Actually, I have second-hand knowledge that there is such a rule for the departments in the DFW area. I work security, and some of the people I know are ex-law enforcement with the same story.
It's not written policy, maybe because the press would have a field day, but at the psych review, the department shrink discourages you from joining, saying you would find the work unchallenging and boring. You are then encouraged to apply to one of the federal law enforcement programs, a flattering and more effective variation on "Wouldn't you be happier somewhere else?" If you answer that with "I wanna be a cop more than anything..." they will let you in, but not without trying mightily to talk you out of it.
Funny thing is, both of the guys I know got tired of the nonsense and did quit within a few years.
I grew up on military bases. I've seen MPs do their job with honor, courage and professionalism. Maybe that's because you're never quite sure if that snot-nosed kid you pulled over happens to be your CO's nephew, and military towns tend to be small circles. Maybe it's because of the military tradition that distinguishes the man from the uniform. Maybe it's because when you actually are a certified bad ass, your ego's need to scream "I'm not Officer Dude!" to some little kid on a skateboard goes way down.
That's not the case on the civilian side of the fence. Your local PD doesn't want the chess geek. They do want ex-high school football players, guys who have been behaviorally conditioned to take a hit and do exactly what they're told. They don't even want men who can understand the law. One of the two guys I'm talking about is technically awesome, but still can't understand why the first and fourth amendments are important. "If I searched your car, it's cuz I knew you had drugs in there, and all the warrant did was let bad guys get away..."
They don't want soul searching. They don't want anyone to grow a conscience. They don't want line officers declining orders because "That's an illegal order, Sir." They want men who will do exactly as they're told, when they're told.
At least, that's how it is down in DFW, and I suspect most of the South. I hope your local PD is filled with Knights of the Round Table.
Right there, that's our problem, the suicidal belief that the invisible hand of the market never fails and should choose all...
You have a drug that saves almost everyone, say something like a penicillin-based antibiotic. Joe has an inferior drug that lets half of the patients die, say an earlier attempt at antibiotics like cow-urine poultices. Clearly, any sane doctor would choose your treatment over Joe's. Joe, recognizing this, lobbies Congress and the AMA, bribes doctors with perks and loose women, and runs a multi-billion dollar Madison Avenue ad campaign that associates cow urine poultices with sex and springtime.
Ten million people needed antibiotics this year to live. Joe utterly killed your product. He also killed five million people.
People like Joe are the reason I still suspect there might actually be a Hell.
You've stolen my sunny outlook, my joie de vivre, my je ne sais quoi, and my groove. I am filing charges against you for Grand Theft Funk.
This all would have been firmly tongue-in-cheek ten years ago, but today, watching someone get thrown in the slammer until they return something that never existed seems a very real possibility. Kafka would be smug.
I read the summary and couldn't believe they could patent putting a list in a database.
So I read the patent and that's exactly what they did. The abstract just describes a relational database in incredibly convoluted language. The mind reels.
Well, if they can get away with that, then my new patent is going to make me richer than God. I propose storing and manipulating information by reducing it to a set of states, said states being either "something" or "nothing" I propose these states be represented by two differing digits, "1" or "0".
Um, no, sorry, not quite. The page you reference begins by saying that these may or may not be the fees you pay. Still doesn't answer the man's entirely reasonable question of "How much will my bill be?"
With gas already $5/gallon in some parts of the country (paid 4.89 yesterday), how many SUVs do you think will still be on the road at six dollars a gallon, much less the ten bucks the news keeps telling us we "should" be paying?
Actually, we not only want this, this is actually a fairly basic principle of ethics and the law of the land. Every armed man in uniform of any kind has an absolute obligation and duty to question the morality of the orders they're given and the laws they choose to enforce. "I was just following orders" is absolutely not an excuse, and the procedures for refusing an order on moral grounds are clearly defined, right down to resigning your commission or turning in your badge.
The minute you become an instrument of enforcing an unjust law, you incur the guilt of doing so. At the very least, God and History will judge you for it. The Thin Blue Line is not only the last defense against crime, it is also supposed to be the last defense against Tyranny.
Case in point is a story on Fark some time back when a local City Council decided to lower speed limits on a short chunk of road and set up a speed trap with the stated purpose of increasing revenue collection. The local police chief told the city council that their scheme was illegal under state law, and he wouldn't write speeding tickets until the measure lowering speed limits was rescinded.
The owners of private property have every right, legally and ethically, to require visitors to that property to agree to (practically) any terms they want.
Very true. In my private home and private life, I'm permitted to be as offensive, discriminatory and unreasonable as I choose. I can choose not to associate with this ethnicity or that orientation. I can refuse to patronize a business simply because I don't like the owner's politics, or even the owner's haircut.
I can be as arbitrary and ridiculous as I please, right up to the point that I apply for a business license or incorporate. At that point, I make a bargain that explicitly spells out that I am trading my private space for the right to operate as a business that is granted certain privileges.
As a business, I get tax relief. I get shielded from liability for my actions. City resources -- parking, roads, law enforcement, fire -- will be expended to help ensure my business is a success. I am given "shopkeeper's priviliges" to help ensure people do not steal from me. Very often, the city will apply zoning powers to shield me from competition. All manner of consideration is offered to me, including the use of public tax dollars, in some cases.
In return, I give up my rights as a private citizen and agree to follow the rules of a "public space." I can't bar someone from service based on their race. I can't toss someone out the door because they admit they're gay. I can't post a sign saying "Libertarians Only."
Lately, businesses have been wanting to play it both ways, like a feminist who still wants the guy to open the door, pick up the check and fight off the mugger. When it comes time to pay taxes, they are all about "providing jobs" and "caring for the community." When it comes time to actually do that and meet their responsibilities as a public entity, suddenly they're a "private concern and establishment."
It reminds me of the Texas oilmen who turned communist in the late 80s as oil prices plummeted to less than a tenth of what they are now. Suddenly all the free-market lassiez faire disciples came running to Washington looking for protection. Several were even quoted as saying, "Washington's gonna free market us to death."
So which is it, are you a public entity with limited rights and powers, or a private citizen with no tax breaks and sweetheart deals?
Once upon a time, I too was single. When I put things down, they remained there until I picked them up again.
Then I got married, and the sudden Alzheimer's onset began. Things... Things began to move. It began small, tv remotes, car keys and the like. Soon it extended out to clothing, kitchen appliances. And then things began to just -- I'M NOT CRAZY DAMMIT! STOP LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT! -- things began to DISAPPEAR. Treasured old jeans, t-shirts I'd had since high school, important tax receipts from 1992, they all began to just go away with no explanation.
Then the poltergeists came, and my wife insisted on calling them children. I fiercely hold my TV remote in my hand, knowing that if I loosen my grip on it it will fly across the room. Change on the desktop, shiny hand tools, anything that beeps, whistles or lights up, DVDs of any stripe, anything less than 60 lbs of dead weight can fly away in a heartbeat.
But I'm safe now, here in my closet. I got my favorite Leatherman, my surefire flashlight, my solid brass Zippo lighter and MY TV REMOTE DAMMIT and I am NOT LETTING GO OF THEM! NOT LETTING GO!
And I am not opening the door. They're MINE, YA HEAR ME? MINE!!!!!!
Nope, sorry, "I was just following orders," isn't even a valid excuse in the US Marine Corps. You have an absolute duty to question the morality of the orders you're given and when you choose to follow them, you incur the full guilt of doing so.
"They told me to," didn't work in Nuremburg. It doesn't work in India either.
Crud, if there's one thing I cannot stand it's managing PhDs who don't understand they gotta study hard and pay their dues before they can break that coveted $10/hr mark...
Tell Ronald to pull his creepy pedophile advertising from all the children's shows. Tell him to quit bribing my school board for access to the classroom for his "special presentations." Tell him to keep his Richard-Simmons fat ass away from whispering in my children's ears 24/7 "McDonald's is cool and magical and if your Mommy and Daddy will take you there Grimace has a special present for you."
Pull his multi-billion dollar marketing machine away from my children's playground. Stop cramming preternatural amounts of fat, sugar and salt into their food so that my children's hindbrains don't scream "My God, we found the mother lode, we'll never need to eat again!" at the first whiff. Tell Ronald to quit fucking around with the peace in my home, and I'll lay off trying to shove him in jail with all the other fat, middle-aged men who wanna wear makeup and play with little kids.
Yes, I keep my kids away from that crap, but I'm sick of Ronald spending billions of dollars worming his way into my kids' dreams telling them that Mommy and Daddy are keeping them from something special.
Parental Responsibility?! How would you react if I followed your kid around all day telling them "I'll take you to McMagicFairyLand if your Mommy and Daddy will let me..."
According to the definitive Johnny Cash version of the song, John Henry did have the skills -- he could do anything you asked him to, short of a college education. What the "he was a dinosaur idiot" people on this thread are proposing is that a poverty-stricken Black child laborer in the mid-1800s should have walked over to the college and spent four years becoming a mechanical engineer so he could then go on to work on steam shovels.
Do I even have to point out this was not exactly an option?
John Henry was a man who took every opportunity and did everything he could to save his family until his heart literally burst. The arguments against him basically amount to telling a poker player, "Well, you should have made sure you got yourself dealt a Royal Flush on the first try..."
Careful what we say guys, 'cause if there's a Heaven, and we make it, we'll all end up working for the likes of John Henry....
You understand that theaters can strike the set within hours for a different play, right? Take out the chairs, redo the floors, paint the walls, no one ever has to know about your pretensions to Gotham...
OK, I'll bite. Totally passive detection system for big hunk of metal in the water:
Listen for it. See current topic of discussion.
See it. Detect the EM radiation, probably heat, coming off the metal. Metal must be hotter than surrounding ocean due to heat of crew and machinery. Metal immersed in unbelieveably frigid water sucking away heat by convection. Best of luck.
Touch it. Intall massive feelers in front of sub. Hello, SS Waterbug.
Smell/Taste it. Try to detect minute amount of fuel/lubricant/rust/etc in the water. Heat signature beginning to look childishly easy.
Feel it. Detect gravitational signature of the big hunk of metal. Detect magnetic properties of big hunk of metal interacting with Earth's magnetic field. Both theoretically possible. Better get T'Pol to help you upgrade your sensors. Ask Douglas Adams' to borrow his chunk of cake from the Total Perspective Vortex.
I got news for ya, Zatoichi. If you can't actively look for something, and that something doesn't hand out clues for free, then you ain't gonna find it.
Our exact problem is that almost nobody learns this lesson by seven, or seventy, or if the scifi/fantasy authors are to be believed, seven hundred. The last guy who came out with this train of thought got crucified, and the majority of his followers are still saying, "yeah, but what He really meant was to do unto them after you kick their ass..."
"Make people friendly to you?" Hell, we can't even get people as far as Will Smith's attitude in MIB -- "Don't start nuthin', won't be nuthin'."
Have you heard of these Piracy Hothouses called "Libraries" that accept donations of and sometimes even buy creative works to give out to total strangers?!
"A right is something granted to you by some entity."
Um, no. A PRIVILEGE is something granted to you by some entity. A RIGHT is something that no one can take away from you. If someone can take your rights away from you, then you aren't free. Go back and reread Rousseau et al, the guys Jefferson was basically quoting when he wrote the Declaration of Independence.
"We hold these truths to be self evident... that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable right..." Jefferson's argument is that people were given their rights by Whoever created the universe, so no Earthly power can take them away, and furthermore, the issue isn't even up for debate. It's "self-evident," axiomatic. If we can't agree on this, then we can't agree on anything. Even better, Government serves at the pleasure of the People, and we can cancel it at any time. Really, the Declaration of Independence is one of the great documents of human thought, and it belongs to you.
The Bill of Rights doesn't hold the same rhetorical power, but it's a kick-ass laundry list. "Here are the rights we think are important. These aren't you're only rights, but these are the real show-stoppers that are so big, we want to put them on paper. However, just because we didn't write it down doesn't mean you don't have other rights. The paper's not long enough for that. Your rights were given to you by whoever set the Big Bang in motion. Absolutely no one can take them away from you."
It terrifies me to find someone who might be an American citizen who doesn't carry these ideas in their bones. These ideas are why we keep obnoxiously blaring "We're the greatest country on Earth," not our wealth or military power. We're supposed to be the "Land of the Free, Home of the Brave." We don't look to anyone to "give" us our Rights. We were born with them, and will keep them through Death and maybe even beyond.
Jury Nullification is the Whole Idea behind having Juries. When the King trumped up charges and made up his own private little laws against good men, only the Juries had the power to fight George III and set them free, despite what any law or Judge said. Giving twelve ordinary people the power to decide on what's Right and ignore unjust laws was the whole idea in the first place. Go back and reread "the Federalist Papers," "Common Sense," and the rest of the Founding Documents. Do schools not teach Civics anymore, or have we thrown our beautiful Legacy and Birthright away for "Number-Two-Pencil-No-Child-Left-Unscrewed" bullshit?
Dear God, the idea that someone has to "give" us our Rights...
Slashdot Mirror
I finally find a comment I want to mod to "+5 Has a Bloody Clue" and I'm outta mod points.
Actually, I have second-hand knowledge that there is such a rule for the departments in the DFW area. I work security, and some of the people I know are ex-law enforcement with the same story.
It's not written policy, maybe because the press would have a field day, but at the psych review, the department shrink discourages you from joining, saying you would find the work unchallenging and boring. You are then encouraged to apply to one of the federal law enforcement programs, a flattering and more effective variation on "Wouldn't you be happier somewhere else?" If you answer that with "I wanna be a cop more than anything..." they will let you in, but not without trying mightily to talk you out of it.
Funny thing is, both of the guys I know got tired of the nonsense and did quit within a few years.
I grew up on military bases. I've seen MPs do their job with honor, courage and professionalism. Maybe that's because you're never quite sure if that snot-nosed kid you pulled over happens to be your CO's nephew, and military towns tend to be small circles. Maybe it's because of the military tradition that distinguishes the man from the uniform. Maybe it's because when you actually are a certified bad ass, your ego's need to scream "I'm not Officer Dude!" to some little kid on a skateboard goes way down.
That's not the case on the civilian side of the fence. Your local PD doesn't want the chess geek. They do want ex-high school football players, guys who have been behaviorally conditioned to take a hit and do exactly what they're told. They don't even want men who can understand the law. One of the two guys I'm talking about is technically awesome, but still can't understand why the first and fourth amendments are important. "If I searched your car, it's cuz I knew you had drugs in there, and all the warrant did was let bad guys get away..."
They don't want soul searching. They don't want anyone to grow a conscience. They don't want line officers declining orders because "That's an illegal order, Sir." They want men who will do exactly as they're told, when they're told.
At least, that's how it is down in DFW, and I suspect most of the South. I hope your local PD is filled with Knights of the Round Table.
Right there, that's our problem, the suicidal belief that the invisible hand of the market never fails and should choose all...
You have a drug that saves almost everyone, say something like a penicillin-based antibiotic. Joe has an inferior drug that lets half of the patients die, say an earlier attempt at antibiotics like cow-urine poultices. Clearly, any sane doctor would choose your treatment over Joe's. Joe, recognizing this, lobbies Congress and the AMA, bribes doctors with perks and loose women, and runs a multi-billion dollar Madison Avenue ad campaign that associates cow urine poultices with sex and springtime.
Ten million people needed antibiotics this year to live. Joe utterly killed your product. He also killed five million people.
People like Joe are the reason I still suspect there might actually be a Hell.
You've stolen my sunny outlook, my joie de vivre, my je ne sais quoi, and my groove. I am filing charges against you for Grand Theft Funk.
This all would have been firmly tongue-in-cheek ten years ago, but today, watching someone get thrown in the slammer until they return something that never existed seems a very real possibility. Kafka would be smug.
That's nothing more than just "sorta something" and "kinda nothing," also known as "more" or "less" and I want my money, Dammit!
So I read the patent and that's exactly what they did. The abstract just describes a relational database in incredibly convoluted language. The mind reels.
Well, if they can get away with that, then my new patent is going to make me richer than God. I propose storing and manipulating information by reducing it to a set of states, said states being either "something" or "nothing" I propose these states be represented by two differing digits, "1" or "0".
Now, who's got my check?
than the five gazillion Indian and Chinese IT workers?
Um, no, sorry, not quite. The page you reference begins by saying that these may or may not be the fees you pay. Still doesn't answer the man's entirely reasonable question of "How much will my bill be?"
With gas already $5/gallon in some parts of the country (paid 4.89 yesterday), how many SUVs do you think will still be on the road at six dollars a gallon, much less the ten bucks the news keeps telling us we "should" be paying?
Why? You've just lived through seven years of it. Do you have any evidence at all that Bush has been anything other than a sock puppet?
Actually, we not only want this, this is actually a fairly basic principle of ethics and the law of the land. Every armed man in uniform of any kind has an absolute obligation and duty to question the morality of the orders they're given and the laws they choose to enforce. "I was just following orders" is absolutely not an excuse, and the procedures for refusing an order on moral grounds are clearly defined, right down to resigning your commission or turning in your badge.
The minute you become an instrument of enforcing an unjust law, you incur the guilt of doing so. At the very least, God and History will judge you for it. The Thin Blue Line is not only the last defense against crime, it is also supposed to be the last defense against Tyranny.
Case in point is a story on Fark some time back when a local City Council decided to lower speed limits on a short chunk of road and set up a speed trap with the stated purpose of increasing revenue collection. The local police chief told the city council that their scheme was illegal under state law, and he wouldn't write speeding tickets until the measure lowering speed limits was rescinded.
Very true. In my private home and private life, I'm permitted to be as offensive, discriminatory and unreasonable as I choose. I can choose not to associate with this ethnicity or that orientation. I can refuse to patronize a business simply because I don't like the owner's politics, or even the owner's haircut.
I can be as arbitrary and ridiculous as I please, right up to the point that I apply for a business license or incorporate. At that point, I make a bargain that explicitly spells out that I am trading my private space for the right to operate as a business that is granted certain privileges.
As a business, I get tax relief. I get shielded from liability for my actions. City resources -- parking, roads, law enforcement, fire -- will be expended to help ensure my business is a success. I am given "shopkeeper's priviliges" to help ensure people do not steal from me. Very often, the city will apply zoning powers to shield me from competition. All manner of consideration is offered to me, including the use of public tax dollars, in some cases.
In return, I give up my rights as a private citizen and agree to follow the rules of a "public space." I can't bar someone from service based on their race. I can't toss someone out the door because they admit they're gay. I can't post a sign saying "Libertarians Only."
Lately, businesses have been wanting to play it both ways, like a feminist who still wants the guy to open the door, pick up the check and fight off the mugger. When it comes time to pay taxes, they are all about "providing jobs" and "caring for the community." When it comes time to actually do that and meet their responsibilities as a public entity, suddenly they're a "private concern and establishment."
It reminds me of the Texas oilmen who turned communist in the late 80s as oil prices plummeted to less than a tenth of what they are now. Suddenly all the free-market lassiez faire disciples came running to Washington looking for protection. Several were even quoted as saying, "Washington's gonna free market us to death."
So which is it, are you a public entity with limited rights and powers, or a private citizen with no tax breaks and sweetheart deals?
Once upon a time, I too was single. When I put things down, they remained there until I picked them up again.
Then I got married, and the sudden Alzheimer's onset began. Things... Things began to move. It began small, tv remotes, car keys and the like. Soon it extended out to clothing, kitchen appliances. And then things began to just -- I'M NOT CRAZY DAMMIT! STOP LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT! -- things began to DISAPPEAR. Treasured old jeans, t-shirts I'd had since high school, important tax receipts from 1992, they all began to just go away with no explanation.
Then the poltergeists came, and my wife insisted on calling them children. I fiercely hold my TV remote in my hand, knowing that if I loosen my grip on it it will fly across the room. Change on the desktop, shiny hand tools, anything that beeps, whistles or lights up, DVDs of any stripe, anything less than 60 lbs of dead weight can fly away in a heartbeat.
But I'm safe now, here in my closet. I got my favorite Leatherman, my surefire flashlight, my solid brass Zippo lighter and MY TV REMOTE DAMMIT and I am NOT LETTING GO OF THEM! NOT LETTING GO!
And I am not opening the door. They're MINE, YA HEAR ME? MINE!!!!!!
Nope, sorry, "I was just following orders," isn't even a valid excuse in the US Marine Corps. You have an absolute duty to question the morality of the orders you're given and when you choose to follow them, you incur the full guilt of doing so. "They told me to," didn't work in Nuremburg. It doesn't work in India either.
Crud, if there's one thing I cannot stand it's managing PhDs who don't understand they gotta study hard and pay their dues before they can break that coveted $10/hr mark...
I'll make you a deal.
Tell Ronald to pull his creepy pedophile advertising from all the children's shows. Tell him to quit bribing my school board for access to the classroom for his "special presentations." Tell him to keep his Richard-Simmons fat ass away from whispering in my children's ears 24/7 "McDonald's is cool and magical and if your Mommy and Daddy will take you there Grimace has a special present for you."
Pull his multi-billion dollar marketing machine away from my children's playground. Stop cramming preternatural amounts of fat, sugar and salt into their food so that my children's hindbrains don't scream "My God, we found the mother lode, we'll never need to eat again!" at the first whiff. Tell Ronald to quit fucking around with the peace in my home, and I'll lay off trying to shove him in jail with all the other fat, middle-aged men who wanna wear makeup and play with little kids.
Yes, I keep my kids away from that crap, but I'm sick of Ronald spending billions of dollars worming his way into my kids' dreams telling them that Mommy and Daddy are keeping them from something special.
Parental Responsibility?! How would you react if I followed your kid around all day telling them "I'll take you to McMagicFairyLand if your Mommy and Daddy will let me..."
paranoids and losers.
According to the definitive Johnny Cash version of the song, John Henry did have the skills -- he could do anything you asked him to, short of a college education. What the "he was a dinosaur idiot" people on this thread are proposing is that a poverty-stricken Black child laborer in the mid-1800s should have walked over to the college and spent four years becoming a mechanical engineer so he could then go on to work on steam shovels.
Do I even have to point out this was not exactly an option?
John Henry was a man who took every opportunity and did everything he could to save his family until his heart literally burst. The arguments against him basically amount to telling a poker player, "Well, you should have made sure you got yourself dealt a Royal Flush on the first try..."
Careful what we say guys, 'cause if there's a Heaven, and we make it, we'll all end up working for the likes of John Henry....
You understand that theaters can strike the set within hours for a different play, right? Take out the chairs, redo the floors, paint the walls, no one ever has to know about your pretensions to Gotham...
Wow. Massively cool. I had no idea. I stand corrected.
OK, I'll bite. Totally passive detection system for big hunk of metal in the water:
Listen for it. See current topic of discussion.
See it. Detect the EM radiation, probably heat, coming off the metal. Metal must be hotter than surrounding ocean due to heat of crew and machinery. Metal immersed in unbelieveably frigid water sucking away heat by convection. Best of luck.
Touch it. Intall massive feelers in front of sub. Hello, SS Waterbug.
Smell/Taste it. Try to detect minute amount of fuel/lubricant/rust/etc in the water. Heat signature beginning to look childishly easy.
Feel it. Detect gravitational signature of the big hunk of metal. Detect magnetic properties of big hunk of metal interacting with Earth's magnetic field. Both theoretically possible. Better get T'Pol to help you upgrade your sensors. Ask Douglas Adams' to borrow his chunk of cake from the Total Perspective Vortex.
I got news for ya, Zatoichi. If you can't actively look for something, and that something doesn't hand out clues for free, then you ain't gonna find it.
Our exact problem is that almost nobody learns this lesson by seven, or seventy, or if the scifi/fantasy authors are to be believed, seven hundred. The last guy who came out with this train of thought got crucified, and the majority of his followers are still saying, "yeah, but what He really meant was to do unto them after you kick their ass..."
"Make people friendly to you?" Hell, we can't even get people as far as Will Smith's attitude in MIB -- "Don't start nuthin', won't be nuthin'."
And they like an etymology geek even less.
:-)
Look it up.
-- the proud owner of a useless Lit degree
Have you heard of these Piracy Hothouses called "Libraries" that accept donations of and sometimes even buy creative works to give out to total strangers?!
"A right is something granted to you by some entity."
... that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable right ..." Jefferson's argument is that people were given their rights by Whoever created the universe, so no Earthly power can take them away, and furthermore, the issue isn't even up for debate. It's "self-evident," axiomatic. If we can't agree on this, then we can't agree on anything. Even better, Government serves at the pleasure of the People, and we can cancel it at any time. Really, the Declaration of Independence is one of the great documents of human thought, and it belongs to you.
Um, no. A PRIVILEGE is something granted to you by some entity. A RIGHT is something that no one can take away from you. If someone can take your rights away from you, then you aren't free. Go back and reread Rousseau et al, the guys Jefferson was basically quoting when he wrote the Declaration of Independence.
"We hold these truths to be self evident
The Bill of Rights doesn't hold the same rhetorical power, but it's a kick-ass laundry list. "Here are the rights we think are important. These aren't you're only rights, but these are the real show-stoppers that are so big, we want to put them on paper. However, just because we didn't write it down doesn't mean you don't have other rights. The paper's not long enough for that. Your rights were given to you by whoever set the Big Bang in motion. Absolutely no one can take them away from you."
It terrifies me to find someone who might be an American citizen who doesn't carry these ideas in their bones. These ideas are why we keep obnoxiously blaring "We're the greatest country on Earth," not our wealth or military power. We're supposed to be the "Land of the Free, Home of the Brave." We don't look to anyone to "give" us our Rights. We were born with them, and will keep them through Death and maybe even beyond.
Jury Nullification is the Whole Idea behind having Juries. When the King trumped up charges and made up his own private little laws against good men, only the Juries had the power to fight George III and set them free, despite what any law or Judge said. Giving twelve ordinary people the power to decide on what's Right and ignore unjust laws was the whole idea in the first place. Go back and reread "the Federalist Papers," "Common Sense," and the rest of the Founding Documents. Do schools not teach Civics anymore, or have we thrown our beautiful Legacy and Birthright away for "Number-Two-Pencil-No-Child-Left-Unscrewed" bullshit?
Dear God, the idea that someone has to "give" us our Rights...