Replies

Nothing bizarre about it at all. The US was founded because our ancestors believed that the people of the US has the right to determine their own destinies and not be subject to the whims of a distant government and king. The system they put in place was one which allowed the people to collectively determine the paths that their society should take. That's what democracy is all about, after all..."the people" determining the fate of their own nation.

There is nothing in the Constitution which gurantees the individual the right to do whatever they want. On the contrary, the Constitution creates a framework wherein society can develop and enforce laws and norms which have the effect of permitting and prohibiting certain behaviors. The Constitution itself makes little reference to the rights of the individual, focusing instead on the rights of the people in a collective sense.

We choose to interpret many of the Constitutions protections as individual freedoms, and the courts have in many cases supported that interpretation, but it is incorrect to state that the US was founded for the purpose of guranteeing individual rights.

As I said in my first post, we prohibit all kinds of behaviors and actions for no reason other than the fact that we consider them harmful to society. If society ever determines that the inefficient consumption of oil is detrimental to us as a whole, the people would be entirely within their rights to demand that they be banned. The "Because I want to" argument holds no legal water.

The downside to living in a democracy is that EVERY right is subject to revocation at the whim of the majority. We have a representative form of government in place to help moderate this effect but when it comes right down to it, if the people in this country REALLY want to ban or permit something, there isn't anything that's going to stop them. That's the way democracy works, and IMO that's a good thing.

We choose to interpret many of the Constitutions protections as individual freedoms, and the courts have in many cases supported that interpretation, but it is incorrect to state that the US was founded for the purpose of guranteeing individual rights.

Unless, of course, you read The Federalist Papers, or note how all Supreme Court precedents have held the Bill of Rights to refer to individual rights.

The telling phrase is 'We choose to interpret', which means that the text has any interpretation we choose. Which means that we get to daily interpret the precedents as well. This is the insanity Orwell portrayed, and is certainly not what was intended by the Founders.