As many of us know, we in the U.S. are guaranteed certain Rights.

You hear alot of talk about "Rights", but very few know what this word really means.

Touch the skin on your arm or anywhere. In the same way that you are naturally embodied with that skin, the U.S. Constitution embodies human beings with certain basic rights.

The U.S. Constitution is the ultimate, end-all, be-all document for defining what it means to be American and what America is intended to represent.

If you are like me, you didn't pay perfect attention in 8th grade social studies class. So, I am going to take advantage of this slow basement section to remind all of us of our 27 basic, guaranteed rights and provide my own short commentary after.
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Amendment 1 - Freedom of Religion, Press, Expression. Ratified 12/15/1791. Note

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

You are free to believe what you want and government can not force you to do otherwise. You are also free to say absolutely anything you wish so long as it does not cause, immediate, physical harm to others (Example: you can not yell "Fire" in a crowded theatre). The press can report what it wishes, but is still subject to private liable suits via tort. You can not be stopped by the government from getting together discuss any viewpoint, no matter how controversial. Last, you should feel perfectly safe to tell your elected officials that you disagree with them with absolutely no fear of recrimination.

Modern status of your First Right: Thrown out the window for politicians and special interests to play football with it in the yard.

As I understand it (and maybe I don't, but it's a point for discussion), the concept of "rights" as it was originally proposed by the Greeks had more to do with the fact that power ultimately can't control the behavior of individuals rather than the idea that "rights" are something granted by a piece of paper.

Thousands of years later, we have philosophers like Leo Strauss turning the idea on its head with the elitist idea of the "noble lie" (sound familiar?) and the Machiavellian notion that deception of the citizenry is necessary, because the Great Unwashed need strong leaders to tell them what's good for them. Again, the notion has more to do with what's possible than what is actually ethical.

I believe Strauss would have argued that the antis are acting from the highest ethical standards.

In the end, I think P.J. O'Rourke nailed it when he said, "There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences."

This is all off the top of my head. I didn't have time to research this, so sorry if I made any mistakes, but I'm about to head off to work and I just dashed it out. This is a subject that interests me.

You can't look to the Constitution to protect The People when The People don't want it.

Take the Mormon religion and bigamy/polygamy.

"On January 6, 1879, the Supreme Court upheld the trial court's decision. The Court based its decision on historic American cultural values, namely that from the earliest times polygamy was considered an offense against society. Most civilized countries considered marriage a "sacred obligation," and a civil contract usually regulated by law. Therefore, the Court ruled that the First Amendment did not protect polygamy. Reynolds's sentence of two years in prison and a $500 fine remained."

If it offends society it's unconstutional.

Robert wrote:

quote:

the concept of "rights" as it was originally proposed by the Greeks had more to do with the fact that power ultimately can't control the behavior of individuals rather than the idea that "rights" are something granted by a piece of paper.

Yes. Madison was the one who fought hard for a Bill of Rights to be added to the Constitution, where others at the time questioned the need for a specific guarantee of certain rights. Because "power can't control the behavior of individuals" I think that Madison and others found it necessary to specifically state what rights were going to be recognized as organic and natural as a safeguard against government ever even thinking of attacking them.

Squeezer wrote:

quote:

If it offends society it's unconstutional.

On the other hand, embodying certain natural rights as the bedrock of a society invites a "catch 22" situation; living under these rights is an all-or-none deal and you can't be selective about whom they are applied to. For instance, you can't give everyone freedom of speech, but still hope that no one attacks these bedrock ideas themselves when they are fully entitled to.

This is where Traditionalism comes in, for better or for worse. I think that the main reason Traditionalism has become so entwined with political Conservatism is that Traditionalism is like a natural defense that Conservatism develops over time. Traditionalism seeks to preserve the paradigms that brought about the political ideals that Conservatives defend, even if it means contradicting the ideals themselves. This is, of course, extremely hypocritical.

America was born with this "Catch 22". The Founders were silent on slavery, though many of them opposed it in philosophy, if not in deed. They didn't do anything about it because they knew that addressing the issue would tear apart the country that they'd just struggled to bring into being. This, of course, is exactly what happened less than 100 years later in The Civil War, where the contradictions came up again as Lincoln violated the 10th Amendment to serve what he believed to be more important ideals.

Take the current political debate on stopping terrorism. We're trying to defend our Constitutional sytem by denying the very Rights embodied in that system to people whom we identify as suspect. In short, to protect the Constitution, you chip away at the Constitution.

"We're going to have to deny some people their Constitutional Rights."

"Why?"

"To protect their Constitutional Rights."

I wrote:

quote:

If it offends society it's unconstutional.

I should've written, If it offends society it's not protected.

Happy Bill of Rights Day

In 1941, President Roosevelt declared December 15 to be Bill of Rights Day, commemorating the 150th anniversary of the ratification of the Bill of Rights.

Gary K.

quote:

Originally posted by squeezer:
I wrote:

quote:

If it offends society it's unconstutional.

I should've written, If it offends society it's not protected.

Your point was taken Squeezer, and I recognized your intent and don't disagree at all.

The larger point I was making in response is that there is a tendency to defend traditionalism, when the arguments tend to be inarticulate, and often directly contradict the Constitution.

There has to be an explanation for this and I posit that there is an explanation, but when you try to defend Traditionalism, one's argument can break down quite quickly when it is put under the microscope. That's because Traditionalism isn't a microscopic phenomena, but a macroscopic, large scale phenomena. It's a kind of protective shell, a natural resistance, that seeks to preserve the environment that Constitutional ideas thrive in.

I sometimes listen to the talk show host Michael Savage. In fact, I enjoy him greatly, but I also realize that he's a bit of a nut and that he really has no Constitutional ground to stand on. In fact, he would destroy the Constitution entirely if it meant that his Tradition could thrive. Many millions of others recognize what he is talking about intuitively and that is why he is so popular. Savage has a deep and abiding love for the past and he desperately wants that past back. I don't blame him for his attraction; in my mind, life was better for most of us. At the same time, his arguments are emotional, not rational, and the past just isn't coming back.

Savage isn't really defending America or the ideas that formed it. Rather, he is defending a sense of Tradition and that sense of Tradition is really a protective shell that attempts to preserve a social environment in which Constitutional ideas thrive, rather than having any care about the Constitutional ideas themselves.

quote:

Originally posted by WinstonSmith:

quote:

Originally posted by squeezer:
I wrote:

quote:

If it offends society it's unconstutional.

I should've written, If it offends society it's not protected.

Your point was taken Squeezer, and I recognized your intent and don't disagree at all.

Yeah, you were correct in my intent. I was just correcting it because it was wrong.

Sometime I don't bother correcting my their/there/they're mistakes though. LOL

WinstonSmith: "...that sense of Tradition is really a protective shell that attempts to preserve a social environment in which Constitutional ideas thrive, rather than having any care about the Constitutional ideas themselves."

Bingo. Consider the experiment in which phony petitions were circulated that really just listed the first ten amendments of the Bill of Rights: most people do not recognize them, and will not sign a petition supporting their ratification.

Now, if you contrast the above with the fact that most people will sign phony petitions calling for government bans on dihydrogen monoxide (water), you'll get an idea why the Noble Experiment of Freedom has failed.

Robert Heinlein was right: most people fear and loathe their neighbors' freedom, and will stamp it out every time they are given the opportunity.