A most remarkable issue with the US constitution, which came up in Jackson's hearing

[Antiwar]

My personal moral intuitions tell me there are.

With that and $1 you can get any size drink at Mcdonald's.

What are 'natural rights'?

 

[Antiwar]

What rights do you claim to have that are not property rights?

Vote, travel, speech, religion, no state-sponsored religion, 5th amendment, for a start.

Let's see you try to rope those in to your two categories.

 

[aociswundumho]

With that and $1 you can get any size drink at Mcdonald's.

What are 'natural rights'?

A few days ago you showed an interest in private law and courts. Now you're asking about natural rights. This is strange considering your political views.

 

[Antiwar]

A few days ago you showed an interest in private law and courts. Now you're asking about natural rights. This is strange considering your political views.

A few days ago you posted some right-libertarian pipe dream about private law, I called you on it, and you had nothing.

Now you're trying to dodge answering what 'natural rights' are.

 

[vanceen]

The unenumerated rights could be thought of as anything a person might do, so long as that action doesn't"

1. infringe someone else's rights
2. directly create a problem that is so bad that government (society) has an overwhelming interest in preventing it

It seems to me that it isn't necessary to invoke a right to privacy in order to strike down a law against buying contraceptives. It's perfectly adequate to say that since it doesn't fit either of the exceptions above, government has no business preventing it.

This formulation is off the top of my head and may be incomplete. But I think it's a better approach than developing an ever-longer list of specific rights.

 

[aociswundumho]

Vote,

It's a government-granted privilege.

travel,

Traveling on other people's property without their permission violates their rights. If the property has no owner, then of course you have the right to travel over it, as does everyone else.

speech,

You may express yourself using your property, or with permission from another property owner (like this forum).

religion, no state-sponsored religion,

You have the right to believe whatever you wish.

5th amendment, for a start.

Government privilege, obviously.

 

[Antiwar]

It's a government-granted privilege.

Yeah, that's one part of what rights are. So? What's the point?

Another major part is that the government doesn't even attempt to control that many things.

 

[aociswundumho]

Yeah, that's one part of what rights are. So? What's the point?

The point is that rights and government-granted privileges are very different things.

Think of it as the difference between what you have the right to do, versus what you may only do with someone else's permission. For example, you have the right to swim in your own pool, but you don't have the right to swim in your neighbor's pool without his permission. Hence there is no right to vote without permission from the state, just like you have no right to swim in your neighbors pool. Voting is a privilege granted by the government, swimming in your neighbor's pool is a privilege granted by your neighbor.

 

[Antiwar]

The point is that rights and government-granted privileges are very different things.

Think of it as the difference between what you have the right to do, versus what you may only do with someone else's permission.

That doesn't answer the question, and you haven't answered what 'natural rights' are.

Of course many things fall under 'permitted by the federal government.' That's a huge part of 'law and order' and society.

 

[Craig234]

The Constitution does not authorize Congress to do most of what it is currently doing.

Medical, retirement, education, child care, etc...

None of those things are found in the Constitution except by nefarious interpretation.

Our government is out of control and our national balance sheet blood red because the SC and our entire Fedgov simply stopped adhering to the Constitution, and the people blithely accepted it.

As a result, our nation has been in a death spiral ever since.

It's not the complicated.

Those are pretty much entirely false, misguided and uninformed comments.

What you can say is that some of the activities *done for the benefit of the American people* are done under an interpretation of the constitution more broad than yours.

 

[jnug]

Griswold ruled that a married couple has a right to privacy* based in part on the ninth amendment. bi

*There is no such right.



It can't be addressed. You basically have the right to do whatever you want as long as you do not harm anyone else or damage anyone else's property. No government is going to agree with that. Furthermore, we all have the right to own property, and the state is the biggest violator of property rights that has ever existed.

There is no enumerated or explicit right to privacy in the Constitution. It is an implicit right. I would bet that the right the privacy would quickly becomes a bipartisan issue if it were ever really threatened.

As it stands today, the Right wants to attack it when it suits them to attack it and cherishes it when it suits them to cherish it. Par for the course.

 

[wist43]

I'm not sure which part you disagree with, as there are multiple claims in the sentence you put in bold.

Rights are not "granted" by the government - at least not in free societies.

 

[Antiwar]

Rights are not "granted" by the government - at least not in free societies.

Societies are governed by laws. It seems you don't want laws nor society, just a lawless free-for-all. And you're probably going to say "God" or 'Nature' gives rights.

 

[Craig234]

The unenumerated rights could be thought of as anything a person might do, so long as that action doesn't"

1. infringe someone else's rights
2. directly create a problem that is so bad that government (society) has an overwhelming interest in preventing it

It seems to me that it isn't necessary to invoke a right to privacy in order to strike down a law against buying contraceptives. It's perfectly adequate to say that since it doesn't fit either of the exceptions above, government has no business preventing it.

This formulation is off the top of my head and may be incomplete. But I think it's a better approach than developing an ever-longer list of specific rights.

Given the founders intended to protect some presumably huge body of rights that weren't enumerated, and the list of such specific rights identified in over 200 years seems to be one, privacy, under which contraception and abortion fall, I don't think you have a strong case for too long a list of rights.

 

[Craig234]

Rights are not "granted" by the government - at least not in free societies.

I think that's always been a semantic point that's not very useful. While the idea is that people are entitled to rights and government should only respect that, the fact is that there's very little practical difference between that and government deciding what rights to 'give'. They 'recognize' your right to free speech. They 'give' your right to free speech. One is better but not really practically different.

 

[wist43]

Those are pretty much entirely false, misguided and uninformed comments.

What you can say is that some of the activities *done for the benefit of the American people* are done under an interpretation of the constitution more broad than yours.

That broad interpretation renders the Constitution useless in terms of constraining the government.

Madison made the same argument I make - specifically citing education as something that was obviously not under the FedGov's authority.

I know what is taught in the schools, and I know why the elites are doing what they're doing.

It's not that complicated - they are expanding their power over the people. Just like our Founders predicted would happen if future generations abandoned the principles of limited government framed in the Constitution.

"In questions of power, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the constitution.” ― Thomas Jefferson

Those chains were broken in the 1930's, and our fate was sealed then.

 

[wist43]

I think that's always been a semantic point that's not very useful. While the idea is that people are entitled to rights and government should only respect that, the fact is that there's very little practical difference between that and government deciding what rights to 'give'. They 'recognize' your right to free speech. They 'give' your right to free speech. One is better but not really practically different.

Now THAT is a semantic argument

 

[Craig234]

Those chains were broken in the 1930's, and our fate was sealed then.

I could respond to your post, or just chuckle at your leap to Hitler.

 

[wist43]

I could respond to your post, or just chuckle at your leap to Hitler.

They opened Pandora's Box.

It's taken 90 years, but we're finally getting to the end of the road. If you can't read the writing on the wall, that's on you.

 

[j brown's body]

The Constitution does not authorize Congress to do most of what it is currently doing.

Medical, retirement, education, child care, etc...

None of those things are found in the Constitution except by nefarious interpretation.

Our government is out of control and our national balance sheet blood red because the SC and our entire Fedgov simply stopped adhering to the Constitution, and the people blithely accepted it.

As a result, our nation has been in a death spiral ever since.

It's not the complicated.

It's sad to think that it takes a nefarious view of the Constitution to justify government helping people, but it explains why we are near or at the bottom of quality of life categories among developed nations.

 

[j brown's body]

Senator Blackburn reminds us that "the Constitution grants us rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

 

[j brown's body]

If there is a greater example of sexual repression than the belief that the government can prevent you from enjoying making love and supports gun ownership, I haven't seen it.

 

[ataraxia]

Griswold ruled that a married couple has a right to privacy* based in part on the ninth amendment.

*There is no such right.



It can't be addressed. You basically have the right to do whatever you want as long as you do not harm anyone else or damage anyone else's property. No government is going to agree with that. Furthermore, we all have the right to own property, and the state is the biggest violator of property rights that has ever existed.

The constitution gives government the power of taxation. If you consider taxation theft, then yes- the constitution gives government the power of theft.

Contradiction? No. The problem is in the interpretation ion of taxation as theft: it’s not.

 

[ataraxia]

neither the Congress nor the Judiciary has the Constitutional authority to enact any law which restricts the right to bear arms.

Of course they aren't going to let the Constitution get in their way.

So can we have nuclear arms on sale at Walmart? That’d be so cool!

 

[Mithrae]

Senator Blackburn reminds us that "the Constitution grants us rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

That's what I was going to say in response to the OP: The 'unenumerated rights' would fall under those broad categories anyway. But as it turns out, isn't that the Declaration of Independence? The fourteenth amendment seems to come close, but doesn't actually describe those things as 'rights' and does explicitly say that they can be deprived under 'due process of law.'