Rob
Sherman Advocacy
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Rob
Sherman Advocacy
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"Fighting injustice, one victory at a time."
Today is the 211th birthday of the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights became the law of the land on December 15, 1791. Have you heard the imposter President, Congressional leaders of any of your local public officials say anything about this important civic anniversary? I didn't think so.
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The Bill of Rights supposedly guarantees citizens a certain minimum standard of fairness when dealing with the government. Conservatives and Republicans are at war against the Bill of Rights. They do everything that they can to nullify the benefits of the Bill of Rights.
The job of the Bill of Rights is to give you certain rights. Attorneys for many government agencies see their first job as being to find ways to take each and every one of those rights away from you.
One way that they do this is by telling you that you are required to sign a waiver of your rights as a condition for participating in a government-operated and publicly-funded program. Your job, as a citizen, is to just say, "No!" to such demands.
Here is an example of that type of attempted abuse of your rights:
Yesterday, I registered my nine-year-old daughter, Dawn, for a program at the Buffalo Grove Park District. The Registration Form has five parts, one of which is entitled, "Sign the Waiver," which contains the following heading: "Waiver and Release of All Claims - Must be Signed."
The key provision in the waiver demands that my daughter and I waive and relinquish any and all claims which are connected with participation in any Park District program or which are associated in any way with the activities of any Park District program.
Naturally, I don't sign such waivers, ever. You should never sign such a waiver, either.
What would happen if I signed such a waiver and my daughter were to be injured through the negligence of an employee? What would happen if an employee stacked high unused equipment in a haphazard way, only to have that mountain of equipment collapse onto my kid and injure her when she walks by?
What if a park district employee were to molest my child? What if a stranger were to walk into the area where my daughter's park district program was taking place and kidnap my daughter, unchallenged by a park district employee who was too busy chatting with a co-worker buddy to notice or, even if he did notice, he felt that socializing was more important to him than getting involved?
In fact, by signing such a waiver, I would actually be encouraging such negligence, carelessness and indifference on the part of the park district and its employees. I'd be giving them a license to have the attitude that, "Hey, we don't have to worry about Sherman's kid, or any of the other kids for that matter, because the parents have all signed waivers, so there's nothing that they can do to us!"
What if my daughter wanted to participate in a particular activity, only to be told that only those kids who believe in God get to participate? Do you think that I'm being ridiculous? Do you think that this one is too far-fetched to be realistic?
In fact, that is precisely what happened to my son, Rick, five years ago, when he attempted to join and participate in a youth education program operated by the Buffalo Grove Police Department. When my son tried to join the Buffalo Grove Police Department's youth education program called the Buffalo Grove Police Explorer Post, he was refused admission to the program solely on the basis that he was and is an atheist. The program had a policy of no atheists allowed, despite the fact that the program was paid for by a combination of tax dollars and user fees, the same way that park district programs are paid for. Because we hadn't signed any waiver of our rights like the one that the park district attorneys try to trick us into signing, we were able to sue. Within one day of the filing of our federal lawsuit, the Buffalo Grove Police Department terminated its relationship with the Boy Scouts of America, vendor of the Explorer program, and reconstituted the program as the Buffalo Grove Police Cadet Post. Rick was urgently invited to join the Police Cadet program, which he did, and he had a great time while he was a participant.
That wouldn't have happened if we had waived our constitutional rights by signing a waiver of "any and all claims ... connected with or in any way associated with the activities of the program," as the park district waiver demands.
Article 1, Section 12 of the Illinois Constitution says it best. Article 1 is the Illinois Constitution's Bill of Rights. Section 12 is entitled, "Right to Remedy and Justice." Article 1, Section 12 of the Illinois Constitution states: "Every person shall find a certain remedy in the laws for all injuries and wrongs which he receives to his person, privacy, property or reputation. He shall obtain justice by law, freely, completely, and promptly."
That's how I resolve disputes with the government when administrative remedies fail, and that's how you, too, should solve disputes with the government when negotiations fail.
Naturally, the government prefers a policy of: "In any dispute between us, you agree that we win and you lose." That's very convenient for them, but that's not my idea of what's fair or constitutionally permissible.
Instead of the government trying to evade the consequences of their own misconduct, negligence, ineptitude, or other failings by coercing you into signing a waiver of your right to hold them accountable for their conduct, the government should engage in sufficient planning of their programs and in sufficient supervision of their personnel to ensure that bad things don't happen to participants in government programs. If they did that instead of trying to find ways to evade accountability and the resulting culpability, they wouldn't have any need for us to sign waivers!
Wouldn't that be better than signing, in advance, a waiver which says that you have forfeited your civil rights and due process rights, even if it's their fault that you got harmed or had your rights violated?
When government writes a Waiver of Rights, they're not doing it to help you. They're doing it to protect themselves from you. They're doing it to neutralize your rights, to take your rights away from you. They're doing it to prevent you from exercising rights that have been guaranteed to you by the constitution. Guaranteed, that is, unless you're stupid enough to fall for that trick and sign one of their waivers of your rights.
You should regard a demand by a government official to sign a waiver of your rights as being just as sinister as if a telemarketer were to call you on the phone and tell you that you must reveal to him your credit card number or other personal information. Don't do it. Just because a government representative says you have to doesn't make it so.
Telling you that you must sign a waiver is a scam which government uses to trick you into falsely believing that you can't get what you want unless you give up the rights that have been guaranteed to you by the Constitution.
Don't be a fool. Don't fall for that trick. Don't ever sign your rights away in such a document.
The best way that you can honor Bill of Rights Day is to make sure that you never again sign a waiver that has been written for you by the government. Tell them, "No, I'm not going to sign it." If they complain or say that the waiver must be signed, you tell them that Rob Sherman says that you don't have to sign it, so you're not going to. If they give you a hard time for refusing to sign away your rights or threaten to retaliate against you, such as threatening to exclude you from a government operated program if you don't sign away your rights as a condition for participation, contact Rob Sherman Advocacy. We'll make them regret it.
Don't get mad. Get even. Get even by calling me. Then you'll be the one that's laughing at them, rather than them laughing at you and at how easily they got you to fall for their little scam.
Meanwhile, if you'd like to make sure that Rob Sherman Advocacy is around to help you when you run into a battle over a government demand that you sign a waiver of your rights, become a financial supporter of Rob Sherman Advocacy now by clicking here and filling out the financial support form. Don't wait to do it until it's too late, I've run out of money and I'm not around any more to help you because of lack of financial support, and then you discover that you need me. Then it's too late.
Rob Sherman P. O. Box
7410
Buffalo Grove, IL 60089-7410
A post office box is used
because
the street address uses a curb mail box,
which is not secure.
Telephone: (847) 870-0700
Fax: (847) 870-1156
E-mail: rob followed by the at symbol followed by robsherman dot com