMHO, the Natural Rights enumerated are: Exclusive right to the profit of one’s writings and inventions, habeas corpus, freedom of the press, speech, the right to peacefully assemble, keep and bear arms, to petition our government, to be secure in our persons, paper and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures, speedy public trial, to be confronted by the witnesses against us.

In addition are negatives that would infringe on our Natural Rights, protection against ex-post facto laws, double jeopardy, self incrimination, deprivation of life, liberty or property without due process, taking of private property for public use without just compensation, excessive bail, cruel and unusual punishment.

Our government is rapidly closing in on additional abuses of our Natural Rights. Without specifically knowing the Ninth, the people innately see the danger, that something is very wrong and want to stop Obama.