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The modern and eternal bloom. One-way rights.

Grow up. "Rights" are also duties, that is they are part of a coin, an inseperable pair.

Your right to life is a duty to uphold that life and protect it.

Your right to liberty is a duty to protect that liberty and use it to good -- to godly -- ends.

Your right to "the pursuit of happiness" means not doping up to the gills or 24/7 porno, but rather the pursuit of that spiritual happiness by the uplifting enjoyment of wordly things applied to divine service. Only you, the individual *can* know to as full a depth as might be acheived for what purpose G-d has set your soul into your body and provided to you every moment of existance. That is the honest root of private property and liberty as a duty.

This is just bull manure. A right is a right, a duty is a duty. Do you think Thomas Jefferson thought "your right to liberty is a duty to protect that liberty and use it to good -- to godly -- ends?" First off, define "godly." Jefferson was not a Christian. He did not believe that the Bible was the divine revelation of God. He did not believe that Jesus was the son of God. He did not believe in miracles or in Heaven or Hell. He believed that God started the universe but from then on did not intervene. He wrote and believed in "Nature's Law" and "Nature's God." He also believed in freedom, freedom of religion, freedom of thought, and freedom to decide one's own destiny. "Godly ends." Only in your revisionist dreams. A right is a duty? Yes and I suppose you could claim that black is white if you felt such was needed to win your argument, but that wouldn't make it right. A "right" is a "right." A "duty" is a "duty." A right to life is not a duty to live. A right to pursue happiness is not a duty to pursue happiness. A right to liberty is not a duty to be free. Do we all have a duty to protect these rights? I think so if we want to live in a decent society. Do we have a duty to do something like pursue happiness, or be "godly" as you say? I don't think so. Do we have some duty to live in agonizing pain? Maybe that is a duty in your religion. If that is a duty in your religion, then abide by your religion. But do not impose your religious duties on anyone else.