Posted on 10/18/2001 10:05:22 AM PDT by RebelDawg
If the government were to follow your rationale on this point they would be in violation of the 9th Amendment to the Constitution.
If I visit Canada, do I in effect forfeit my constitutional rights?
You CAN'T forfeit your inalienable rights. (I'm not going to get into the differences between constitutional and civil rights, that's another thread)
The government of whatever your situs happens to be at a given moment has no obligation to recognize any of them, and non-recognition of rights is far more common that recognition of them.
The UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that any of your rights are null and void if they don't like it.
This is one of the virtualy uncountable reasons why the UN sucks. (sorry JimRob)
(1) Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible.
(2) In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.
(3) These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.
Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.
WRONG. The DoI says "... they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
Jefferson states right there that 'Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness' are not the only unalienable rights with which the Creator has endowed us.
One of the Federalists' arguments against a Bill of Rights was that it was too hard to list all the rights that people had that the US gov't shouldn't infringe, and the gov't would then think it had a green light to violate those not listed. Hence the 9th Amendment.
Uh, not quite. It says "Among these are...", NOT "just.."
and the Constitutional 'right' to vote is just that,a right given to citizens, NOT a Right endowed by the Creator.
Incidently, all my copies of the Declaration of Independance say “unalienable”, NOT “inalienable”,
The Bill of Rights (Amendments I through X) enumerates some of our unalienable Rights.
The right to vote is clearly not one of these (see Amendments XV, XIX, XXIV, XXVI). The 'right' of trial by jury is another.
Offhand, I can't think of any other rights or Rights mentioned in the Constitution. Did you have something specific in mind, or was that a deliberately obtuse question?
The very fact that we can be having this discussion on a forum like FR shows how far we as a country have fallen. The groups that want to limit our rights have been pushing the idea that our rights are granted by the Constitution, because anything granted by man, can be taken away.
You won't find a single example of a founding father stating that our rights are not God given. You will find plenty of opposition to attaching a bill of rights to the Constitution for exactly the reason we are seeing here. They opposed a written bill of rights because they were afraid someone would argue our rights were limited to that list, or that our rights were established by some document. They aren't.
Every person on the planet, from kings to the lowest pauper, has the exact same rights, because those rights were created and given equally to every person by God. That is the single, underlying principle that our country is founded upon.
I'm appalled (yes, appalled) that there are people on a forum like FR arguing otherwise.
The fact that other governments don't recognize the rights of the people within their borders doesn't mean they don't have the same God given rights as anyone else, it just means their government doesn't recognize them.
Both of you express a concern about those living outside the jurisdiction of the US government.
You both ask, "How can we protect their rights?"
The US Gov. does not "protect" rights. That wasn't the purpose of the Bill of Rights. Indeed, the Bill of Rights does not require that the Fed. Gov. do anything.
Rather, the Bill of Rights sets forth what the Gov't CANNOT do. It can't search without a warrant. It can't convict without a jury trial (if requested). It can't establish an official religion. etc., etc.
The Federal Government is NOT the protector of the rights mentioned in the Bill of Rights.
Rather, the Bill of Rights is what protects us FROM the Federal Government.
With this in mind, the answer to your question regarding those in other jurisdictions -- "how can we protect the rights of those living under dictatorships?" -- is simply that protecting their rights is not the Federal Governments job.
The Constitution exists to LIMIT what the Government may do to those living within its jurisdiction (i.e., "people of the United States"). We have never given the Fed. Gov. the power, for instance, to establish a religion. Period. It doesn't matter if that religion is established merely for non-citizens living within our borders. It simply isn't a power the Fed. Gov. has. Likewise with searching and siezing without a warrant. Or, restricting freedom of the press. The gov't has no more power to sieze the printing press of a non-citizen than it does a citizen.
This forum is the exact place where the meaning of the Constitution should be discussed – and often!
You won't find a single example of a founding father stating that our rights are not God given.
There are none, nada, zero examples in the Constitution that says that the rights enumerated there ARE God given. The fact that the Bill of Rights was codified despite objection is further justification to believe that the founding fathers did not see those rights as God given and thus HAD to be ratified and agreed to by the states.
If the God given rights go beyond life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; what are they?
Also, there was a lot of debate over how to express the rights that were listed and which ones to list.
Just because there was a debate with objections doesn't mean that the general principle that men have God-given rights is invalid.
In the case of foreigners, my belief is that any rulings by SCOTUS or any other gov't. agency is done under the auspices of those civil rights granted to them by the gov't.
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