(A Baker’s Dozen: our rights)

How many times have you heard the claim “our rights are ‘given’ to us by the Constitution”? Or “government gives us our rights”?

We were recently told by a pundit of some sort that anyone who believes that our rights come from God is an evil “Christian nationalist” – racist, homophobic, hating anyone who disagrees with them. These same people also reject the claim that we “naturally” have certain rights as humans. (For those who are unsure of or do not believe in the Creator God.)

Clearly, we here at The Price of Liberty disagree with these claims.

As did those men who formulated the US Constitution – and the earlier document on which it is based. (The Declaration of Independence, of course.) And indeed, based those documents on (among other things) the principles found in the Bible: both the Tanakh (Old Testament) and the New Testament.

We note, indeed, that many of those who argued back and forth, and for, both the Declaration and the Constitution, freely admitted that. The Declaration states that certain rights are “unalienable” – that there is no moral or legitimate justification for taking those rights away from ANY human being.

Whether we prefer to speak of God-given rights (from “Nature’s God – the Creator) or “natural rights” (held by any sentient being based on physical law), the Constitution calls out certain rights as particularly important and therefore deserving of protection in creating a government.

(We here at TPOL point out that such an argument has many fallacies, centered around the idea that human, mandatory government is essential and inevitable.)

Usually, people concentrate on the Bill of Rights, both in the national and the State constitutions. But even before the Bill of Rights was adopted, the Constitution did not entirely ignore liberties: that is, rights.

For example, Congress is not allowed to restrict a person’s right to request a writ of habeas corpus. Congress is prohibited from passing acts of attainder or ex-post-defacto laws. That those accused of crimes by the Feds have a right to trial in the State where the crime was supposedly committed. And that officials cannot be held to a “religious test” – swearing allegiance to a particular denomination or sect.

The Bill of Rights, though, is the “go-to” for seeing what liberties, what rights, are specifically to be protected.

1. Right of freedom of expression (I)
2. Right to practice our religion (I)
3. Right to petition and appeal (I)
4. Right to keep (own) arms (weapons) (II)
5. Right to bear arms (II)
6. Right to have protection for us and our property – at least from government and its agents (III,IV,V)
7. Rights to due process before being deprived of life, liberty, or property (V)
8. Rights as a person accused of a crime to do certain things and not have certain things done (V,VI, VIII)
9. Right to not be inappropriately punished for a crime – so that the punishment fits the crime (VIII)
10. Rights to enjoy liberties (rights) not expressly stated in the Constitution (IX)
11. Right to have and enjoy powers not delegated to the FedGov (X)
12. Right to not be enslaved (involuntary servitude) except as punishment for a crime (XIII)
13. Right to be free from a State (or States) trying to take away our immunities or privileges stated in the Constitution (XIV)

These are rights that belong to people and not to groups or organizations or classes of people. These are rights given to individuals.

Of course, we can parse out many more rights recognized and protected by the Constitution beyond this Baker’s Dozen. You will see various numbers of “fundamental rights” guaranteed by the Constitution.

Sadly, incredibly sadly, there is no real enforcement mechanism in the Constitution for these rights, a point made by far more able people than us here at TPOL. Constitutionally at least, the only way to punish a government official for denying these rights is either the purely political process of impeachment and conviction or elections.

Even more sickening, the FedGov – Congress, Courts, and the Executive – have ignored or flat-out denied many of these “fundamental rights.” Two that are incredibly obvious are the provisions of the IX and X articles of the Bill of Rights.

Herein we have a great deal of controversy: what is among these implied rights? The Constitution is not a laundry list after all. Nor is it a compendium of word definitions. What is the “right to privacy?” What is the “right to work?” There are many others. It is simple to understand and agree that “freedom of the press and freedom of speech” means any sort of expression and any type of publication. But the details are often contentious.

Still other of the stated rights have been twisted in application or in the minds of too many people. Of this, Article II is the most obvious – recently denied completely by a Sta.te: because it is not in the Aloha spirit. But the same applies to others: for example a speedy trial by our peers. There are many more examples. The right of free expression today is being challenged loudly – using that very freedom to condemn it!

And there are other challenges – disgusting. For example, people today claim that these rights belong only to American citizens. While there are a few that the Constitution specifies are for citizens, most seem to apply to any human: regardless of their nationality, ethnic or “racial” background, immigration status, or anything. With the possible exception of being a convicted criminal being punished.

Why do we have many of these problems? Yes, there are faults in the original Constitution and only a few have been fixed over the years, even while others have been added. But the root cause seems to be a lack of accountability – real accountablity – for those in Congress, the White House, and the court system.

A matter which must be fixed.