Posted on 03/10/2011 2:05:10 PM PST by jda
You’re preaching to the choir. Try telling that to the DUmmies.
Having said that; many years ago, the first ten amendments to the constitution were nicknamed "The Bill of Rights."
So I have assumed that the constitution does indicate that we have more rights than just "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
The word used is Unalienable not Inalienable. Yet I hear and read people in the media use Inalienable more than Unalienable.
Do you or anyone else here know why that might be?
‘Tis “inalienable.”
As much as we like the idea that God gave us these “rights”, we must understand that the application and enjoyment of life, liberty, and being able to pursue happiness is done so only by His grace and mercy.
We are sinners, fallen creatures, deserving of His wrath and destruction. When these acts of grace and mercy by Him are taken for granted, even to the point of shaking a fist and demanding them, He has shown in the past that death, bondage, and misery are also His to bestow to us.
Likewise, so it is with any other so-called “rights” one may feel he is entitled too, such as, the ability to assemble together, collectively, and voice freely the desires of our hearts to our employers.
Old dog > new trick.
In the Revisionist Obama Declaration of Independence, everything they have ever wanted for 50 years of wet dreams is written in it. They just do not have it in print format. the Republican House of Representatives voted on the 61 Billion in Budget Cuts thus rendering it to be unfunded. Obama asked the Democrat Senate to seek a compromise and darn even the Democrats could get enough money saved to make up the difference to get it printed.
maybe obama will have to get the money from the Union. Thats Right he was waiting for the 14 WI Democrat Fleebaggers to stay away for quite awhile and he would got printed by their saving untold millions of disposable pocket change. Notice Obama has been silent about the Wisconsin Senate and Assembly Passage. - Tonight he is secretly crying and he may have destroyed the only copy of His Revisionist Obama declaration of Independence.
Who knows maybe he has downloaded it in TOTUS
Interesting points. I would suggest that Jefferson would not have flung off the three he did as mere examples, but as three which were so foundational to human freedom that not mentioning them would have rendered the Declaration fatally ambiguous.
Furthermore, an argument can be made that rights do not exist as an arbitrary “laundry list” but as an organic structure where some few rights are so basic they can be used to infer other, secondary rights, just as primary colors can be used to build all other colors.
Without explicitly doing the derivation, it seems fair to say that from these primary rights there flows a right to control one’s relationship with others, to the extent such relationships do not interfere with the rights of those others or third parties. Hence we do have a right to enter into contract and a corresponding duty to honor contract.
Furthermore, as a collective entity may be the construct of many individual “subcontracts,” we do have a right to act in the collective, providing individual rights are not involuntarily suppressed in the process.
Therefore, if a group agrees among themselves to “parley” with “management” through a chosen representative, there is nothing inherently wrong with that, and freedom of association is enshrined in the Constitution as a legitimate expression of that right. Indeed, one can argue that the Judeo-Christian theology which underpins Western culture could not exist without such a construct.
However, all agreements reached through such a process must be based on a true “meeting of the minds,” i.e., there must be a mutuality of consent, or there is no contract. In the case of a state, “management” consists of the chosen representative of the people at large, and state employees are typically a subset of the people. As such, they have no inherent right to bargain collectively for what injures the interests of the people, especially if the people are coerced into submission. Where there is undue coercion there is no meeting of the minds, and a contract is not formed.
This is why, IMHO, violence or the threat of violence, at the hands of state employees who, as you say, have exceptional power, negates the consent necessary for a contract to be valid, and any deal with the union that shreds the interests of the people on terms of force is a necessarily void contract, and the law should not recognize it.
Your assumption is correct. You should be at the head of the class here. Your rights from the creator are unlimited, including the right to make mistakes, including sins. The Constitution is a limit on government, not an endowment of your rights.
“Let’s Get Something Straight - Collective Bargaining is NOT a Right!!!”
It’s not an unalienable right, but there are other kinds of rights of which it may be one.
But then, you didn’t define “right” at all.
“Likewise, when a government-instituted privilege is taken away, remember that IT IS NOT RIGHT to have even received it in the first place, let alone to have enjoyed it for even one nanosecond...”
Do you mean to say that “the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury...” is a privilege, not a right (actually, a privilege is a sort of right by some definitions) and that it is not right to have even received “the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury...” in the first place?
I think your rant needs more work.
“There cannot be a right to something that has to be taken from another person.”
If your and I have a contract under which I pay you for an item and you refuse to give me the item or return the payment, I may have the right under the contract to take either the item or the payment from you.
Collective bargaining is not a God-given right, not an unalienable right, not a natural right, but it may be a legal right or a contract right or some other kind of right.
“A collective has no rights;”
That begs questions regarding “the right of the people peaceably to assemble”. Can an individual assemble alone? Are not “the people” as used here a collective with the right to do something that an individual can not do alone?
“The distinction is subtle but important because rights come from God and exist regardless of human government. “
Can you truthfully and honestly say that about the right to a trial by jury and the right to vote?
“Furthermore, although I tend to agree with Hamilton’s argument that a BoR was unnecessary - exactly those rights are also inalienable!”
Why do you think the right to a trial by jury is inalienable (or unalienable)?
Google (images) “Declaration of Independence” - you will see that the original document reads “unalienable.”
People have the right to assemble, but the assembly itself, as an entity, has no rights.
As for the right to trial by jury and the right to vote, I believe the philosophical underpinings of both, i.e. the right of liberty, make the particular expressions of that right unalienable.
I didn't ask about “the assembly itself, as an entity”.
I asked about people. I asked: “Can an individual assemble alone? Are not “the people” as used here a collective with the right to do something that an individual can not do alone?”
Responding to my own first question, I'd say that an individual assembling alone is a contradiction in terms and the answer to the question is “no”.
Responding to my own second question, I'd say that “the people” as used here is a collective term, (”people” is a collective noun). Further, “the people” as used here are a collective with the right to do something that one of the people (an individual) can not do alone.
That casts doubt on the assertion that “A collective has no rights;”.
“As for the right to trial by jury and the right to vote, I believe the philosophical underpinings of both, i.e. the right of liberty, make the particular expressions of that right unalienable.”
That too seems to respond to something I didn't ask but not to what I did ask which, rephrasing a little, was: Are you saying the right to a trial by jury and the right to vote come from God and exist regardless of human government?
Once again responding to my own question, I'd say that they come from God in so far as everything comes from God directly or derivatively. As to whether or not they exist regardless of human government, I'd say that the rights that come directly from God are what we call natural rights, those rights humans have in a state of nature absent an organized society. Once humans form more organized societies, with governments of whatever sort, they derive rights which do not exist in a state of nature, such as the right to a trial by jury or the right to vote. The existence of such rights depends on the nature and actions of the societies and governments humans decide to form.
You're tying yourself into knots. Your reason for tying yourself into knots is not apparent to me.
A person has the right to assemble with other people. The right emanates from a single person. That the individual right is exercised in concert with others doesn't all of a sudden transform the individual right into a collective right because a collective right emanates from a group of people that, were it not a group of people, would not have that right.
Do you think that people have the RIGHT TO WORK???????????
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.