The Bill Of Rights For Your Pleasure

The Bill Of Rights For Your Pleasure

1. The right to freedom of speech, religion and press.
2. The right to keep and bear arms.
3. The right to refuse quarters to soldiers.
4. Freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures.
5. The right to due process under the law Freedom from self-incrimination, and double jeopardy.
6. The right to a speedy trial.
7. The right to a jury trial in civil cases.
8. Freedom from excessive bail, and cruel and unusual punishment.
9. Other rights of the government enumerated in the Constitution, shall not be construed to deny or disparage
others retained by the people.
10. All powers not explicitly given the federal government revert to the states.

These are, of course, the first ten amendments to the Constitution, often referred to as the Bill Of Rights of The United States Of America. Some of the framers of the Constitution believed that the document itself spelled these things out clearly enough in the seven Articles of the body, but there were others, more skeptical suspicious of a creeping power hungry bureaucracy, who insisted on an explicit addition of the things they thought fundamental to insure liberty to its citizens, and prosperity to the nation.

Look down through them again. It’s an admirable list of just about everything a free person could ask for when coupled with the body of the document. Most state Constitutions are similar. These are the rights that each of us has just for being alive and resident in the United States of America and none of them costs anyone a single dime. My right to speak freely costs you nothing, just as yours costs me nothing. That is not to say that freedom is free. There are times when these rights must be defended, sometimes by the force of arms, but this is something we do together, a gift that we give to one another and to our children.

But now there is talk of adding to the list, of making “healthcare” for every single resident of the nation a “right”. Of course this is just the compassionate bleat du jour. We also hear of free college as a right. A right to a job. A right to “affordable” housing. A right to a dignified minimum level of income. But today the call is for a right to healthcare because people are particularly tuned into it at the moment and easily misled. The details of the system are easily concealed from an ill-informed public by a left leaning media establishment. But I digress.

The point that I had meant to make was that none of the original “Rights” costs anyone anything. It doesn’t cost the government and/or my fellow citizens a penny to supply me with my freedom to speak or any other of the freedoms listed. But if healthcare, or college, or housing, or good tasting water, or income are considered to be my right which must be guaranteed by the government then the government is obligated to forcefully take the money from my fellow citizens to provide it to me.

Look away from the cost of Medicare for all as a right for just a moment and think about the implication. Is it the government’s responsibility to provide for a person’s birth, sustenance, education, employment, and retirement? And will the cost and tax structure be so high and restrictive that it disincentivizes achievement? Can we afford to discourage accomplishment?

And how will these things become Rights? In the recent past, and in a present that nearly became reality, it may have been possible for proponents to have argued in front of a sympathetic Supreme Court that this was the essence of America and they may have gotten a ruling that “yes, this comports with the Commerce Clause”. They may have made it the law of the land out of thin air with no heed to the language of the Constitution as they have other things, but this scenario seems unlikely at present, and for a few decades into the future. Now, the matters will require Constitutional amendments that will not be forthcoming, or they will have to be legislated, and they simply will not be. Experienced legislators know this. There just isn’t the money, even if the rich are butchered as the Kulaks were in the Soviet Union and their possessions and "wealth" confiscated.

So what you see today in the call for new Rights isn’t about new rights, it’s about expanding the size and scope of government.

But that’s just what an average guy thinks.