Banning Trans Fats and the Right to Safety

The California bill banning trans fats from restaurants in 2011 and from retail bakery products by 2012, which was signed into law on July 25th , will protect the health and safety of anyone in California eating these particular items of food. The law is being acclaimed nationally. Why is the trans fat issue not being by Congress?  Why do the inhabitants of all other states have to wait for each of state legislatures to do what is promised by the United States Constitution and which should be implemented by our federal government for the benefit of all of those on our native soil? After all, the Constitution protects the right to safety of all inhabitants (permanent and temporary) of the United States.
What?  You say that you are not familiar with the constitutional right to safety?  Well look again.  Focus on the wording of the Constitution’s Ninth Amendment.  Wait –don’t trepidate. Don’t back up when, by continuing to read on, you  may gain an important  insight of a human rights issue that directly impacts your and everyone else’s lives. Just look at the simple wording of the amendment (“The enumeration of rights in this Constitution shall not be construed to demean or disparage others retained by the people.”) and draw a logical, common sense, answer to the following question:  Does the Ninth Amendment protect the right to safety?

Think chronologically for a moment.  The first ten amendments to the Constitution, commonly known as the Bill of Rights, were added  in 1791.  What other rights were already acknowledged as fundamental rights prior to and including 1791?  (Just one clue.  Some of these “other” retained rights are found in a document signed in Philadelphia in 1776.)
Wait a second. You know about the Declaration of Independence’s rights to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”, but you’re unsure about the right to safety.)  You must have missed school the day the class talked about the right to safety.  No, you did not miss that day.   Your class never had that discussion even though the right to safety is stated later in the same sentence that the rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” are memorialized.  In fact, “safety” is stated to be a foundation of society along with “happiness.”
So why does the  right to safety continue to be ignored by Congress, the Executive Branch, and the Supreme Court as a constitutional right even though the wording of the Ninth Amendment certainly implies that Safety is one of those “other” rights retained by the people?  I think it’s primarily because those who interpret and apply the meaning of the Ninth Amend are fearful of the full impact of the stated rights of the Declaration of Independence.

If any of the three branches of government acknowledges even the most patently obvious right to safety, don’t they have to recognize the Declaration’s “other” rights such as the rights to equality, happiness and the right to alter or abolish the form of government?   No. They don’t. Do not naively expect any of our three federal branches of government to recognize any of the rights of the Declaration anytime soon. Government can continue to stick its necks so deeply into the sand that ultimately the people will come to understand that government is mostly irrelevant when it comes to receiving some additional information and clarification regarding human rights, including, by way of constitutional amendment, the enumeration of certain “other “ rights  retained by the people and finally articulated at a Second Constitutional Convention.  Now, when you think about trans facts you’ll something else to consider.

Beast 22

Posted on 4th August at 6:53 am

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