Are civil rights pseudo constitutional rights?

WorldNetDaily ^ | Oct 2, 2010 | Ellis Washington

[Jim Robinson]

A free people [claim] their rights as derived from the laws of nature [God], and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.

– Thomas Jefferson

Have civil rights devolved into pseudo constitutional rights? Are the civil-rights black people marched in the streets, fought, bled and died for during the 1950s-1980s equal to the civil rights that illegal aliens, radical feminists, pedophiles, same-sex marriages, homosexuals, Marxists unionists and animals now claim? Only if government separates legality from morality.

These and other thought provoking questions were raised by Mr. Milt Harris one of my colleagues on "Joshua's Trail," America's premiere radio show of black conservative thought.

Historically the concept of "civil rights" date to the ancient Roman Edit of Milan in 313 A.D. and greatly extended in the English Bill of Rights (1689). In the 1860s, Americans adapted this usage to newly freed blacks after slavery was outlawed. Congress enacted civil-rights acts in 1866, 1871, 1875, 1957, 1960, 1964, 1968 and 1991. However, for well over a century now, since the advent of the progressive movement in the early 1880s, radicals, progressives, socialists and liberal Democrats with their willing accomplices – socialist activist groups, legislator judges, the state-controlled media, trial lawyers, teachers unions and the academy – have so perverted the original intent of the Constitution framers as to make civil rights a potent form of pseudo-rights (for Democrat allies) that our original civil rights founded under natural law and natural rights are now essentially a dead letter...

[Disambiguator]

Many so-called “human rights” and “civil rights” groups are opposed to the 2nd Amendment. That tells me all I need to know about them.

[JimRed]

..."Joshua's Trail," America's premiere radio show of black conservative thought.

Never heard of it. I'm glad it's out there, but it needs to be exposed to those who need it most. I'll bet it's not on any of the NYC metro area "black" stations!

[no-to-illegals]

Great Read! Many truths contained therein.

[rockinqsranch]

Good read. Thanks for the post.

Aside: I have never found anything redeeming about LBJ. The man was genuinely a scumbag IMO.

[alexander_busek]

their rights as derived from the laws of nature [God], and not as the gift of their chief magistrate

Are those brackets - or rather: the bracket word - a post-Jeffersonian embellishment?

Regards,

[libertarian27]

If you need permission - you don’t have a right.

[Monorprise]

I really don’t like the term “civil rights” due to its root word Civil. Which according to the dictionary means:

” of or relating to the state or its citizenry “

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/civil

From my way of looking at this definition it would seem to be calming that we have rights due to our state and/or Citizenship which is totally not true.

Our rights come from our creator not our State. Just as they are not depended upon our State for their existence.
Instead Our States were created by us to help us defend theses rights from the usurpations of others.

From this republican(System not the political party) perspective there is really no such thing as “Civil Rights” or “Constitutional rights”, only Human rights.

And I mean the real human rights which root from the basic printable of being left alone. Not not any non-mutually contracted services that must be provided by the parties involved.

[Jim Robinson]

Read Jefferson’s words in the Declaration and decide for yourself.

[mmercier]

I realized in the 70’s that the US government violated the compact with the individual citizen. I consider any government appendage the same as a gangbanger crackwhore trying to steal my car stereo.

Any government entity or individual citizen that seeks to violate my God given rights is free to take their shot.

[MamaTexan]

Have civil rights devolved into pseudo constitutional rights?

No, they're two totally separate things, and they always have been.

'Constitutional rights' are natural rights acknowledged by the State, while 'civil rights' are rights granted BY the State.

It's why they're referred to as privileges.

-----

Here's the entire quote:

That these are our grievances which we have thus laid before his majesty, with that freedom of language and sentiment which becomes a free people claiming their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.
Thomas Jefferson, Rights of British America, 1774

[onyx]

I hope everyone links to his column. Mr. Washington is a conservative. I wish additional one line could be quoted, because he points out factually, the reason LBJ wanted to pass the "civil right's legislation" and it's not pretty, but elections since the passage have proved LBJ's reason insightfully ugly and true.

Americans need to stop buying the big lie that "civil rights" and our Constitutional rights come from the government, when in fact, our rights are unalienable, they come from God, they and are written into law, but those rights can never be taken away.

Ellis Washington is former editor of the Michigan Law Review and law clerk at The Rutherford Institute. He hosts a radio program Thursdays at 10 a.m. Eastern on 1620 AM in Atlanta. It can be heard online at the Radio Sandy Springs website. Washington is a regular co-host of the popular radio show, Joshua's Trial heard Saturdays on WDTKam.com and WAAMAnnArbor.com. His weekly podcasts are available Mondays at The Conservative Beacon.

Washington is a graduate of John Marshall Law School and a lecturer and freelance writer on constitutional law, legal history and critical race theory. He has written over a dozen law review articles and several books, including "The Inseparability of Law and Morality: The Constitution, Natural Law and the Rule of Law" (2002). Washington's latest book is "

[MamaTexan]

It's why they're referred to as privileges.

Sorry - I should have added;

and used to create privileged persons.

[chesley]

I've heard he gave great barbecues. And Hitler liked dogs. Everyone has some redeeming qualities, but they don't cancel out their bad ones. And LBJ was scum. For instance, he murdered 50,000 American soldiers in a was he didn't intend to win.

[Lurker]

Good read. Thanks.

[Vendome]

Civil rights = group therapy and niche rights.

If the right of the individual is extant to all, then it is a true Constituttional right.

If the A Right is civil in nature, then it pertains only to a certain group of people and will most surely elevate their “Rights” above the individual and confer preferential and exclusionary rights that other individuals outside that group do not have.

For instance:

If a man instigates violence against another man and in the ensuing process utters any word that would, will or could be deemed “homophobic”, his crime will go from say assault to aggravated assaulted with conditions and an additional crime of thought being charged.

However, if a gay man instigates violence against another man, who is heterosexual and who has rebuffed his advances, the gay man will not be charged with anything other than assault. The gay man may call the heterosexual man any number of names, none of which will be considered a crime of hate. A breeder is one of those words but all the same the gay man may engage in verbal sparring calling the heterosexual man names or describing him in terms that are typically associated with the gay lifestyle.

The same can be said of crimes against a black man, a Sikh, a Hindu, A Moslem, Catholic, etc.

In no case can it be considered, however, that both parties engaged in a hate crime melee.

For instance, two fellow from Ireland meet at a bar and having some laughs and drinks, they discover one is Catholic while the other is Protestant.

Eventually, one becomes the taunter and egging on by acts of physical feint, which ultimately one party becomes aggressor but in no case will there ever be two charges of assault with an additional condition of a hate crime.

In fact, hate crimes are sociologically and culturally weighted toward current views of minority status. Hence the Catholic and Protestant fight of physical aggression will be nothing more than what it is; Assault.

However, crimes where one party is the dominant sociologically member and the other a minor of a lesser and protected party, there will be a crime of thought and hence the additional charge of “hating another”.

Thought crimes are stupid and undermined the individual right of defense.

[rockinqsranch]

“.....he murdered 50,000 American soldiers in a war he didn’t intend to win.”

That’s right. My best friend from childhood was one of them. So what he died a hero saving eleven other soldiers lives, he’s dead because of a Leftist politician. My best friend was a real good guy who missed out on the things I enjoyed in life, a loving wife, loving family of his own. I know he would have been one “H” of a great dad, and enjoyed every minute of it.

[loveliberty2]

Excellent article. Thank you for posting it, Jim.

A return to founding principles implies a quality the founders called "virtue" among the people, whereby the written constitution conformed to the unwritten constitution in the hearts of the citizens--individual faith, individual responsibility and accountability, individual hope, and individual charity. Such virtue did not allow for citizens, as groups, to band together to demand that their representatives in government do that which would be a crime, should they do it individually.

Our Constitution embodied a UNIQUE IDEA. Nothing like it had ever been done before. The power of the idea was in the recognition that people's rights are granted directly by the Creator - not by the state - and that the people, then, and only then, grant rights to government. The concept is so simple, yet so very fundamental and far-reaching.

CREATOR

People

Government

America's founders embraced a previously unheard-of political philosophy which held that people are "...endowed BY THEIR CREATOR with certain unalienable rights.." This was the statement of guiding principle for the new nation, and, as such, had to be translated into a concrete charter for government. The Constitution of The United States of America became that charter.

Other forms of government, past and present, rely on the state as the grantor of human rights. America's founders, however, believed that a government made up of imperfect people exercising power over other people should possess limited powers. Through their Constitution, they wished to "secure the blessings of liberty" for themselves and for posterity by limiting the powers of government. Through it, they delegated to government only those rights they wanted it to have, holding to themselves all powers not delegated by the Constitution. They even provided the means for controlling those powers they had granted to government.

This was the unique American idea. Many problems we face today result from a departure from this basic con­cept. Gradually, other "ideas" have influenced legislation which has reversed the roles and given government greater and greater power over individuals. Early generations of Americans pledged their lives to the cause of in­dividual freedom and limited government and warned, over and over again, that eternal vigilance would be required to preserve that freedom for posterity.

---

Footnote: Our Ageless Constitution, W. David Stedman & La Vaughn G. Lewis, Editors (Asheboro, NC, W. David Stedman Associates, 1987) Part III:  ISBN 0-937047-01-5

[chesley]

I salute your friend, and share your grief. Vietnam was a just war, and could have been won.

It’s what makes Jane Fonda, bill Ayers, and LBJ, in some ways worse that Stalin or Hitler. They were traitors.

And for all of them, I’m glad that there actually is a “burning Hell”

[Monorprise]

“Any government entity or individual citizen that seeks to violate my God given rights is free to take their shot.”

As long as we too are free to take ours its almost a fair deal. Except we will need to organize a parallel government to protect us from the organizational size and strength of the existing one.

In the case of the Federal Government we will need to organize a parallel alliance of States. Should they refuse to back down voluntarily it will be necessarily that we have enough force to at least defend ourselfs and deter them from attempting to impose their will upon us.

There is a lot our individual State Governments can do to help protect us from this, but at the end of the day they too may be overwhelmed.