FermanMonteRae

QUOTE:

Constitutional rights come in a bundle. You may not see the whole bundle; you may only see the particular stick you are holding at any given moment, like free speech or the right to counsel or the right to be free from unreasonable searches. But the bundle is there, and the thread holding it all together is thin. If you pull on your favorite stick too hard trying to separate it, the whole thing falls apart.

…

Few of us are innocent of trying to pull apart the bundle of rights. Criminal defense attorneys like me fight tooth and nail for Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights but can be wobbly on traditionally “conservative” rights like the Second Amendment. Conservatives can champion property rights and the Second Amendment, but shrug when the state wants to hold a “suspected terrorist” without anything resembling due process. Liberals can decry police deprivation of rights and the unfairness of the criminal justice system – until a defendant is accused of a hate crime or sexual assault.

We act as if one scenario doesn’t matter to the other. But it does. I’m not saying that all rights are absolute. They aren’t. But when we’re faced with a proposed limitation on any right, we must bear in mind the risk to all of them. We’re not just defending the stick. We’re defending the bundle.