What Are Rights? This Is What the Founders Believed

[rangerrebew]

What Are Rights? This Is What the Founders Believed
By: Dan Sanchez|Published on: Nov 26, 2022|Categories: Founding Principles

In 1776, the Declaration of Independence proclaimed that everyone is endowed with “unalienable Rights.” Years later, the Bill of Rights elaborated on those rights.

Subsequently, the rights of many (although not all, tragically and atrociously) Americans were secured to a greater degree than in any polity in human history. The results were spectacular and gave “rights” a luster that has endured to this day.

But the word “rights” has long since been hijacked by enemies of the original idea of rights. To steal the prestige earned by that idea, they have hitched the word to their favorite government-granted entitlements. They champion “rights” to welfare, health care, education, internet access, etc.

But, this is far removed from what the American founders meant by rights. They meant what their philosophical hero John Locke meant. So, let’s explore what Locke meant by rights.

https://tenthamendmentcenter.com/2022/11/26/what-are-rights-this-is-what-the-founders-believed/

[Bigun]

THIS is a very important article! Thanks for posting it @rangerrebew

We'll see how much attention it gets here.

[DB]

 

[The_Reader_David]

The problem with the Left's list of rights is not that we do not have rights to such things (e.g. health care), but that like our right to freedom of the press and to keep and bear arms, our right to those things must be exercised by our own means.  Our right do not create a duty for others to provide the means of exercising the right. 

Just a my right to keep and bear arms does not create a claim on my fellow citizens to provide me with an AR-15 and ammunition, my right to health care does not create a claim on my fellow citizens to provide me with the services of a physician. Rather it provides me with the claim that if the government is interfering with my ability to contract for the services of a physician when in need, then the government has become a tyranny and needs to be changed, if need by by force of arms, just as if the state were interfering with my right to self-defense.