I heard recently a phrase that bothered me a great deal, that of "absolute rights". "Absolute" meaning irrevocable, fixed, and universally accepted as truth. That is, of course, absurd -- there are no absolute rights. There may be rights that one believes to be absolute, but they contradict reality. Let me clarify my original claim: there are no absolute rights under government.
Each "right" that we Americans enjoy is actually a conditional privilege limited by governance. The forefathers shrugged off an extremely oppressive government to establish a less oppressive government. Government, in itself, implies suppression. To govern is to control. When we establish government, we enter into a social contract where we give up what in a state of nature would otherwise be our "absolute rights", and in return, we are given conditional privileges. Often we forget how limited they truly are, simply because we're left alone when within the confines of the law. Allow me to explain.
Here is a widely known phrase, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." Unalienable, of course, means inseparable and irrevocable. These are basic rights that most humans can agree are inherent. The irony is that all three are traded in by the social contract, being subjected to governance.
Example 1: a convicted murderer is faced with the death penalty in a court of law. How is that possible? Does he/she not have an unalienable right to life? Governance decrees that he/she forfeited that right by disobedience to law, and the person is put to death. Example 2: An elderly man is in need of a transplant, but the merciless free market insurance companies and bureaucracy of government fail to provide a transplant, resulting in his death. Did he not have an unalienable right to life?
Liberty is also given up in the social contract. Liberty by definition is the freedom of autonomy. The ability to act however one sees fit. But that won't do with government, because government controls. Therefore, complete liberty cannot exist, and conditional privileges are granted instead. A convicted murderer, again, forfeits the right of autonomy after breaking the law.He/she cannot leave the prison cell whenever he/she sees fit, cannot eat whatever he/she wants, etc.
The Pursuit of Happiness. How could a term so broad be assumed an absolute right? Many things that make some people happy are illegal, and offenders who are caught can have restrictions put in place to prevent them from seeking what they view as happiness.
These three rights are considered unalienable and absolute, but are in reality conditional under governance. "Conditional" contradicts "absolute", being by definition in opposition.
If, therefore, the very basic of human rights are transformed into conditional privileges through the social contract of government, how can any other so called right be more absolute? In other words, how can any part of the Bill of Rights be more absolute than the conditional privileges considered to be the most fundamental of all human existence? I submit that they are not and can not.
"Free Speech" is not absolute. It has it's limits just as other "rights".Government programs control what can and cannot be seen and heard on TV and radio, the McCarthy witch hunts, even recently at a whitehouse celebration an artist was escorted off for singing a song against the president 's policies.
The fifth amendment can be waived in cases of national security, like that of the Boston bomber.
The second amendment already has limits. The public does not have access to all military type weapons because the amendment, like the others, is conditional. Felons should not have access to weapons because rights are, and always have been, conditional under government.
No right is absolute under government. Each is conditional and subject to control by the government established by the social contract. If any rights are to be made absolute, government ceases to exist, and the state of nature will claim its own. Governance comes at a price: the willing forfeiture of absolute rights. Both cannot exist together, and present reality thus proves that there are no absolute rights.
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