James Donald said... In my judgement, America is reasonably free despite having a bill of rights, rather than because of a bill of rights.
This is a point that is difficult to get across to people, but is indeed important and applicable to rampant law-passing today. I explain to people that _before_ the Bill of Rights, the Constitution of the United States placed the federal government in a very small box. The rights of people were not discussed; this was a document to limit government, not legislate rights. The rights of people are preassumed. The Bill of Rights "undid" this a little (lot) by putting the peoples' rights into a box (maybe a somewhat roomy box, but a box none-the-less). Thus we get ridiculous statements like, "The Constitution does not grant you the right to..." (Rights of people are preassumed ("endowed").) We ought all be saying, "The Constitution does not grant federal gov't the power to..." The "Creator" grants rights; the Constitution limits federal government. Another analogy draws on computer science (mathematics). In computer science an "enumerated type" is much more restrictrive than an unbounded data type. Consider the Bill of Rights an attempt to enumerate the rights of people.