Jul 15 2024
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UNALIENABLE RIGHTS
UNALIENABLE RIGHTS
Hopefully, readers of my novels have found similarities between the struggles of colonial common men and those of today. The late Justice Antonin Scalia framed this continuing problem in the discord between originalists and those professing flexibility in a “living” Constitution.
He found many students professing “the Constitution provided freedoms—freedom of speech, religion, the press etc.”, to be found in the Bill of Rights.
His reply was profound. “When the framers deliberated in 1787, they didn’t talk about a Bill of Rights; that was an afterthought.” He elaborated about our unique structure with a bicameral legislature, a separately elected chief executive, and a separate judicial arm of government. He amplified that the Bill of Rights in the former USSR was far better than ours, in that the government guaranteed many more “freedoms and rights”.
The difference lies in the fact that the “governments” of all other nations “give” these rights to the citizens (and can take them away).
In the United States of America, we are “endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Unalienable means these rights can neither be taken away, nor can they be given up. The ensuing Bill of Rights merely defined certain rights that shall “not be infringed”, again acknowledging these rights are inherently “endowed by our Creator.”
We should be thankful to be citizens of such a country. Once again, my novels can be found at https://history1776.com.