Rights Given vs Rights Acknowledged
Allen January 17th, 2006
I’ve been reading about the Federalists vs the "Anti-Federalists" given the talk lately about the Federalist Society. I think it interesting in that one of the arguments against the Bill of Rights: The rights delineated would be seen as the only rights recognized by the Government. That once those rights were enumerated, the rest would be dismissed as not as important.
It is with that frame of reference that I read the following quote from Judge Alito: "I don’t think it’s appropriate or useful to look
to foreign law in interpreting the provisions of our Constitution. I think
the Framers would be stunned by the idea that the Bill of Rights is to be
interpreted by taking a poll of the countries of the world. The purpose
of the Bill of Rights was to give Americans rights that were recognized
practically nowhere else in the world at the time. The Framers…wanted
them to have the rights of Americans."
While I’m heartened by Judge Alito’s comments with regard to the influence of foreign law on US law, I found the phrase "The purpose
of the Bill of Rights was to give Americans rights that were recognized
practically nowhere else in the world at the time."
One of the founding principles of the American leaders at the time of the Revolution is that rights are inalienable and that those rights are not bestowed by a government. Rather the people give their consent to be governed and the rights of the government derives from the people — not the other way around.
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