A right is a prohibition against government agents. We have a right to life. The government cannot take our lives without due process. We have a right to liberty. The government cannot compel us (in most cases) to choose against our will.
A government that fails to help us protect our rights is not legitimate and must be replaced with a government better suited to us. A government's failure to defend our rights does not alter the nature of the right itself. I have a right to life. If the government acts against my right to life without due process I have the right to defend myself.
Call your state legislators and insist they approve the Article V convention of States to propose amendments.
I pledge allegiance to the Constitution as written and understood by this nation's founders, and to the Republic it created, an indivisible union of sovereign States, with liberty and justice for all.
Call your state legislators and insist they approve the Article V convention of States to propose amendments.
I pledge allegiance to the Constitution as written and understood by this nation's founders, and to the Republic it created, an indivisible union of sovereign States, with liberty and justice for all.
Call your state legislators and insist they approve the Article V convention of States to propose amendments.
I pledge allegiance to the Constitution as written and understood by this nation's founders, and to the Republic it created, an indivisible union of sovereign States, with liberty and justice for all.
Call your state legislators and insist they approve the Article V convention of States to propose amendments.
I pledge allegiance to the Constitution as written and understood by this nation's founders, and to the Republic it created, an indivisible union of sovereign States, with liberty and justice for all.
We have the right to defend ourselves and our property. We create governments to help us defend our right to life and liberty.
I see that when we band together to form governments we do not act alone. Each of us gives up a little liberty in return for a little security. Forming a government has nothing to do with our rights. Forming a government is a means to help us each defend our rights.
Call your state legislators and insist they approve the Article V convention of States to propose amendments.
I pledge allegiance to the Constitution as written and understood by this nation's founders, and to the Republic it created, an indivisible union of sovereign States, with liberty and justice for all.
It seems to me that the right of ownership is far more primal than reason. Notice how defensive some animals can get when you try to take their food away. If I feel strongly that I have a certain claim to something, like my liberty, I will feel dismayed and angry when it is taken from me. The deepest part of my being will object to the violation. If it didn't, incarceration would not be a punishment.
So when it comes to at least one right, liberty, I'm going to claim that it rests on metaphysical ground rather than rational. Whatever machinations of God and/or billions of years of evolution and trillions of deaths and births it took to get me here, WHY the entire fabric of my being objects to the violation of my liberty is ultimately a mystery. It is a mysterious reality, but a reality nonetheless.
When I recognize my claim to liberty, I also recognize that you are equally entitled to the same claim, and that we therefore have mutual obligations to each other, namely, to not impinge on each others' liberty. Rights and obligations always seem to go hand-in-hand.
Last edited by Marcus Aurelius; 01-16-2019 at 04:27 PM.