[quidnunc]

Correction: The author's name should read "David B. Kopel"

[Lurker]

America was settled by people who fled tyranny the world over.

Canada was settled by clerks sent by those aforementioned tyrants.

That's the basic difference.

L

[slowry]

The federal and state constitutions have helped develop a "rights consciousness"

I understand what he means, but can't hurt to clarify that this sounds a bit like getting the cart before the horse. It's my understanding that the USSR also had a pleasant-sounding list of rights in their constitution. Let's not forget that our Bill of Rights was originally meant as a restriction on Congress.

I suggest as a better starting point for "rights consciousness":

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights ...."

Another point of view, from Federalist #84:

"I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and to the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed Constitution, but would even be dangerous. They would contain various exceptions to powers not granted; and, on this very account, would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do? Why, for instance, should it be said that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed? I will not contend that such a provision would confer a regulating power; but it is evident that it would furnish, to men disposed to usurp, a plausible pretense for claiming that power."