When our forefathers founded this country, they did so on the foundation that all of us are endowed with certain inalienable rights such as the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. These rights they codified into the Consitution as the Bill of Rights - ten rights they believed everyone had. Rights that had been trampled on under Britain.
Some of those rights are under attack today. For instance, the right to bear arms. While we have a right to bear arms, we do not have a right to use those weapons to attack anyone at will. People have a right to not be murdered which outweighs any mis-use of weapons. Still, even though their issue is with those who would take advantage of a right, there are people who want to take that right away from everyone.
In the same manner, there are rights that it seems today people think they have when, in fact, they have no such thing. I am going to outline the Bill of Not-Rights - things that people feel they are entitled to, perhaps under the real Bill of Rights, when in fact they are not.
1. You do not have the right to a TV. Earlier this year our congressmen and even our President wasted precious time debating if the switch to High Definition TV should carry on as planned, although many Americans weren't ready for it. It seemed they were preparing for some sort of Apocalypse, should the switch be made too early. Convert boxes were given away to those who could not afford to buy one. Taxpayer money was used to buy devices so people could rot their minds and bodies in front of the tube. (In his defense, President Obaman needed everyone to have TV access so he could interrupt their regularly scheduled programs for his never ending string of speeches).
Another place we see people believing in a "right" to telivision is prison. Prisons have become notorious for changing the word "privilege" into the word "right" all in the name of avoiding "cruel and unusual punishment" (missing Oprah). In fact, the changing of privileges to rights in prison may have impacted the expectations of society to what they are today. "If someone in prison has accrss to free TV, internet, and college courses, so should I!"
2. We do not have a right not to be offended or feel uncomfortable. In protecting freedom of speech means protecting free speech for the very people who offend us the most, knowing that when we speak out, our rights will also be preserved. Free speech is a government protected right. It does necessarily apply to private institutions. You can't insult your boss and not get fired. You can't cuss in front of your mom and not get your mouth washed out with soap. You can't call Jimmy "fatso" on the playground and not get in trouble. What it means is that the government can't arrest you for any of these things. Businesses and institutions have rules for professionalism and how things are to be done.
However, today it seems that the nonexistent "right" to not be insulted or not feel uncomfortable has gone too far. When people are offended they try to claim outlandish reasons for involving the government in silencing the offender. Verbal assault! It seemed they were trying to incite a riot! I didn't feel safe around them!
3. You do not have a right to government money. Frankly, entitlement programs have gone a bit too far in this country, but that's not what I'm talking about right now. I'm talking about the hundreds of not-for-profit organizations that are sponsored by the government. When President Obama took office earlier this year, he reversed a standing policy whereby federal money would not go to fetal stem cell research. Upon signing the new law, he described the former policy as dangerous and said something to the effect that morals shouldn't get in the way of progress. No matter what your view on stem cell research, the President was fundamentally wrong. Before he reserved it, no federal moeny coult go towards this particular research. Private money was available to fund it.
The government has no obligation to fund any non-profit endeavor, whether scientific, social, environmental, or academic. These organizations, many who do good things, do not have a right to taxpayer money. Obama was wrong to assume that witholding federal funds from a cause would automatically force it to deteriorate and end progress as we know it.
First of all, the money is neither the President's nor congress's. It is ours. Ultimately, everyone will have an opinion on the programs that the money goes to, with at least 50% against any one particular program. Second, these entities are subject to the same free market rules as for-profit agencies. Look at the space program - as private investors see a financial interest in getting to space, they have funded private reasearch programs and made considerable progress. Most organizations that the government helps to fund also have their own sources of revenue. The final problem with the perceived "right" to funding is that when private institutions accept government money, they also accept government oversight, which often deteriorates and muddles the whole process.
However, you often hear of the perceived "right" to government funding in academia and art. For instance, I recently heard of a school that refused to stop showing pornographic films because of "freedom of speech." While freedom of speech is a right, what the school didn't seem to understand is that they didn't have a "right" to use state funding for something that offensive to most people. As I said before, we don't have a right not to be offended. But neither do schools, or any government institutions, have a fundamental right to spend our money on projects that are morally wrong or just plain silly.
4. You do not have a right to an easy life. But you do have the right to declare bankruptcy. No one seems to remember that right before the 2008 election, Obama publicly declared that there was no need for a comprehensive overhaul of healthcare that would provide healthcare to all Americans. Don't you remember? It took a few days for it to sink in for me, too. In the last debate, Obama explained that he voted against a bill in Illinois that would require doctors to provide medical treatment to babies that were born as a result of failed abortions. His resonse, "I voted against it because I knew the doctors were going to treat the babies anyway." He was so right.
Doctors are bound by a system of rights that is older than our Bill of Rights. They are bound to treat anyone who comes to them in need of their help, especially if their life is in danger. So, you see, we do have a right to healthcare.
But that's not really what's at issue here. What people perceive is that they have a right to "affordable health care." While this would be nice, it is not a fundamental right. Remember life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? Right to healthcare, which we have, is a right to life. The problem is that when good people get sick they may end up with six figure hospital bills that can only be paid in a form such as a second mortgage. If they have no insurance, or sometimes even if they do, a hospital stay can literally bankrupt them. People perceive that they should have a right to healthcare without having to run up such huge debts, but as nice as that would be (and yes, things can be done with the current system to help lower costs) it is not a right. We have the right to pursue happiness. There is no guarantee that we will obtain it!
In ancient days, those who could not repay their debts were sent to prison or sold into slavery to repay them. In America we have a wonderful system that allows us to declare bankruptcy when debt becomes impossible to repay. It is not an "easy out." It makes it very hard to live life following a bankruptcy. And it is not ethical to run up debts just to declare bankruptcy and get out of them. However, we do have that option, instead of being sent to Australia.
Another option is to work hard, to not spend as much money on luxuries, and to pay off a little of the hospital debt each month. Because that is another right that we do have - a right to dignity.
5. The final right we perceive is a touchy subject, but all of the perceived "rights" above culminated in one big mistake. In the case of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court ruled that a woman had a right to an abortion.
Now, my views on abortion have evolved as I've grown up, but I have always been disturbed by the logic of the court. The ruling was based on a right to privacy. As far as I know, I don't see how pregnancy and privacy are related - unless the plaintiff didn't want anyone to know she was pregnant.
However, I would attempt to take this from a logical viewpoint - let's try to ignore morals for just a moment. We have a right to health. In a situation that threatens the life of a woman or the life of a baby, she should have a right to decide if she is willing to give up her life for that child. That is a right.
But there is no "fundamental" right that says a woman has a right to not have a kid if she gets pregnant. Taking morals out of it, the ruling of the court should have been that the abortion was legal if it was legal and illegal if illegal. The decision effectively legalized abortion for everyone in America, but by creating a "right" that did not actually exist.
Legalizing abortion is one thing, but the perception of many is that by making abortion a "right," then women had a right to a cheap or free abortion, an abortion without barriers - this goes back to the perceived "right" to be financially safe. It gave women the perception that they had a "right" to an easy life - such as the perceived "right" of having TV access all the time. And it gave women the idea that they had the "right" not to be offended - by people judging them for becoming pregnant, by abortion protesters, etc. It means people think that the government has a resonsibility to fund abortion clinics, which have a "right" to run.
I am not trying to throw an emotional and sensitive argument into an otherwise logical debate. I am just trying to show an example of what happens when people confuse "rights" with privileges. Life is hard. We are so lucky to be in a country that allows us to reach our potential. We also have a lot of laws and programs that help to make life easier for us, in whatever way is best for us. Not all these laws or programs are fundamentally bad or wrong. Nor are ideas of loving people and getting along.
However, none of these things should be confused with rights - inalienable rights that no one can, or should, take away. What we can do is use the rights we do have - the Bill of Rights and combine them with rights that were not canonized - such as the right to dignity, the right to hope, the right to a positive outlook, the right to dream. Because if our "rights" ever infringe upon the rights of others, then they cannot be rights at all.
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