[Durus]

Capital punishment is not a "right" of the community, it is the delegated duty of government. It is their duty to perform this punishment simply because of the extreme nature of the crime towards individuals. We, the people, delegated this duty to our government much as we delegated certain police powers. We didn't delegate these powers to government to uphold moral standards but to protect the rights of individuals.

The entire concept of our form of government is based on individual rights and responsibilities. There is not one mention of community "rights" in the Constitution. The very idea is unconstitutional as is all forms of communitarian ideologies. The constitution recognizes that there is government and individuals, that's all. A community is merely a group of individuals and, as it is a concept more then an entity, it can't posses any rights of its own.

If you were to ban porn, by whatever definition, whose rights are you protecting?

[robertpaulsen]

"The entire concept of our form of government is based on individual rights and responsibilities. There is not one mention of community "rights" in the Constitution. The very idea is unconstitutional as is all forms of communitarian ideologies."

Bull$hit.

"Every society has a right to fix the fundamental principles of its association, and to say to all individuals, that if they contemplate pursuits beyond the limits of these principles and involving dangers which the society chooses to avoid, they must go somewhere else for their exercise; that we want no citizens, and still less ephemeral and pseudo-citizens, on such terms. We may exclude them from our territory, as we do persons infected with disease." -- Thomas Jefferson to William H. Crawford, 1816

[radicalamericannationalist]

Capital punishment itself is not a duty. The punishment of criminals is the duty. Society has a choice, i.e. rights, to decide how to carry that punishment out. Or are you arguing that the non-death penalty states are violating their duties?

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."

The Constitution recognizes that rights are maintained both in the people, individuals, and the states, the community. As said before, banning pornogrpahy protects the rights of everyone who does not want to be exposed to it, just as banning dumping of chemicals into waterways protects those who don't want to swim in those chemicals.