Taken together, these clauses reveal the significant protections of private property in the Constitution itself. Add to this the threat of punishment that has accompanied these decrees and the fact that they are executive decrees, not legislation, and one can see the paramount rejection of basic democratic and constitutional principles in the minds and words and deeds of those who have perpetrated them.
Add to all this, the protection in the First Amendment of the right to associate -- and the judicially recognized right to travel -- both of which are natural rights and it is clear that these nanny state rules are unconstitutional, unlawful and unworthy of respect or compliance.
Why is this happening? Throughout history, free people have been willing to accept the Devil's bargain of trading liberty for safety when they are fearful. We supinely accept the shallow and hollow offers of government that somehow less liberty equals more safety.
This happened here with the Alien and Sedition Acts in the 1790s when the Federalists feared a second revolution, during the Civil War when Lincoln feared dissent and Congress feared defeat, during World War I when Wilson suppressed the speech he hated and feared, and during the Great Depression when FDR feared economic calamity and seized property without compensation. And, after 9/11, fearing another attack, Congress secretly crafted the Patriot Act's circumvention of the Fourth Amendment and creation of the total surveillance state.
This sordid history came about when the public was fearful of the unknown and trustful of the government's bargain. But the safety offered for the liberty sacrificed never came to pass.
Moreover, liberty is natural and personal. You can sacrifice yours, but you cannot sacrifice mine. The natural nature of personal liberty -- Jefferson's Declaration of Independence -- calls our rights inalienable and Madison's Ninth Amendment reflects their nature as limitless, insulates their existence and exercise in a free society from totalitarian and even majoritarian interference.
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