Tuesday, July 19, 2005
Constitutional Lesson Plan
Regular blogging has been suspended since we are hearing that a new nominee is about to be named and because Senator Byrd has made it a new law that the U.S. Constitution be taught in schools and to federal government employees. Therefore, I thought it would be valuable to have a lesson a day about one of the most important political documents ever written until we hear who the nominee turns out to be.
Lesson 1: Our Constitution is one of liberty or negative rights.
The rights contained in our Constitution derive directly from the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson wrote that we are "endowed with by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."
Jefferson did not believe that these rights were guaranteed. And notice that he did not mention specific rights like the right to food, employment, marriage, and healthcare.
The Founders wanted our government to one of limited powers that would allow each American to have the ability to reach their fullest potential. They understood that a guarantee of a right to money or goods would mean that these would have to come from someone else. This is why the rights we have under our Constitution are called freedom or negative rights. We have the right to do what we want as long as we don't harm others (that's why we use the term negative.) Alternatively, a positive or welfare right is exactly what the words imply. We would have an explicit right to take from others for our own benefit. The Founders were against positive rights after their experience with the British and after reading the political philosophy of John Locke.
PermaLink | 6:42 AM |
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Lesson 1: Our Constitution is one of liberty or negative rights.
The rights contained in our Constitution derive directly from the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson wrote that we are "endowed with by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."
Jefferson did not believe that these rights were guaranteed. And notice that he did not mention specific rights like the right to food, employment, marriage, and healthcare.
The Founders wanted our government to one of limited powers that would allow each American to have the ability to reach their fullest potential. They understood that a guarantee of a right to money or goods would mean that these would have to come from someone else. This is why the rights we have under our Constitution are called freedom or negative rights. We have the right to do what we want as long as we don't harm others (that's why we use the term negative.) Alternatively, a positive or welfare right is exactly what the words imply. We would have an explicit right to take from others for our own benefit. The Founders were against positive rights after their experience with the British and after reading the political philosophy of John Locke.
PermaLink | 6:42 AM |
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