RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES

by James K. Sweeney
September 27, 2003

Americans assert numerous rights. We deem it our right to so assert and arrogate to ourselves that to which less fortunate peoples barely perceive much less aspire. Thus we have the right to freely speak without fear of the government; the right to privacy; the right to be left alone or to associate with people of our own choice, and onward ad infinitum. From whence do these rights come? What is the authority for them? Most Americans, I think, would likely respond: “The Constitution.”

I disagree.

Reading the Constitution is somewhat like rereading the Bible or re-reading Shakespeare. One is always struck by finding anew the source of some treasured aphorism. “A plague on both your houses” is not merely a classic political denunciation of Republicans and Democrats. So it is with “rights”.

On reading the Constitution or, alternatively, researching it as authority for one’s argument, legal or political, one finds the Constitution to be less the source of a power or right and more a proscribing of limiting rights. More typically, the Constitution proscribes the government’s authority to curtail the unalienable rights of persons subject to the Constitution’s jurisdiction.

For the source of a right, one should look to the Declaration of Independence. You find there the quintessential American mantra:

We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all
Men are created equal; that they are endowed by
their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that
among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness...

Thus, the Declaration of Independence is the document the Founding Fathers authored to spell out those “unalienable rights” now so dear and cherished by all Americans. Then the Founders wrote the Constitution so as to protect those rights from the ever voracious and seductively rapacious governmental encroachments. Note, for example, that the government may not limit free speech; people are free to say the most obnoxious things, even about the government. Try that in Cuba, China or Egypt. The Constitution is the protector of the people from the all powerful government, not the protector of the people from each other. Thus, many Americans currently are aghast at what is known as “The Patriot’s Act”, alleging its use grants powers to the government that are denied it by the Constitution and that the Act is an abrogation of government power as limited by the Constitution. Some use that as a basis to scream at Attorney-General John Ashcroft, an emblem of the Bush administration. Whatever; it’s their right.

In addition to the assertion of numerous rights, Americans enjoy numerous privileges. One of the most cherished and necessary is the right to a driver’s license. (It is a “license”; not a right.) Note the simple differences between the right to free speech which is virtually uncensorable and the privilege of driving your car which has many up front as well as continuing requirements. To first receive the driving privilege, a person must have attained a minimum age; have certain physical characteristics - vision, e.g. - and pass various driving tests. To maintain the license, drivers must reasonably obey driving rules of the road, have insurance and maintain required physical characteristics.

Rights, on the other hand, are not so conditioned. They simply are. Why? Consider the source. Read again the cited section of the Declaration of Independence.

We, the people, are endowed by our Creator with “certain unalienable rights”: Those rights cannot be taken from us by Man as they are not given us by Man. They are imprinted within us by our Creator, by God. And, by God, neither George W. Bush nor John Ashcroft is endowed with the authority to rend asunder that which is granted by God. Thus, is the truth of the statement that American law is informed by a Judeo-Christian heritage. You will not find the endowment of human rights expressed in any other religious heritage. The state may suspend your driver’s license but it cannot suspend life, liberty or the pursuit of happiness.

Accordingly, those voices raised in defense of the separation of Church and State should consider the ultimate result were Americans to fully embrace such a philosophy. Secularists bent on the exorcism of the Creator from the American heritage would do well to note that were that to happen, we could find ourselves in a thoroughly secular culture, one in which there were no unalienable rights, merely alienable privileges. All privileges are negotiable as to their conditions and all privileges are subject to rescission by the grantor of the privilege. On the other hand, God-given rights are never rescinded. If they are ignored, the people eventually rebel. Ask King George.

I do not trust “the government’, any government, at any level. It is made of men. Men are excessively fallible, callous, inflexible and constantly seeking more power to micro-manage the lives of other men. That is more or less true with some men as opposed to other men. Bush may be less prone to power over others than Ashcroft and both may be less prone than a left-leaning statist. But that is a matter of degree, not a matter of principle. For another favorite aphorism, remember that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. It is the Judeo-Christian notion of unalienable rights from God that keeps human rights from being extinguished by Man. Look long and hard in this world. Find a country whose citizens enjoy basic human rights Americans take for granted. Name one not based on Judeo-Christian tradition from the beginning, as with us, or imposed upon it, as with Japan. There are few, if any.

To those secularists out there, while getting what you wish for is frequently fun, sometimes, as here, it could become a nightmare. Be careful what you wish for.

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