Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual).
Ayn Rand
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22 comments:
Someone, anyone, PUHLLLEESSSEEEE send this to Barrie Tilghman and her minions.
Nevermind, they read this blog daily.
What does that say about my right to marry the person I choose? Gun rights, marriage rights, abortion rights. Individual rights sounds great, until you get into the details.
So you are saying that NAMBLA (North American Man Boy Love Association) has the right as a minority to freely express its views of child rape on the internet and instructs others on how to commit these crimes; which is now protected by the Constitution with thanks to the ACLU. We don’t have to right ban them from public expression to protect the pubic for the greater good?
the individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. if you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. but no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.
friedrich nietzsche.
Yes, you should pay attention to it, particularly when you decide to bad mouth Obama for standing up for the rights of minority groups (such as Muslims).
Not deep enough....does the majority have the right to decide what the rights are, then protect these rights for all, or does every indivudual have the right to do whatever the hell he or she wants?
For a democracy or republic to function it must follow the advice of Jefferson. "The will of the majority is to be followed, but that will must be fair to minorities." That's why we have a constitution and Supreme Court...although the Supreme Court does, at times, appear to be nothing more than a partisan hammer for which ever party's appointees hold the majority
of it members.
Federalist Papers!
Actually, this one is not deep at all. Majorities rarely need protecting. (Think about it, we don't need a first amendment for popular ideas, just the unpopular ones.) Rights cannot be voted away as they are not conferred by government, but rather "endowed by [our]creator" as Thomas Jefferson so eloquently put it. The US Constitution was profound at its inception as it contained a "Bill of Rights" telling government what it CANNOT do. This, not religion, is our most sacred national heritage. Sadly, in these anxious times, our government is chipping away at these blood-bought rights in the name of national security. If it is sucessful, the terrorists have won.
This is a quote that the Three Stooges of the Salisbury City Council could never comprehend.
Anon 11:13 -- There's a difference between protecting the rights of minorities so that they are not harmed by the majority and protecting a group that harms children. No one has a "right" to harm children.
Anon 12:28 is right! Read The Federalist Papers. #10 by James Madison discusses "factions". One of the prices we pay for creating our Republic is that that factions will exist. It's a function of liberty. Liberty is to factions as oxygen is to fire. Fire can be good or bad, depending on how it's used. The only way to totally eliminate the risk of is to get rid of oxygen.....which would not enhance our ability to breathe.
The only way to totally eliminate the factions would be to eliminate liberty. Tough choice, huh?
ooops.....Mason, not Madison. Guess I'm still hooked on the HBO miniseries.
Anon:11:12
If you own a gun and use it in self defense, why should the government be involved? If you go on a shooting spree, then we have the laws in place already to take care of you.
If you want to marry a tree, it is none of the governments business.
If you want to have an abortion it should not only be the guilt of killing someone you should bare on your own shoulders but the cost of doing so also. No one should be made to pay through their taxes for an act of killing another human being.
Anon11:13
NAMBLA is an abomination. And I totally disagree with what they say, what they do and how they recruite, however, if we are going to limit their right to free speech, then we are also going to limit the right to our own free speech.
The internet is just like a city. There are street with Churches and great organizations, and there are also streets with Nude Dancers, Prostitutes and Drug Dealers. As parents we tell our children don't go down these streets and here is why. We must do the same thing with the internet. We must take responsibility for ourselves and our children. It is not for the government to do. If we ask for that we will be giving away a whole lot more than we are gaining.
If we take the Constitution and the Declaration of Independance and adhere to it, we would see that it is written to the individual and ones individual freedoms.
Minorities are not the same as individuals.
It is the government that factionalizes minorities, not the individual.
When you give a minority special treatment, then the majority comes to resent the minority and the minority comes to expect special treatment.
The greatest perpetrator of racism is your governments not your individuals.
Wymzie--
Constitutionally guaranteed rights are not "special treatment." They are granted to ALL. Historically, however, some minorities have had to fight to ensure the SAME rights for themselves such as voting,and now, perhaps, marriage; just to name two.
Dear wymzie,
In your original post you gave a quote from Ayn Rand that you seemed to hold as some deep truth, much like the Ark of the Covenant, too sacred to be touched. "and the smallest minority is the individual."
Now, in your comment, you say, minorities are not the same as individuals." Which is it? Was Ayn
Rand wrong in her "deep" opinion concerning the nature of minorities?
While I may seem rude, at least I'm paying attention to what is written:)
I believe in her quote she is referring to individual rights being so sacred as to not legislate against them in any form. She uses the word minority as an metaphor of the epitome of the individual.
No, I don't think that because the majority votes for something makes it right.
Anything that impedes individual liberty that is wrong. As long as the individual exercising his liberty is acting with integrity and forthrightness.
I am personally pro-life, yet my taxes go to pay for abortions.
Pregnant women who can't pay for their abortions are a minority, yet government has mandated that money be set aside to pay for this dis-service out of the public coffers.
That's a big problem. In a society, the majority must decide what is right and moral, at least as far as the government becoming involved. I don't like abortion either, but I don't mind people aborting babies they don't want and won't care for. Our tax dollars are either going to pay for abortion or to raise these unwanted children. In many of these cases of unwanted, uncared for children,our tax dollars will pay a huge price in crime and jail for these neglected, abused kids. Tax dollars for abortion is MUCH cheaper.
There are no easy or absolute solutions to freedom.
The majority must decide what is moral. Some individuals have no moral problem with having sex with little children or animals or marrying trees. Are these individual minorities to be free to do anything as long as they don't think it's wrong? I think not.
Government, government interference and rules set by the majority are a necessary infringement on freedoms that do and should have limits.
Although in a democracy, the majority rules, our founding fathers were very concerned about what they called "the tyranny of the majority" trampling minority interests. Henceforth, our government was not designed as a pure democracy, but rather, as a republic--a representative democracy manifested in our bicameral legislature,the electoral college, the independent judiciary and the executive veto; all checks on majority rule.
All that is true enough, but if the majority large enough, the will of the overwhelming majority trumps all those checks in the form of constitutional amendment.
This over rules the executive branch&the Supreme Court. Once the will of the overwhelming majority becomes part of the constitution, all offices are sworn to protect and defend the constitution.
We don't see many constitutional amendments because there are usually strong numbers on both sides of seriously considered issues.
One brilliant example of an increasingly enlightend majority using constitutional amendment to reverse the Founding Fathers, former laws and the Supreme Court is article XIII, placing a constitutional ban on slavery.
The Supreme Court had ruled in the Scott case, "Congress has no power to abolish or prevent slavery in any of its territories."
Congress shut the Supreme Court down on this issue with article XIII.
After it became a clear part of our constitution, the Supreme Court had no choice but to uphold the new part of the constitution!
Our constitution was not intended to be and should never be a finished product.
To Anon 11:04--Anon 9:38 here. I agree with all you mentioned. While I mentioned the checks, you completed the picture with the balances, namely the process. The Constitution was never intended to be a finite instrument. In fact, it is deliberately vague. Most of its key rights ("due process of law," "illegal search and seizure," "speedy trial," "cruel and unusual punishment," etc.) are guaranteed, but not DEFINED. (As in , what is a "speedy trial?" Six weeks or six years??). It has been the courts' role to define these concepts, and the definitions have definitely changed with the culture, usually for the better. This is why our benchmark constitution has endured. It is flexible. This flexibility, of course, is aided by the amendment process which you so adequately illustrate. Of course, amendments should be difficult so the constitution does twist in the political winds. I have to laugh when I hear a politican refer to himself as a "strict constructionist," as there really can be no such thing.
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