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of The Free and The Home of The Brave Some Thoughts On THE FIRST AND THE THIRTEENTH AMENDMENTS by Allen Tate Wood (November 2000) 1st Amendment Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. The First Amendment is one of the most noble and empowering statements to appear in the annals of political thought. The guarantee of religious liberty over and against the power of the state frees the soul of man from the claims of ideology and the chains of doctrine. In the hands of tyrants these two: doctrine and ideology have been used throughout history in numerous attempts to blind and crush the mind and spirit of mankind. Article. XIII [Proposed 1865; Ratified 1865] Section. 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. Section. 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. The thirteenth amendment put a formal end to slavery in the United States and her territories. In the last quarter century many groups in the United States, para military organizations, Destructive cults, gangs, criminal organizations have used the mantle of religion and along with it the protections and guarantees of the first amendment in a deliberate and cynical strategy designed to defraud the innocent, the unwary and the unsophisticated out of the protections mandated by the thirteenth amendment. These same malefactors in carrying out the mandates of their ends justifies the means philosophy have perverted the intent of the First Amendment by using it as a shield against criminal prosecution .The smoke screen diversion is always the same, the battle cry of “Religious Persecution.” Neither the Constitution nor the Bill of Rights grants immunity from prosecution to religious leaders or groups who violate the laws of the land.In particular, charities fraud laws, banking and currency laws, immigration and naturalization laws and the 13th amendment prohibition against involuntary servitude. The increasingly sophisticated technology of influence and persuasion in the hands of destructive cult leaders, pyramid sales organizations, gang members and criminal organizations not to mention commercial enterprises and the military has created a social landscape in the United States which is rife with people of all ages and all strata of society who, on one level or another, are living in conditions of involuntary servitude, i.e. slavery. The denial attending this wide spread social phenomenon is baffling, heart rending and frightening . The justice department’s failure to prosecute monolithic pseudo religious organizations, which continue to prey with impunity on our citizens, contributes to the growing cynicism of the youth culture which increasingly sees government simply as the handmaiden of wealth and power. |
