"We Gotta Fight...for Our Right..."

In a high school history class, we watched excerpts of the movie Gettysburg and in one of the parts that we viewed a Union soldier asked a Confederate why they were fighting?  The Confederate responded that they were fighting for their "rats."  But what exactly are our "rats"?

The term "right" is thrown around way too often in our country given the fact that most people do not even know how a right should be defined.  Most people will claim that anything they want to do or anything they want to have is their right.  "I got a right to be here."  "I got a right to have X."  Nevertheless, they don't understand why those are their rights.

Now, in all fairness, many people may see my views on rights as extremely narrow, but they can write on their own blogs about their own feelings.  Besides, unless you use the description of rights that I will provide below, people would be stuck with very narrow distinctions and a continual debate about what is and what is not a right.

A right is something that a person has a right do as he or she sees fit, only subject to specific, reasonable limitations imposed on him or her by the governing body.  A right is not something that someone has to give you.  Take the right to free speech for example.  A person has a right to speak his or her mind, provided he is not being too profane or crude (some would argue this points) or doing something that harms the public like shouting "fire" without cause in a crowded movie theatre.  While a person has a right to speak, a person does not have a right to be heard.  There is no right for anyone to listen to or care about what you have to say.  Your rights are not dependent on the actions of others.  The government does not need to give you a soapbox; they simply cannot take yours away.

The right to a free press is the same.  Anyone has the right to publish a newspaper and report the news as the see fit.  While they cannot commit libel, they can write editorial after editorial criticizing every public official in the world.  They can do that, if they have the money they need to print a newspaper.  They have a right to print in a press, they do not have a write to be read or a right to have capital provided them by others so that they can operate a newspaper.

Rights are yours, if you choose.  A good way to define rights is by looking at what the government cannot do.  If it cannot stop you from speaking, you have a right to speak.  If it cannot prohibit you from watching TV, you have a right to watch TV.  If it cannot limit you wearing red and blue checkered shorts with a purple and green striped shirt, you have a right to do so.

You have a right to almost anything that you want, subject only to certain limitations by the government.  Which limitations are those?  Given our current constitutional jurisprudence, this is the problem.  When the Constitution was first drafted, there were primarily two groups: the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists.  (Many Conservatives, such as me, identify as Federalists, the Democrats/Liberals are definitely not Anti-Federalists).  The Anti-Federalists were very concerned about the strength of the Federal Government and worried that they would eventually lose their rights to its growth (how prophetic); they wanted a Bill of Rights that laid out some limitations as to what the Federal Government may and may not do.  The Federalists responded that such a bill was unnecessary because the entire premise behind the Constitution with regard to federal power was that there were limited, enumerated powers--if the Constitution didn't say the Federal Government could do something, they simply could not do it.  States or the people held all the other rights.  Hamilton said:

"I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and in the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed constitution, but would even be dangerous. They would contain various exceptions to powers which are not granted; and on this very account, would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do?"

Hamilton’s argument against the Bill of Rights is that they would eventually be a source by which the Federal Government could limit the rights of the people.  The Federal Government was originally intended to be quite small.  (As a side note, the Supreme Court held the Federal Government’s power in check until FDR threatened to increase the size of the court so that he could overrule the judges who struck down various proposals as part of the New Deal.  Much of the current debate over bailouts and such might not be happening where it not for the unconstitutional expansion of Federal Power that has taken place since that time.)

If there were to be only specific limitations on the powers of Congress and the Federal Government, what about the states?  The powers of the states were not to be constrained by the Constitution.  A state would have the right to do whatever powers its people granted it in its state constitution.  The states would also be subject to those limitations imposed upon them by the people.  The people could amend and debate about their own state’s powers.  Ultimately, as a union of states, if people in a given state were unhappy with the nature of the state government and power, they were free to move to another state.  This was perhaps the greatest virtue of Federalism.

So, why am I explaining all of this?  I am explaining all of this because of things like this:

While these people’s arguments may be ideal and sound so great, they are simply wrong.  I do believe that people do have a right to health care, but that DOES NOT mean that someone has to provide you with health care.  It means that, to the extent that you are able to take advantage of that right, the government will not prohibit you from accessing the health care that you desire.

Welfare is also not a right.  If you have a right to money from the government, then you would have that same right without the government (the government does not grant rights, it is only prohibited from taking them away).  If you would have a right to that money absent the government, then you would have a right to take that same money directly from the taxpayers, were there no tax.  In other words, you would have a right to steal the money of another.  That is why rights cannot be given by the government.  The idea of “Welfare Rights” is a compete oxymoron.

You have a right to a nice home, to feed your family, to access health care, to have transportation, to educate your children, if you are able to take advantage of these rights.  You do not have the right to have these given to you.  If the government (ignoring any constitutional limitations on the federal government) chooses to give you those things, it can.  And if it chooses to take them away, it can.  If you have a right to feed your family and you think that it means you have a right to food stamps, you are essentially arguing that the government is prohibited from taking them away.  While you may argue that they should not, you cannot seriously argue that they cannot take away something that they put in place in the first place.

At any rate, some people will think I am crazy and others will agree with me (in reality nobody will really read this).  In short, rights are NEVER granted by another, not even the government.  Like Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence:

"that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights...”