Scalia’s Absolutely Wrong About Absolute Rights

The Independent Institute ^ | 9 April 2003 | Anthony Gregory

[breakem]

One side comment. I read somewhere years ago, that Ike said the interstate hwys were a necessity for national defense so that the military could move quickly to protect the country. Gusee he didn't foresee rush hour traffic.

[CaptainJustice]

I feel safer under Scalia's interpretations, than with the ideologically pure "interpretations."

The Constitution is Not a Suicide Pact.

Amen to that. Everyone quotes the silly Ben Franklin quote about freedom vs security, but what they dont realize is that Freedom without Security isn't really freedom at all. Iraq has free elections, but because Iraqis had 0 security from torture and murder, the elections werent free at all.

[Az Joe]

The fundamental right is the right to Liberty, which is the right to do whatever is not wrong. In other words, it is the right to do anything that does not violate the rights of others. This right is analogous to the presumption of innocence, where the burden of proof is on those who would claim that someone is guilty of a crime. Similarly, the right to Liberty requires that those who object to the rightfulness of an action prove that it is wrong, by showing it violates the rights of others.>

I disagree. With all rights come responsibilitites, including the responsibility to sacrifice some individual rights for the good of the society as a whole. Example, there is no "right" not to be drafted into the military, yet this would seem to conflict with the right to "liberty".

Without the ability to defend itself a society would soon be comprised of individuals who have no rights at all.

[sourcery]

With all rights come responsibilitites

Yes, exactly so. But the only responsibility (duty, obligation) that comes with a right is to avoid violating the rights of others. To attempt to exercise your right to self defense by violating the rights of others fails this test. Two wrongs do not make a right.

[HapaxLegamenon]

Rights cannot be absolute, for the are not ends in themsleves. Any good lawyer knows that Law, Justice, and Right are link in their orgin as denoted by the latin "ius"

[Az Joe]

Again, I disagree. All have an obligation of defending the society they live in, that is not a right, it is an obligation or responsibility.

The individual right to liberty falls before it. First comes the carrying out of the responsibility, then comes the right.

[bvw]

US Postal roads, then after Ike -- the National Defense Highway System. The "Interstate" we now all know.

[bvw]

Preliminary planning of the US highway system began in 1924. The American Association of State Highway Officials (AASHO), working in conjunction with the Department of Agriculture's Bureau of Public Roads, laid out the US highway system along primary intercity roads of the day. The final list of US highways was agreed upon on November 11, 1926. The US highway system carried the bulk of intercity vehicular traffic and people migrating west to California. These highways helped the US win the Second World War, allowing great flexibility in ferrying men and materials across the nation, supplementing the nation's fixed rail system. Roads built in the 1930's were inadequate for the faster and wider cars of the 1950's. President Eisenhower signed a bill creating the National System of Interstate and Defense Highways on June 29, 1956.

Slightly adapted based on US-Highways.com

[bvw]

US Post Roads and Postal Routes:

1792 Postal Act

The Postal Act of February 20, 1792 defined the character of the young Post Office Department. Spirited Congressional debate sought to separate old postal practices from the future purpose and direction of the postal service. Discussions examined issues of a free press, personal privacy and national growth.

Under the act, newspapers would be allowed in the mails at low rates to promote the spread of information across the states. To ensure the sanctity and privacy of the mails, postal officials were forbidden to open any letters in their charge unless they were undeliverable. Finally, Congress assumed responsibility for the creation of postal routes, ensuring that mail routes would help lead expansion and development instead of only serve existing communities. Source: National Postal Museum

Waterways were declared postal routes in 1834.

[bvw]

Please note the role of the Department of Agriculture in the great Wilsonian Federal Expansion. FDR was just a follower-on. It was in the time of the Bolshevik Revolution that the US got grafted on our own perennial socialism. And the Ag Department remains a key player in that. There in Ag is found the "College of Federal Bureaucracy" or some such -- anyway it is the "college" the Federal Administrators get trained by.

[brityank]

There in Ag is found the "College of Federal Bureaucracy" or some such -- anyway it is the "college" the Federal Administrators get trained by.

Graduate School, USDA

[bvw]

The very thing. Thanks. Check out the web page. Looks innocuous doesn't it! But that's where the administrators are stamped out -- the typical trainee is chomping at the bit to toe the line, be a team player and future pensionaire, and so they really take well to the mold.

You think the current fad emphasis on "Diversity" comes out of academe, or the liberal media, or some such well-known place -- unh-uh. There in Ag's Graduate School is the greatest and strongest foundation laid. The trained Federalistas impose their mindset on Academe by all the cross-contracts and federal money inflows. Those are also a product of the same Federal growth grafts as highways -- first via Ag in the 1920's thru the Land Grant schools, and later once Ag's Bureaucrat College had established enough of base -- through all the Federal Edifice, big Ike influence once again -- the GI Bill and National Student Loan Program.

It is the overwhleming mundanity, plainess and bureaucrat's fish-handshaking milk-toastian attack that make this program so potent -- that wisdom "the meek shall inherit" is a deep one. Almost unbeatable! You've heard all about Lenin, Marx, Stalin, Gramiscan, Alsinsky, Mao, Castro approaches to imposing socialism, eh? All those were ineffective pikers compared to Dewey, Bellamy and the other elite utopian socialists of the turn of century in US and Britan -- who set this machinery in motion.