Posted on 04/09/2015 3:41:13 PM PDT by Sean_Anthony
Natural and negative rights provide for a free, voluntary society, while legal positivism and positive rights provide for a coercive, totalitarian society
It has previously been shown that constitutionalism, by which is meant the general proposition that government should be restrained by well-defined principles and structures under which it operates (whether written or unwritten), depends up a recognition of the rule of law as reflecting natural law.
From this natural law arises the recognition, in turn, of the natural rights of individual citizens, which ought to be acknowledged and protected by just government, but which are not granted by any government. These principles, perhaps, find their purest distillation in the American Constitution, a short and simple document which provides a succinct summation of both the natural rights it affirms and a structure of government designed to preserve liberty.
(Excerpt) Read more at canadafreepress.com ...
There are no "positive rights". What are called "positive rights" are what used to be called "entitlements" -- things that others are obligated to provide.
Taken to the end the one with all the positive rights is the master.. the one with no negative rights left is the masters slave ....
all negative rights and no positive is the state of a free man that see other as equally free.... the state of a moral man
One cannot begin to understand how absolutely brilliant the founding fathers were when they drew up the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution along with the Bill of Rights.
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