Posted on 08/31/2013 6:12:54 AM PDT by Kaslin
Nearly all of us, at one time or another, refer to our “constitutional right to free speech.” But while this common phrase may seem harmless, it points to a larger misunderstanding of where our rights come from -- a misunderstanding that undermines many of our most fundamental policy debates.
The fact is, the U.S. Constitution protects our God-given rights from government. The government does not (as the phrase above implies) grant those rights to us as citizens. This is perhaps the most widely misunderstood aspect of our system of government.
The idea that the power of government is derived from the consent of the governed was first articulated by John Locke in his 1690 Second Treatise of Government, when he wrote, “Men being, as has been said, by nature, all free, equal, and independent, no one can be put out of this estate and subjected to the political power of another, without his own consent.”
Locke’s words are the underlying basis of the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights, which reads: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
Many people refer to this Amendment, and their right to free speech, as though it is the First Amendment that grants them the right to say what they like. That is looking at it the wrong way.
Were the Constitution the granter of the right to free speech, religion, assembly and so forth, the first Amendment would not start out, “Congress shall make no law.” That part of the sentence clearly states that the government has no rightful authority over those things and is blocked from infringing upon them. This is the concept of negative rights.
A negative right is one that cannot be infringed upon by outside forces. Government is not granting you the right to free speech. That right already exists. Government is expressly forbidden from attempting to infringe on it.
The Declaration of Independence asserts that all men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. In other words, our rights to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness are God given, not government given.
But if you believe that we are granted our fundamental rights by the government, then you are more likely to seek additional favors from the government. If the government is the grantor of all good things, what is to stop someone from thinking up more good things that could and should be granted by our elected leaders?
Yet our government is not Santa Claus writ large, and our rights are not wish lists drawn up by eager tots on Christmas Eve. Any fair-minded reading of the Constitution reveals that it does not grant us the wonderful rights we embrace. It handcuffs the government from infringing upon them. Or at least it used to be that way.
Our Founding Fathers did not see government as a benevolent Santa Claus guaranteeing an ever-expanding wish list of rights. Rather, they viewed government as a necessary evil -- far preferable to anarchy, but nonetheless a serious threat to liberty.
Liberty was the ultimate goal of our founders, and for its sake, they were willing to lay down their lives. In the famous words of Patrick Henry, “Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”
That spirit continues to inspire oppressed people around the world. It should inspire all of us fortunate enough to live here every day. And it certainly should deter us from thinking that our rights come from anyone other than God.
The author, Ed Feulner, apparently just awakened from a long sleep or something.
Once the sodomite loving socialists get you to question what a right is or not they try to take it away. Then their fellow comrade atheists jump in and try to strip them by saying you can’t have “God-given rights” because there is no God (according to them). I guess they don’t get that the’re stripping their own rights too. I guess when you’re on a mission to destroy a country or a religion you have to take one for the team.../s
There is no such thing as a right that obligates the services of a third party. You have a right to free speech but you are not guaranteed an audience. You have a right to bear arms but I dont have to buy you a Remington.
Health care cannot be a right if the care requires the participation of doctors, nurses and pharmacists. Those individuals cannot be forced to provide your “right” to care. You have the right to seek care.
But there's more to it as well. Rights must be understood to spring only from right. Without a simple understanding of the difference between right and wrong, the whole concept of rights quickly breaks down. (Hence the serious problems with libertarian ideology.) There is no right to do wrong. Never has been, never will be. But our right to do right is intrinsic to our nature, given to us by God.
And there's even more: Along with our rights come duties. Without that crucial understanding, again, the concept of rights quickly degenerates into selfish license.
"Among the natural rights of the Colonists are these: First, a right to life; Secondly, to liberty; Thirdly, to property; together with the right to support and defend them in the best manner they can. These are evident branches of, rather than deductions from, the duty of self-preservation, commonly called the first law of nature."-- Samuel Adams, The Report of the Committee of Correspondence to the Boston Town Meeting, 1772
Excellent post
Websters 1828 dictionary:
RIGHT: The will of God!
Now insert “the will of God” everywhere in the constitution
you see the word right.
Once the government gives you rights and everything becomes a government given right you have no rights. God given rights are the same form the beginning to the end.
Thanks.
"RIGHT, n.
1. Conformity to the will of God...
2. Conformity to human laws..."
Going down to:
"10. Just claim; immunity; privilege. All men have a right to the secure enjoyment of life, personal safety, liberty and property. We deem the right of trial by jury invaluable, particularly in the case of crimes. Rights are natural, civil, political, religious, personal, and public." (Emphasis added.)
"10" seems more appropriate for a discussion of rights.
It would take more than this to convince me there is a right to property anymore than there is a right to happiness. There is a right to the pursuit of happiness, but no guarantee that it will actually be attained. It's much the same with property but much more likely that property will actually be attained.
The Second Amendment does not grant a right to keep and bear arms; it simply prohibits the government from infringing it. Repealing the Second Amendment would not eliminate the right in any way, shape, or fashion.
“No other rights are safe where property is not safe.”
— Daniel Webster
“The great chief end therefore, of Mens’ uniting into Commonwealths, and putting themselves under Government, is the Preservation of their Property.” “Whenever the legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience,...”
— John Locke, 2nd Treatise of Government, 1690
“[T]he moment that idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the Laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. Property must be sacred or liberty cannot exist.”
— John Adams
“Government is instituted to protect property of every sort. . . This being the end of government, that alone is a just government, which impartially secures to every man, whatever is his own.”
— James Madison
“The central argument is that private or several property serves as a guarantor of liberty, quite independently of how political or collective decisions are made. The direct implication is, of course, that effective constitutional limits must be present, limits that will effectively constrain overt political intrusions into rights of property, as legally defined, and into voluntary contractual arrangements involving transfer of property. If individual liberty is to be protected, such constitutional limits must be in place prior to and separately from any exercise of democratic governance.”
— James M. Buchanan, Property as a Guarantor of Liberty
I don’t take issue with any of that. But I don’t see that any of it means there is a right to property anymore than there is a right to happiness.
I really don’t know what you’re getting at.
The usual formulation of the founders was “life, liberty, property.” It seems that the unique formulation of the Declaration, “life, liberty, happiness,” means essentially the same thing.
Well, I reckon they can abdicate their rights if they choose to believe there is no Deity to grant them, but I doubt their nothing would be offended if they at least paid lip service to The Creator. Now, whether He would be offended, isn't up to me to say...
Once liberals try to get citizens to question what is a right or not, its a ure bet they are about to try to strip them from you. Just another Alinskyish style tactic from the socialist left.
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