Posted on 03/10/2011 2:05:10 PM PST by jda
We are guaranteed by our Creator of only certain unalienable rights.
To translate for Obama supporters, our Creator only guarantees three rights - life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This list does not include collective bargaining, happiness (only the pursuit thereof), a job, a house, a car, an iPod or iPad, a television (plasma or black & white), or anything else not specifically listed! Therefore, when any government-instituted privilege is granted, consider it a gift. And, if it is not granted, remember that it was never guaranteed in the first place, regardless of who promised it. Likewise, when a government-instituted privilege is taken away, remember that IT IS NOT RIGHT to have even received it in the first place, let alone to have enjoyed it for even one nanosecond (for Obama supporters, that's not very long).
Got it???
I totally agree.
The other little fact is that with “rights” come responsibilities.
I just know that libs, socialists and union goons aren’t quite up to speed on that concept, though.
Haven’t you heard of life, liberty and the pursuit of other people’s money???
Are you SURE it doesn’t say “and 99 week welfare and free healthcare and the right to not be offended and the right to feel good about yourself and the right to a 4.0 GPA”?
Got it? For someone who can not read as far as through the First Amendment, you sure got confused fast.
Collective bargaining is nothing more than an agreement between two parties based on corruption, therefore, in the minds of Democrats it is an unalienable right from their creator Satan. ;-)
Collective bargaining is a PRIVILEGE granted by an employer.
Oh yes they are. They just think it’s your and my responsibility to pay the wages they think they are due, and to let them do any damned thing they please.
We can agree that they don’t think they have any responsibility, unless it’s to steal from us.
There cannot be a right to something that has to be taken from another person.
amen
don’t let them manipulate the language
I mentally search and replace “collective bargaining rights” with “collective bargaining powers”
Unfortunately, the lefties see being an employer as a PRIVILEGE granted by The State.
The PEOPLE have a Right to be secure in their possessions, and in their homes, EXCLUSIVE of Union thugs or confiscation of earnings.
The earliest legal question about unionism was whether or not workers had a right to contract with their employers.
That was back in the days when the "right to property", which really meant the right to own slaves, not the right to own land, resources or your "stuff", was considered paramount.
More recently we've all pretty much decided that even IMPLIED contracts are valid.
No doubt in the future there will be some other issue pop up that involves contracts and people will deal with it ~ usually fairly effectively.
Remember, when it comes to contracts, if it ain't one thing it's another!
There are a gazillion arguments about unionism, but what we have here are PUBLIC EMPLOYEES, and not just public employees, but the employees of a state.
A state isn't a business ~ and if it were it's got some strange privileges. For one if you misbehave yourself the state can haul you out and execute you ~ by hanging, injection, electrocution or firing squad. You really don't find many bosses like that.
So, granting that states are "exceptional" we must also note that states can condemn your property and take it for public use, or maybe any use, or as in Connecticut, for what turned out to be no use at all. All they have to do is pay you "just compensation".
The courts have argued over the years that NO ONE HAS A RIGHT TO A GOVERNMENT JOB (unless you've been elected to the job, and then only for the time specified in the Constitution). Noting the overwhelming power of the states, their employees, in the end, public employees have no property rights they can assert against the states ~ at least nothing that can withstand withering legislation. Whatever the states do the courts are going to uphold their authority to do it.
The public employee unions in Wisconsin got their captive Leftwingtard legislators to pretend for a while that Wisconsin was just like a company ~ and they, the employees, could bargain with the state just like they would any other business.
Obviously they were wrong, but that's the issue ~ not "trade unionism" which has more than its fair share of abusive, IGNANT or stupid managements in the private sector to point to as a justification.
Wisconsin has fiscal problems and only the legislature can act to deal with them. The public employee unions had no rights to start with, and now they are going to be IGNORED (to a degree). In fact their private sector compatriots are probably going to approve heartily of the loss of authority claimed by those public employee unionists.
I agree with you in spirit, but I think you're a little bit off the mark.
If you re-read what you posted, Jefferson (and Adams and everyone else who edited the DoI) is saying that God gave us certain inalienable rights -- rights which cannot be taken away from us absent due process -- and "among" these inalienable rights are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Because of that "among," what Jefferson is saying, then, is that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are only some of our inalienable rights, not the only ones that God guarantees. In modern times, he might have slapped that clause in a parenthetical with an "e.g." for example.
No master list exists of all our rights. God granted us a sh*tload of inalienable rights, and to spell them all out in a laundry list would be an exercise in human fallibility, for there would be no way (1) we'd ever nail down the entire list, and (2) everyone would agree on all points.
But you're right in that collective bargaining is NOT a right because of one simple thing: God does not give the gift of rights to a collective. He gives them to the individual. A collective has no rights; only powers given to it by law (e.g., a government).
The distinction is subtle but important because rights come from God and exist regardless of human government. As a gift from God, rights extend to all human beings in equal measure, and therefore cannot be deprived of any man absent due process. Power derives from human government and therefore exists only within a civic structure. Power does not extend to all human beings in equal measure, and because power is a creation of man, it can be given to or taken away from man by man.
Conservatives believe in inalienable rights because most conservatives believe in the Creator. Leftists create all others sorts of “rights” because their god is government.
I would add that there is a large difference between a right and an entitlement!
I have a right to work - but I am not entitled to force an employer to hire me!
Furthermore, although I tend to agree with Hamilton's argument that a BoR was unnecessary - exactly those rights are also inalienable!
Essentially we have the “right” to do just about anything, as long as it does not infringe upon the rights of others.
It is the responsibility of governments to secure these rights and provide for an environment where they can be excersized freely.
Much closer to the truth .....
I mentally search and replace “collective bargaining rights” with “collective bargaining powers”
Ooh, I like that one!
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