But I also believe that because we are the United States of America, we're a country with a great, unbelievable Constitution, with rights that we afford people, that you can't discriminate in the workplace. You can't discriminate in the rights that you afford people.
This was part of his response to how Bush answered a question regarding gay marriage and whether or not he believed homosexuality is a choice. But the question is not the issue I'm addressing here. Take a look at that paragraph and tell me if you can spot what's wrong with it. It will be obvious to some, less so to others. Take your time....
Didja catch it? The key phrase is "rights that we afford people." Neal Boortz writes:
The dictionary defines the word as "to make available, to provide." So now we know that John Kerry believes that our rights are provided to us by some "we" out there. The great "we" made those rights available to us. How grand. How grateful we are to the grand Imperial We.
Boortz has already said pretty much what I'm going to say, and probably did it better, but this is such a fundamental issue that I felt I had to post something about it.
The rights that are enumerated in the Constitution are just that: enumerated. That means that the Constitution lists them out, but they are assumed to be pre-existing rights. We have these rights simply by virtue of our existence, not because somebody gave them to us (unless that somebody is God, depending on your beliefs, hence the phrase "God-given right"). Kerry, and I would say Democrats and liberals in general, don't see these rights that way. To them, these rights are granted by the government in the form of the Constitution. The implication is that the government can then revoke those rights if it so chooses. In reality, the government is charged by the Constitution to protect these rights that are inherent in our existence as humans and is enjoined from ever infringing upon those rights.
Time for a bit of history. The reason the Bill of Rights comprises the first ten amendments to the Constitution, instead of being in the main body, is that the authors of the original document believed that these rights were so obvious that they did not need to be listed. Of course we had the right to free speech, the right to keep and bear arms, the right to be secure in our homes and persons from unreasonable search and seizure, etc. Everyone knows that! Why do we need to put them in there? But several states insisted that these rights be spelled out, i.e. enumerated, before they would ratify the Constitution. It's a good thing they did because now far too many people believe that, rather than something being a right by default, it's only a right by grant. If the Second Amendment wasn't a part of the Bill of Rights, and assuming it hadn't been added as an amendment sometime before the start of the 20th century, there would very likely be a regime of strict gun control today along with the disarmament of law abiding citizens and the vast empowerment of criminals that would go along with it. In short, we'd be much the same as Great Britain in that regard.
Remember folks, people (i.e. you and I) have rights. Government has powers and only those granted to it by the people. The government doesn't have the "right" to do anything nor does it grant rights. Anytime someone says it does, it just shows that they don't understand the true foundation of this country. Just like John Kerry.
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