> I believe a right usually obliges the government not only to not violate the people’s legal right itself, but to affirm the right and oppose anyone else who is interfering with the exercise of the right. <
That sounds reasonable, but it’s actually not so. Here is an example.
Let’s say that I work for Ford. I’m an at-will employee (no contract). And I don’t like Kamala Harris.
I’m very good at my job. But I also say bad things about Harris while at the office. And I use vulgar terms. No government agency can penalize me for saying those bad things about Harris. I have the right of free speech under the 1A.
But Ford most certainly can tell me to stop, or even fire me. And the Constitution does not protect me, as the 1A does not apply to Ford. And nor should it. Ford does not have to put up with my office politicking, or my vulgar language.
Not a pertinent hypothetical.
1. You have an employment agreement where you agree to certain limitations.
2. The first amendment says “Congress may not” it does not say “The right to xxx shall not be infringed”.
You just couldn’t admit there are two “reasonable” points of view and keep lecturing and throwing out hypotheticals. I could do that too, but bad cases (or hypotheticals) make for bad law. If it is a natural, God given, right, a government like ours as founded is obliged to defend it. Otherwise you could call it the Bill of Loopholes.
Here’s a non-hypothetical: My employer claimed to want to have a fun employee site fall fair where identity groups of employees would form committees, which would get funding for food and drink, and were encouraged to proclaim and celebrate their culture. Probably there were 95% white employees of 10,000 at the site. Here I am thinking that we can have Oktoberfest or Saint Patricks Day or Texas cultural history, but I found out there were a half dozen minority committees and only one “white’ one, and it was understood that the role of the ‘white’ one was to grovel and apologize to the minorities like in the Chinese cultural revolution, not to celebrate anything about their European and American culture. So the company encouraged speech ( after hours, in the parking lot ) as long as it was suitable to their political bent. Shouldn’t the government say if you want to encourage “my identity” speech, after hours, you should tolerate diversity of expression? What if people were demoted or fired for not expressing the requisite white guilt and shame?