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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank
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To: Jorj X Mckie who wrote (278)1/11/2001 12:57:09 AM
From: Dayuhan  Read Replies (2) of 82486
 
The concept of absolute and inalienable rights makes wonderful rhetoric, but such rights do not in fact exist. The men who wrote the Constitution surely knew this: even as they wrote the noble words about the Creator endowing all men with inalienable rights, they were accepting a system of slavery which alienated the rights of large numbers of people.

Every right you have is constrained by its interface with the rights of others. People whose idea of pursuing happiness is having sex with children will have their right to pursue happiness constrained; people whose religion requires human sacrifice cannot invoke freedom of religion to justify their practices. This balancing of rights is a function of Government, and in a democratic system the points of balance reflect the priorities of the governed. These priorities change, and the points of balance change as well.

I am sympathetic to large parts of the libertarian agenda, but a fundamentalist libertarian is as dreary and impractical, IMO, as any other fundamentalist.
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