U.S. Constitution
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Title: What Is a Right?
Source:
Lew Rockwell
URL Source: http://www.lewrockwell.com/napolitano/napolitano12.1.html
Published: Dec 9, 2009
Author: Andrew P. Napolitano
Post Date: 2011-05-13 08:59:35 by A K A Stone
Keywords: None
Views: 51416
Comments: 68
In the continually harsh public discourse over the President's proposals for federally-managed healthcare, the Big Government progressives in both the Democratic and the Republican parties have been trying to trick us. These folks, who really want the government to care for us from cradle to grave, have been promoting the idea that health care is a right. In promoting that false premise, they have succeeded in moving the debate from WHETHER the feds should micro-manage health care to HOW the feds should micro-manage health care. This is a false premise, and we should reject it. Health care is not a right; it is a good, like food, like shelter, and like clothing. What is a right? A right is a gift from God that extends from our humanity. Thinkers from St. Thomas Aquinas, to Thomas Jefferson, to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to Pope John Paul II have all argued that our rights are a natural part of our humanity. We own our bodies, thus we own the gifts that emanate from our bodies. So, our right to life, our right to develop our personalities, our right to think as we wish, to say what we think, to publish what we say, our right to worship or not worship, our right to travel, to defend ourselves, to use our own property as we see fit, our right to due process — fairness — from the government, and our right to be left alone, are all rights that stem from our humanity. These are natural rights that we are born with. The government doesn't give them to us and the government doesn't pay for them and the government can't take them away, unless a jury finds that we have violated someone else's rights. What is a good? A good is something we want or need. In a sense, it is the opposite of a right. We have our rights from birth, but we need our parents when we are children and we need ourselves as adults to purchase the goods we require for existence. So, food is a good, shelter is a good, clothing is a good, education is a good, a car is a good, legal representation is a good, working out at a gym is a good, and access to health care is a good. Does the government give us goods? Well, sometimes it takes money from some of us and gives that money to others. You can call that taxation or you can call it theft; but you cannot call it a right. If you like this site, please help keep it going and growing. A right stems from our humanity. A good is something you buy or someone else buys for you. Now, when you look at health care for what it is, when you look at the US Constitution, when you look at the history of human freedom, when you accept the American value of the primacy of the individual over the fleeting wishes of the government, it becomes apparent that those who claim that healthcare is a right simply want to extend a form of government welfare. When I make this argument to my Big Government friends, they come back at me with…well, if people don't have health insurance, they will just go to hospitals and we will end up paying for them anyway. Why should that be? We don't let people steal food from a supermarket or an apartment from a landlord or clothing from a local shop. Why do we let them take healthcare from a hospital without paying for it? Well, my Big Government friends contend, that's charity. They are wrong again. It is impossible to be charitable with someone else's money. Charity comes from your own heart, not from the government spending your money. When we pay our taxes to the government and it gives that money away, that's not charity, that's welfare. When the government takes more from us than it needs to secure our freedoms, so it can have money to give away, that's not charity, that's theft. And when the government forces hospitals to provide free health care to those who can't or won't care for themselves, that's not charity, that's slavery. That's why we now have constitutional chaos, because the government steals and enslaves, and we outlawed that a long time ago.
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#1. To: A K A Stone (#0)
You can't find this in the Bible. A right exists because we all agree it should exist. Society creates them as we see fit, and gets rid of them as it benefits us all.
------------------------------------- You're mixing privileges with rights.
That's the word I was looking for: privileges. Same thing.
------------------------------------- Privelages aren't rights. Rights are something you are born with. Like the right to breathe. A privelage is something created by man that you wouldn't naturally have. Like calling 911.
No, you only have them because everyone agrees you have them, you aren't born with them.
------------------------------------- Exactly. Instructive to note he confuses the two. NOt surprising, just instructive.
Proxy IP's are amusing.....lmao
Typical bullshit post from you. Trying to make it sound like you know something without saying anything. Putz.
------------------------------------- That Old Testament God? Really? Because he put people to death for their right to worship other gods.....
"Keep Your Goddamn Government Hands Off My Medicare!" - Various Tea Party signs.
Even the New Testament says if someone steals your coat give them your shirt, or something like that. So much for property rights.
------------------------------------- I find those that talk about "god given rights" do so disingenuously because it is an attempt to insert Christian Dominion politics into the conversation and these Christian Dominionists actually want to restrict or eliminate rights, like abortion, etc.
"Keep Your Goddamn Government Hands Off My Medicare!" - Various Tea Party signs.
A right is the sovereignty to act without the permission of others. The concept of a right carries with it an implicit, unstated footnote: you may exercise your rights as long as you do not violate the same rights of another—within this context, rights are an absolute. - Fulton Huxtable
war has to do something for entertainment. The voices in his head aren't speaking to him and his imaginary friends have found reasons not to come over anymore.
The only people the OT God really punished were his chosen people, the Jews. As long as you weren't Jewish you had nothing to worry about from him. As far as worshiping other gods, the commandment is "Thou shall have no other god before me", not "Thou shall have no other gods at all".
Wrong. The OT God ordered genocide and rape of neighboring tribes and if you accept the tales in Genesis he wiped out two cities and then a whole planet of people just because they carried out their "god given" right to not believe in him.....
"Keep Your Goddamn Government Hands Off My Medicare!" - Various Tea Party signs.
I believe the cities were Jewish. As far as killing every single thing on earth, you do have a good point. You'd think he would have taken some responsibility for creating such a flawed product. After that, though, it was all downhill for the Jews as God sided again and again with the pagans against them.
I don't mind God killing the humans off - but why drown all the land animals along with the humans. I mean the animals were not doing anything wrong and they were drowned - all except the sea dwelling mammals and the fishes and the birds. The rest were screwed. Oh, wait, I am thinking like a person from the 21st century would think and not from the distant Bronze age....
"Keep Your Goddamn Government Hands Off My Medicare!" - Various Tea Party signs.
Worst of all, he killed off the dinosaurs. I'm still trying to figure out where all the water came from to cover the planet with something like a five mile high ocean. Then there's the question of where did it go.
God's tears,
"Keep Your Goddamn Government Hands Off My Medicare!" - Various Tea Party signs.
Yeah, they would have been happy to get rid of all those dinosaurs.
"http://first-draft-blog.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c5ced53ef0148c7a28c4b970c-320wi"
I heard it created the Grand Canyon, complete with all the strata. Maybe He put it back at the poles in the form of ice.
"http://first-draft-blog.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c5ced53ef0148c7a28c4b970c-320wi"
There is no mention of an ice age in the OT either.
"Keep Your Goddamn Government Hands Off My Medicare!" - Various Tea Party signs.
To do that, it all had to be flowing down to a lower elevation. Maybe it all went into the center of the earth, and all this talk of an iron core is just godless commie propaganda.
Very well stated. Bravo!
Jesus talks about how one's slaves should be treated so I guess we have the right to own some or maybe it was a privilege to be one? Who knows?
"http://first-draft-blog.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c5ced53ef0148c7a28c4b970c-320wi"
Only a dumb ass would say abortion is a right. If abortion is a right. Then I have a right to saw your nose off and feed it to my fish. Then I would also have a right to cut your tongue out and sew your mouth shut. It is/would be my right to do that.
You can't find this in the Bible. You will find it in my bible... both editions. Tag lines are gay.
I guess you don't really have that right then do you. God killed the bad people and he also had the Jews do it for him.
So God is against the US constitution's Bill Of Rights.
"Keep Your Goddamn Government Hands Off My Medicare!" - Various Tea Party signs.
It is a right as defined by Roe V Wade.
"Keep Your Goddamn Government Hands Off My Medicare!" - Various Tea Party signs.
I would say so. The constitution isn't perfect.
Well I took an oath to defend the constitution against enemies foreign and domestic and I guess according to you that means God is America's enemy. God must be Muslim then.
"Keep Your Goddamn Government Hands Off My Medicare!" - Various Tea Party signs.
I can't wait until it becomes perfect and we are allowed to own other humans again.
"http://first-draft-blog.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c5ced53ef0148c7a28c4b970c-320wi"
You lefties are such dilettantes. Please, keep commenting.
war has to do something for entertainment. The voices in his head aren't speaking to him and his imaginary friends have found reasons not to come over anymore.
Tell me where in the Bible it says you shouldn't own slaves. Oh Grandiose One.
"http://first-draft-blog.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c5ced53ef0148c7a28c4b970c-320wi"
Government granted "privileges" are privileges to violate the natural rights of others. There isn't a single thing that governments do that don't violate someone's rights. Not a single thing, because at some level everything the government does is based on force. Most of the time, government actions violate a whole bunch of people's rights. The people who believe in limited government have concluded that government is necessary to do one thing: protect our life and liberty against threats domestically and from abroad. The people who believe that there shouldn't be any government at all have concluded that the entire notion of keeping government limited is a fantasy, because governments always grow like a cancer in society. Both of them are correct. Jefferson knew that government's would stay limited for long. He told us very clearly how to deal with this fact: What country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms... The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. It is it's natural manure... God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. Jefferson was the ultimate pragmatist. A.) Implement limited government. B.) When it invariably gets out out of hand, kill the politicians. C.) Repeat this process forever. Americas are too fat and lazy to get it. That's why we are in so much trouble.
Definition of DILETTANTE Maybe you meant to use another word?
At least you outed where your priorities are. You are a liberal, so by definition lazy. Now you want to own someone. The constitution was never and shall never be perfect.
You are a liberal. You are the antithesis of the constitution. You're not fooling anyone.
That other book a lot of people call the bible doesn't have it. That's the one I meant. I don't care about your bible.
------------------------------------- I tried to read all that. I don't see why you posted it to me though.
------------------------------------- No. Definition no. 2 applies to you shallow lefties. The definition is right there and you still miss it. Get an education.
war has to do something for entertainment. The voices in his head aren't speaking to him and his imaginary friends have found reasons not to come over anymore.
I guess that makes me closer to God than you, since the Bible does not expressely forbid the owning of slaves. In fact it makes the assumption that it is a normal and widespread practice and contains quidelines on how to treat them. I would treat them accordingly.
"http://first-draft-blog.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c5ced53ef0148c7a28c4b970c-320wi"
How does it apply to the post you applied it to?
Once more, in English.
war has to do something for entertainment. The voices in his head aren't speaking to him and his imaginary friends have found reasons not to come over anymore.
So God is a liberal because you just claimed he is against the Bill of Rights in the Constitution.
"Keep Your Goddamn Government Hands Off My Medicare!" - Various Tea Party signs.
In your comic book world is everything either or?
Rek: I can't wait until it becomes perfect and we are allowed to own other humans again. You: You lefties are such dilettantes. Me: Definition of DILETTANTE Me, again: So what in Rek's posts makes definition 2 of dilettante apply? BTW, Rek's post was sarcasm, in case you missed it.
So the OT God's edicts are not black and white? Could have fooled me.
"Keep Your Goddamn Government Hands Off My Medicare!" - Various Tea Party signs.
He is saying you have a superficial interest in politics and you don't know shit about it.
There are some absolutes. But that is not applicable in your use a couple of posts up.
Sarcasm and nuances are actually banning offenses at Freerepublic. Nuances freak out the kook right wing Repubs. They like things simple to mach they simpleton thinking.
"Keep Your Goddamn Government Hands Off My Medicare!" - Various Tea Party signs.
You yourself said God is against the God given right to have freedom of religion per the god given bill of rights. If one of those bill of rights is not god given then the claim our rights originate from god is suspect.
"Keep Your Goddamn Government Hands Off My Medicare!" - Various Tea Party signs.
He wasn't talking to me, asswipe.
So he is advocating for the right of hospitals to refuse treatment? I think health care should be a right although it wasn't enshrined in the constitution. No one asserts that people have a right to food yet we still have a food stamp program that is eligible to all poor citizens. So we have an implied right to food which is paid for by other taxpayers. Thus when we have universal health care coverage we will have an implied right to health care.
Truth hurts, hence you wailing as usual, biffy. Always amusing.
Proxy IP's are amusing.....lmao
That doesn't even make sense. Fuck off.
------------------------------------- What does Free Republic have to do with this site? Just throwing more dust into the air, Destro?
war has to do something for entertainment. The voices in his head aren't speaking to him and his imaginary friends have found reasons not to come over anymore.
Oh, yes 'he' was. 'He' was including all the in-house left wingers, of which you are one.
war has to do something for entertainment. The voices in his head aren't speaking to him and his imaginary friends have found reasons not to come over anymore.
Then put my name in the "To" box, asswipe.
You guys are clones.
"Keep Your Goddamn Government Hands Off My Medicare!" - Various Tea Party signs.
It's Friday and business sucks...he's been drinking since 10...
America...My Kind Of Place... "I truly am not that concerned about [bin Laden]..." I was not aware of just how bad the flooding was; thanks for posting.
Putz." When Thomas Jefferson said; "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be," he had the Badeyes of the world in mind when he said that.
Only that which can be defended...
America...My Kind Of Place... "I truly am not that concerned about [bin Laden]..." I was not aware of just how bad the flooding was; thanks for posting.
He never envisioned a pussy like you, thats for sure, Mikey.
Proxy IP's are amusing.....lmao
That doesn't mean much coming from someone who chose to float around safely on a boat, far from harm's way, rather than go in and take care of business. Frog shooter.
------------------------------------- ROFLMAO... Hey...he had Dark Knights upon him in the Indian Ocean...
America...My Kind Of Place... "I truly am not that concerned about [bin Laden]..." I was not aware of just how bad the flooding was; thanks for posting.
--
Safely huh? Right. Middle of the Cold War...cause we all know carriers weren't primary first strike targets? You served when and where, biffy?
Proxy IP's are amusing.....lmao
I dont care if your gay, Mikey.
Proxy IP's are amusing.....lmao
A right is a gift from God that extends from our humanity.
Why don't you make like a tree and get out of here?
#2. To: Biff Tannen (#1)
#3. To: A K A Stone (#2)
Why don't you make like a tree and get out of here?
#4. To: Biff Tannen, go65 (#3)
#5. To: A K A Stone (#4)
Why don't you make like a tree and get out of here?
#6. To: A K A Stone (#4)
#7. To: Badeye (#6)
Why don't you make like a tree and get out of here?
#8. To: A K A Stone, Biff Tannen (#0)
What is a right? A right is a gift from God that extends from our humanity. Thinkers from St. Thomas Aquinas, to Thomas Jefferson, to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to Pope John Paul II have all argued that our rights are a natural part of our humanity.
#9. To: Godwinson (#8)
Why don't you make like a tree and get out of here?
#10. To: Biff Tannen, A K A Stone (#9)
#11. To: Destro (#10)
#12. To: Godwinson (#8)
That Old Testament God? Really? Because he put people to death for their right to worship other gods.....
#13. To: Skip Intro (#12)
(Edited)
The only people the OT God really punished were his chosen people, the Jews. As long as you weren't Jewish you had nothing to worry about from him.
#14. To: Godwinson (#13)
The OT God ordered genocide and rape of neighboring tribes and if you accept the tales in Genesis he wiped out two cities and then a whole planet of people just because they carried out their "god given" right to not believe in him.....
#15. To: Skip Intro (#14)
#16. To: Godwinson (#15)
I don't mind God killing the humans off - but why drown all the land animals along with the humans. I mean the animals were not doing anything wrong and they were drowned - all except the sea dwelling mammals and the fishes and the birds. The rest were screwed. Oh, wait, I am thinking like a person from the 21st century would think and not from the distant Bronze age...
#17. To: Skip Intro (#16)
I'm still trying to figure out where all the water came from to cover the planet with something like a five mile high ocean. Then there's the question of where did it go.
#18. To: Godwinson (#15)
. Oh, wait, I am thinking like a person from the 21st century would think and not from the distant Bronze age....
#19. To: Skip Intro (#16)
I'm still trying to figure out where all the water came from to cover the planet with something like a five mile high ocean. Then there's the question of where did it go.
#20. To: Rek (#18)
#21. To: Rek (#19)
I heard it created the Grand Canyon, complete with all the strata.
#22. To: A K A Stone (#0)
What is a right? A right is a gift from God that extends from our humanity. Thinkers from St. Thomas Aquinas, to Thomas Jefferson, to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to Pope John Paul II have all argued that our rights are a natural part of our humanity. We own our bodies, thus we own the gifts that emanate from our bodies. So, our right to life, our right to develop our personalities, our right to think as we wish, to say what we think, to publish what we say, our right to worship or not worship, our right to travel, to defend ourselves, to use our own property as we see fit, our right to due process — fairness — from the government, and our right to be left alone, are all rights that stem from our humanity. These are natural rights that we are born with. The government doesn't give them to us and the government doesn't pay for them and the government can't take them away, unless a jury finds that we have violated someone else's rights.
"Everything that can be invented has been invented."-- Charles Duell, Commissioner of US Patent Office, 1899
#23. To: A K A Stone (#2)
(Edited)
You're mixing privileges with rights.
#24. To: Godwinson (#10)
restrict or eliminate rights, like abortion, etc.
#25. To: Biff Tannen (#1)
A right is a gift from God that extends from our humanity.
#26. To: Godwinson (#13)
Wrong. The OT God ordered genocide and rape of neighboring tribes and if you accept the tales in Genesis he wiped out two cities and then a whole planet of people just because they carried out their "god given" right to not believe in him.....
#27. To: A K A Stone (#26)
I guess you don't really have that right then do you.
#28. To: A K A Stone (#24)
If abortion is a right.
#29. To: Godwinson (#27)
So God is against the US constitution's Bill Of Rights.
#30. To: A K A Stone (#29)
So God is against the US constitution's Bill Of Rights. I would say so. The constitution isn't perfect.
#31. To: A K A Stone (#29)
I would say so. The constitution isn't perfect.
#32. To: Rek (#31)
#33. To: Rudgear (#32)
You lefties are such dilettantes. Please, keep commenting.
#34. To: Biff Tannen (#3)
(Edited)
privileges. Same thing.
"Everything that can be invented has been invented."-- Charles Duell, Commissioner of US Patent Office, 1899
#35. To: Rudgear (#32)
You lefties are such dilettantes.
1 : an admirer or lover of the arts
2 : a person having a superficial interest in an art or a branch of knowledge : dabbler
#36. To: Rek (#31)
I can't wait until it becomes perfect and we are allowed to own other humans again.
#37. To: Godwinson (#30)
Well I took an oath to defend the constitution against enemies foreign and domestic and I guess according to you that means God is America's enemy. God must be Muslim then.
#38. To: We The People (#25)
Why don't you make like a tree and get out of here?
#39. To: jwpegler (#34)
Why don't you make like a tree and get out of here?
#40. To: Skip Intro (#35)
2 : a person having a superficial interest in an art OR a branch of knowledge : dabbler
#41. To: A K A Stone (#36)
At least you outed where your priorities are. You are a liberal, so by definition lazy. Now you want to own someone.
#42. To: Rudgear (#40)
#43. To: Skip Intro (#42)
How does it apply to the post you applied it to?
#44. To: A K A Stone (#37)
You are a liberal. You are the antithesis of the constitution. You're not fooling anyone.
#45. To: Godwinson (#44)
#46. To: Rudgear (#43)
Once more, in English.
1 : an admirer or lover of the arts
2 : a person having a superficial interest in an art or a branch of knowledge : dabbler
#47. To: A K A Stone (#45)
In your comic book world is everything either or?
#48. To: Skip Intro (#46)
a person having a superficial interest in an art or a branch of knowledge
#49. To: Godwinson (#47)
So the OT God's edicts are not black and white? Could have fooled me.
#50. To: Skip Intro, Rudgear (#46)
BTW, Rek's post was sarcasm, in case you missed it.
#51. To: A K A Stone (#49)
(Edited)
There are some absolutes. But that is not applicable in your use a couple of posts up.
#52. To: A K A Stone (#48)
He is saying you have a superficial interest in politics and you don't know shit about it.
#53. To: A K A Stone (#0)
And when the government forces hospitals to provide free health care to those who can't or won't care for themselves, that's not charity, that's slavery.
#54. To: Biff Tannen (#7)
#55. To: Badeye (#54)
Why don't you make like a tree and get out of here?
#56. To: Godwinson (#50)
#57. To: Skip Intro (#52)
He wasn't talking to me, asswipe.
#58. To: Rudgear (#57)
Oh, yes 'he' was.
#59. To: Rudgear (#56)
What does Free Republic have to do with this site?
#60. To: Biff Tannen (#55)
--GW Bush
#61. To: Biff Tannen (#7)
"Typical bullshit post from you. Trying to make it sound like you know something without saying anything.
#62. To: A K A Stone (#0)
--GW Bush
#63. To: Ferret Mike (#61)
#64. To: Badeye (#63)
He never envisioned a pussy like you, thats for sure, Mikey.
Why don't you make like a tree and get out of here?
#65. To: Biff Tannen (#64)
Frog shooter.
--GW Bush
#66. To: Badeye (#63)
#67. To: Biff Tannen (#64)
That doesn't mean much coming from someone who chose to float around safely on a boat, far from harm's way, rather than go in and take care of business.
#68. To: Ferret Mike (#66)
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