Pet peeveThere is one thing that bothers me when people talk about "rights". Not the rights themselves but the where they come from.
You see I am a bit of a purist.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Now most people like to comment about rights and quote the constitution. I feel that is in error for many reasons. The constitution is not a rights giving document.
endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights
For me this is the most important line in the declaration of independence. It proclaims that we have rights. We have them because they are ours from birth and cannot be removed. We did not get them from the magna carta, we did not get them from any paper written by man. They are ours. I almost feel in life that politicians should have tattooed on the top of their hands the words "unalienable Rights" so they can be reminded of them. Gloves would suddenly come into fashion in Washington.
Now for many the word "creator" may be offensive if they are not religious, or polytheistic. Big deal. If you want creator to be nature, and evolution its process, then believe it and be happy, if you want "creator" to be a multi-armed deity who formed you from clay then be happy. But have the courtesy to not try to destroy something so important over a supposed slight.
Now this phrase seems to limit our rights on the surface. I'm not to sure about that mostly. My mom had a saying that I had all the right to swing my arms around, but the rights to swing my arms stopped at the end of your nose. At that part I was stepping into the area where you have the right to have a "pursuit of Happiness". Man cannot be happy if someone else feels his rights trump yours. So these unalienable Rights do have limits, and they should be self imposed.
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed
Now this is a point of contention for me. People argue about rights and they mention constitutional rights. For me there are no constitutional rights. Not one.
The constitution is the document that "instituted" our government. If you read the constitution it does not go into rights and such, what it does is define the range and limits of the new government they were organizing. The duties and responsibilities of the government are well defined. This is regretfully where so much confusion comes into play.
Many who were there to sign the constitution were worried, and rightfully so, that the constitutional government they were creating would take our rights away. They refused to sign it until certain amendments were added that listed certain rights that were never to be infringed. Historically that was an error on their part. Filtered through the decades people now have the bad habit of looking at the constitution as a rights giving documents because of the amendments. Something the constitution was never supposed to do and didn't.
If you read the amendments they are written telling the government what rights are never to be touched. The amendments are there to limit the government even more, not to give us a right.
I have always felt that the Amendments should not have been attached to the constitution but should have been a document of equal powers that existed alongside it. By hooking them together they opened the gates for the dilution of the ideals of freedom. Now the document that simply organizes our government and was supposed to be the leash to keep it under control has morphed into something it was not to be, a rights giving document.
The idea that rights and a constitutional government are one and the same bother me a lot. You hear people talk about their "constitutional rights" when in fact we have no liberties given by the constitution. What should be said is that we have "constitutionally protected rights", but they are not "constitutional rights.
So then we get to the most important section.
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government
So are we up to this point? I guess that is up to a persons individual breaking point. Our liberties have been diluted to the point that most people will allow a lot of infringement before they "break". For some the national ID card is the breaking point, for others they may wait until all parental rights are removed, "for the good of the children of course" before they start acting. What I have noticed is that there is more and more talk about that breaking point being seen on the horizon and people are worried.
The constitution is a good document, but for me the words that define freedom and why we enjoy them are all based in the declaration of independence.