Tim May wrote:
At 5:09 AM 5/14/96, Allen Ethridge wrote:
And on another thread, if rights are simply restrictions on the government and not attributes (inate, even) of the individual, then they are meaningless.
I presume you're speaking about my point....
Yes.
This is generally not the place to have long debates about the nature of government and of civil rights, . . .
Yes.
. . .
As nearly every argument in this area points out, your right to free speech does not mean you get to use my newspaper, nor my public address system, nor my computer service.
The so-called innate or intrinsic rights ("life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness") are basically bromides. Philosophical arguing points for a view of government as being limited in scope.
Converting a slogan like this to assume this means government will guarantee jobs for all, or will provide two cars in every driveway, or whatever, has been fraught with problems. Not the least of which are that such goals are inimical to the actual, enumerated rights.
Nice straw men, but not quite to the point. I was thinking more along the lines of the often overlooked 9th and 10th Amendments. And, as you mentioned in another post, I was discussing the way things should be, not the way they are. -- if not me, then who? mailto:ethridge@onramp.net http://rampages.onramp.net/~ethridge/