The interesting thing, though, is that once a civil right is established and incorporated against the states, it's basically unassailable under our system. So while it takes a long time to get those rights properly enshrined, at least they seem to be safe.
The NSA regularly violates the fourth amendment and never gets punished for it. How are those civil rights working out for you in practice in the US? How's the 10th amendment working out?
>So while it takes a long time to get those rights properly enshrined, at least they seem to be safe.
Our rights are so unassailable that I need to repeatedly pay a non-negligible amount of money to the government bear arms and get the approval of my local police chief if I want said arms to be reasonably modern. /s
Some animals are more equal than others. Some rights are more unassailable than others. At least I can bitch about it on the internet and nobody's quartering troops in my home (edit: yet).
Keep in mind that the 2nd amendment hasn't even been incorporated against the states for 10 years yet (McDonald v Chicago). So while the right has been incorporated, the court has yet to really rule on the scope of what that means.
Just 10 years ago, it wasn't clear that you as an individual actually had that right, as it pertains to state restrictions - things have certainly improved.
Edit: I guess my original point I failed to make is that the courts have actually affirmed less rights than most people realize, but when they do (finally) do so, they tend to stick around.
I suspect that nothing will change until the court rules that some form of scrutiny stricter than the status quo needs to be applied before curtailing the 2nd before that ruling will have any teeth. Incorporation means nothing without strict or intermediate scrutiny because states can just do whatever they want in the name of some nebulous concept like "public safety".
> Our rights are so unassailable that I need to repeatedly pay a non-negligible amount of money to the government bear arms and get the approval of my local police chief if I want said arms to be reasonably modern.
Well-regulated militia. Not sure if you would qualify as a militia, but the regulation part seems to be working, right? :)
