What is a right? Clearly not something inviolable, because violation is the point where we recognize an injustice has occurred. What is the source of a right? Clearly not government. Governments change, laws change, rulers and bureaucrats die and get replaced. How can rights be gained or lost? Any tyrant first seeks to make his tyranny "legal," so how can rights be subject to his whims? I assert that rights are the sphere of individual authority, beginning with life, extending to our actions, and manifested in physical goods ranging from necessities to luxuries. The difference between civilization and brutality is how we behave when those spheres collide, where they can only be respected or violated.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.—The First Amendment to the United States Constitution
Suppose those old farts were on to something. The first amendment is clearly written as a restriction on government, which cannot make laws to create a state religion, prohibit people from practicing any religion, restrict their freedom of speech, restrict the press, prevent peaceful gatherings, or disallow complaints against the government.
The first clause relates directly to the British laws relating to the Church of England, including its mandatory oaths to, and prayers for, the monarch. The church received tax money and acted as a service arm of the government. There were also compulsory tithing and attendance laws and legal punishments for everything from the unorthodox to the heretical. Surely if an individual has any right, it is to his conscience. I would argue that the State has become itself a religion, though. What if I am unwilling to worship it, pay its tithes, or honor its human sacrifices?
The second clause is not just about moralistic censorship campaigns like I see in discussions about library duties. Governments would fine, imprison, or even kill those who challenged its authority by word or printed work. Anonymous pamphlets were the closest thing to a safe way to disseminate revolutionary (and Revolutionary) ideas. However, Less than a decade after the First Amendment was adopted, the Alien and Sedition Acts were passed, and many people were fined and imprisoned for as little as insulting then-President John Adams. During World War I, the government imprisoned people who advocated resisting the draft or otherwise opposed US involvement in the war, giving itself the "clear and present danger" escape clause nowhere to be found in the plain text prohibiting government from that very kind of excuse. Today, the United States government is seeking extradition of a foreign national, Julian Assange, for the alleged crime of telling the American people what the government is doing in their name. Nothing in the text limits protection to just Americans. Rights are universal principles not constrained by national . This clause has been well and truly trampled indeed.
The third clause has frequently been violated by governments seeking membership lists of various organizations they deem subversive. The Civil Rights movement was attached by state and federal police. Labor movements, anarchist gatherings, and other "undesirables" have been crushed. More recently, COVID-19 was used as justification to propose myriad state and federal restrictions on assembly using what has now been revealed to be dubious scientific merit, to say nothing of the moral concerns of "emergency power" grabs. As for petitioning the government for redress of grievances, Congress is deep in the pockets of financial interests, mega-corporations, and power brokers. The Supreme Court gave itself the position of final court of appeals, and then refuses to hear appeals which might overturn any other usurped power.
These are indeed the times that try men's souls, as Thomas Paine wrote in his pseudonymous pamphlet pictured above. Most are unwilling to recognize the scope of the tyranny we live under today. I have seen condescending mockery from people based solely on the fact that Ukraine is being invaded by Russia. Does the great misfortune of some negate the misfortunes of others? Suppose you said to a someone with a broken leg, "Oh, stop bellyaching. I know a quadriplegic. Your complaint is nothing!" As Harry Browne wrote two decades ago, "Government is good at one thing: It knows how to break your legs, hand you a crutch, and say, 'See, if it weren't for the government, you wouldn't be able to walk.'" Some people have grown used to their crutches. They mock us when we say breaking legs is wrong.
Initially, I intended to write a post about rights ans government while wearing the ol' inoffensive minarchist dunce cap and keeping my more radical ideas in check. Our rights begin with life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness via justly-acquired property, intellectual freedom, and the opportunity to fail. Government promises to protect our rights, but those promises are always broken when our lives, liberty, and pursuit of happiness get in the way of their rapacious desires. Every schoolchild knows the government flagrantly broke its treaties with native tribes. We are taught to trust the government in their schools, taught they represent us, protect us, serve us. Just a brief comparison of the plain language of the First Amendment against the past 233 years of government policy should show how much of a lie we have been fed. Breaking promises is just par for the course. Violations of merely the First Amendment, to say nothing of the rest of the Bill of Rights or the philosophy of liberty, demonstrates the moral bankruptcy of government promises.
At least we have the potential of the HIVE blockchain to serve as our new free press. Use it well.
