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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated

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To: DMaA who wrote (145146)	10/31/2005 8:58:48 AM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (2) of 793916

Why is it so important for you to debunk the premise of the Constitution - that it establishes a government to PRESERVE the preexisting rights. It's not. And I'm not. My objective in that colloquy was, as usual, narrowly targeted. Two targets. One target was the failure to differentiate between "know" and "believe," a dangerous cognitive disfunction and therefore one of my hobby horses. If everyone could just learn to differentiate between the two words/concepts--an incredibly simple distinction--the world would be a better place. My second target was to differentiate between having a right and it being usable or, as you put it, not "physically moot." There are two parts to the right before it is useful. One is the rightful claim to it (part A) and the other is the power to implement it (part B). You, too, hit on this distinction in your point about someone stealing the right or imposing conditions that effectively nullify that right. It is the power thingy in the constitution that takes care of part B--that enables us to assert our rights regardless of their source. I think you and I are in sync on that one. As for part A, then, it's a question of whether the claim to the right comes from God or not (and consequently whether the constitution gives us the right or whether the constitution documents and preserves a right that was given to us by God). I was not arguing that the rights did not come from God. Maybe they did originally and maybe they didn't. There's no way to know. I think if you read my points carefully with that in mind you would see that I was not disputing the origin. I don't think the matters, and that is my point. I think what matters is that the constitution defines and enables the assertion of the rights. Without the power in the constitution, these rights that allegedly come from God are useless. They and a buck something will get you a cup of coffee at McDonald's. So it's irrelevant where they came from. What matters practically is what's in the constitution. I could turn your question around and ask why it's so important to you to insist that the rights in the constitution originally come from God (and thereby marginalize us seculars). You and I both get to execute the same rights regardless of origin and we get to do so because of our constitution and we-the-people's support for the constitution.

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