Posted on 09/10/2009 3:49:07 PM PDT by khnyny
You owe your life — and everything else — to the sovereign. The rights of subjects are not natural rights, but merely grants from the sovereign. There is no right even to complain about the actions of the sovereign, except insofar as the sovereign allows the subject to complain. These are the principles of unlimited, arbitrary, and absolute power, the principles of such rulers as Louis XIV. Intellectuals have assiduously promoted them; think of Jean Bodin and Thomas Hobbes.
A new intellectual champion of absolutism has now emerged. Mild-mannered University of Chicago law professor Cass Sunstein has been advancing the radical notion that all rights — including rights usually held to be "against" the state, such as the right to freedom of speech and the right not to be arbitrarily imprisoned or tortured — are grants from the state. In a book co-authored with Stephen Holmes, The Cost of Rights, he argued that "all legal rights are, or aspire to be, welfare rights," that is, positive grants from the state. There is no difference in kind between the right not to be tortured and the right to taxpayer-subsidized dental care.
In his new book, The Second Bill of Rights, Sunstein seeks to give constitutional status to welfare rights. The title comes from Franklin Roosevelt's 1944 State of the Union address, in which he proclaimed that "necessitous men are not free men" and proposed a "second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all." Among the rights FDR proposed were the rights to "a useful and remunerative job," "a decent home," "adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health," "adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment," and "a good education."
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
Not only no, but HELL NO!
A favorite quote of mine:
“The free man owns himself. He can damage himself with either eating or drinking; he can ruin himself with gambling. If he does he is certainly a damn fool, and he might possibly be a damned soul; but if he may not, he is mo more a free man than a dog is.” - G.K. Chesterton
What a wonderful choice the President has made. One of the most brilliant men in the world is going to save us all and create a new system whereby we will live in a utopia never seen before on the face of the earth.
Oh JOY!!!
/S/
IMHO
Thank goodness we have Cass to enlighten us.
/sarc
- Cass Sunstein
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cass_Sunstein
He specifically also thinks that the internet is dangerous because it permits only SIMILAR people to exchange w/one another, ergo democracy is ILL SERVED.
He introduces in one of his books the idea of “Cascading threshold” —that’s where people (by hanging out with similar people) see some unsupported (or even ridiculous) idea (like low taxes encourages prosperity) sooo often that they simply reflexively believe it.
He also once called himself something like, a “choice facilitator” —kinda like when your mother told you you’d eat broccoli....or BROCCOLI.
See? Your meal choices were transformed from confusing (ice cream, PB&J) to crystal clear.
The pedigree of this moral monster’s ideas is a guarantee of the gulag, the mass grave and the gallows.
That’s where we’re headed unless we fight and win the next American Civil War.
“Why should we be governed by people long dead? ... In any case, the group that ratified the Constitution included just a small subset of the society; it excluded all women, the vast majority of African Americans, many of those without property, and numerous others who were not permitted to vote.” Cass Sunstein quote
“As a matter of history, the Fourteenth Amendment was not understood to ban segregation on the basis of race.” Cass Sunstein quote
“The impeachment provision is for truly egregious wrongdoing, and we shouldn't repeat the unconstitutional impeachment of President Clinton.” Cass Sunstein quote
“If you can kill them, why can't you spy on them?” Cass Sunstein quote
That is just f***ing SICK! No liberty without dependency???
Natural or Unalienable rights were not Jefferson’s idea. We can especially thank John Locke and Saint Thomas Aquinas.
BUT, Jefferson and the other founders and framers were the first to put the theory into practice. If not miracles, our Declaration and Constitution were close.
"Where do Rights come from?"
If they can't get that one correct, then they can't protect and defend the Constitution as required by their oath of office.
Cass Sunstein FAILS.
There is no freedom without government slavery? WT....???
Washington needs an overhaul - and fast!
Yes. We could. It's what our founding father tried to give us. Later, the politicians got power hungry and ruined it for everyone.
Is Cass short for Cassius? That would be fitting: named after a Roman traitor, and a traitor to his own species.
BZZZZZZ!
Out-of-context alert!
Let's see the WHOLE thing, shall we?
There, I fixed it.
War is peace
Freedom is slavery
There is no liberty without dependency
Reminds me of my previous tagline:
0bummer uses Orwell's "1984" as a "How To" guide.
Normally, when someone says something as Orwellian as that, they're being sarcastic/satirical.
Not in this case.
Today, concerns are that he is being prepped by the left for the Supreme Court
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