I've a couple of philosophical issues to discuss regarding rights, and a previous correspondent here doesn't wish to participate. Obviously, this is a open forum, and anyone could join in to our conversation, but I thought I'd start a new to so as not to exclude anyone due to undue politeness.
Let's propose a citizen in a country who is enjoying a right. One fine day part of the government tells him, sorry, we've decided that you no longer have that right, as rights are only grants by the government - we don't believe in natural rights so we're perfectly empowered to take this one away.
However, a second part of the government says, no, natural rights actually do exist, and according to a long standing agreement with our citizens, you don't have the power to take away natural rights.
Does the citizen indeed retain the right?
Part two. Whether one believes in natural rights, divine rights or rights purely as a structure of governmental permission, we know from various writings that the Framers did indeed believe in inherent rights, disagreeing somewhat as to whether the origin was natural or divine in origin, but agreeing that the rights did actually exist. On that basis the entire Constitution and Bill of Rights was create and adopted, and the Constitution and BOR have been the basis for our government for going on 250 years. Every single legislator that joins the government swears an oath to uphold and protect the Constitution. Given that the Constitution and BOR are entirely dependent upon the existence of natural rights, and the government consists of people who either believe this to be true, or lied during their oath, can any action of anyone in the government that seeks to restrict a right be considered an infringement on a natural right rather than the government simply withdrawing recognition of a granted right, as the government only has the power enumerated in the Constitution, which makes no mention of a power to remove a granted right?
