The American Wisdom Series 

Pamphlet #603

Taking Rights Seriously

by A Pennsylvanian

Our founding fathers knew that we will prosper best when allowed to assume our own risks for actions we choose to take
and enjoy the rewards when those actions prove successful.

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What is Liberty?

Liberty is the absence of constraints placed by a government upon what a person might do if he wants to.

Sometimes an individual's liberty must be limited because it interferes with another's rights.

One's freedom must end

where a fellow citizens begins.

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Laws we must obey!

In a democracy that in principle respects individual rights, each citizen has a general moral duty to obey all the laws, even though he would like some of them changed. He owes that duty to his fellow citizens, who obey laws that they do not like, to his benefit.

But this general duty cannot be an absolute duty, because even a society that is in principle, just, may produce unjust laws and policies, and a man has duties other than his duties to State.

A man must honor his duties to his God and to his conscience, and if these conflict with his duty to the State,then he is entitled, in the end, to do what he judges to be right.

If he decides that he must break the law, however, then he must submit to the judgement and punishment that the State imposes,in recognition of the fact that his duty to his fellow citizens was overwhelmed but not extinguished by his religious or moral obligation.

Government must distinguish law from ordered brutality.

The institution of rights is crucial, because it represents the majority's promise to the minorities that their dignity and equality will be respected.

Our constitutional system rests on a particular moral theory, namely, that men have moral rights against the State.

Until now we have been discussing laws that are not a challenge to our inalienable rights. In our society a man does sometimes have the right to disobey a law.

He has that right whenever that law wrongly invades his inalienable rights against the Government.

For instance: If he has an inalienable right to free speech, that is, then he has a moral right to break any law that the Government, by virtue of his right, had no right to adopt.

The right to disobey the law is not a separate right, having something to do with conscience, additional to other rights against the Government. It is simply a feature of these rights against the Government, and it cannot be denied in principle without denying that any such rights exist.

It cannot be wrong to break a law enacted against an inalienable right;what is wrong is the enactment of such law.

If someone has a right to something, then it is wrong for the government to deny it to him even though it would be in the general interest to do so.

This sense of a right marks the distinctive concept of an individual right against the State which is the heart of constitutional theory in the United States.

For example: If I have a right to speak my mind on political issues, then the Government does wrong to make it illegal for me to do so, even if it thinks this is in the general interest.

If, nevertheless, the Government does make my act illegal,then it does a further wrong to enforce that law against me.

My right against the Government means that it is wrong for the Government to stop me from speaking; the Government cannot make it right to stop mejust by taking the first step.

Our Inalienable Rights as listed in the United States Constitution are:

The right tolife,the right to freely exercise your religion, the right to a speedy and fair trial, the right to do with your property as you please, the right to be free from search and seizure without cause.

Our government has, over the years, passed laws infringing on these rights. They have done it slowly and in small steps, mostly unnoticed by all except the victims; our fellow citizens whose rights have been abused. It is a serious blemish against our character, yours and mine, that we have not even acknowledged this government abuse, much less stepped forward as a united group to demand that our Constitutional Rights remain inviolable.

All of these laws against inalienable rights, a man has an obligation to his fellow citizens to refuse to obeyand his fellow citizens have an obligation to support his right to do so.We must protest very stronglyif government tries to punish any one for exercising his inalienable rights.Watch your local newspaper; you will be alarmed at the number of reported cases of inalienable rights abuse. Although, not reported as abuses; the news media only points out freedom of speech abuses!

There is one additional inalienable right;the right to keep and bear arms without question.We have allowed thousands of laws to be passed restricting our right to keep and bear arms.This all important right is the only right we have, that gives strength to our Constitutional freedoms.The only thing standing in the way of potential government tyranny and our eventual slaveryis our right to anonymous private gun ownership.

We have already allowed government to step over the line when we stood still for registration of handguns. We can not allow government to go the next step; registration of all our guns. We lose our strength, strength we will need to reclaim our inalienable rights, if government knows who has guns and how many. It will be quite easy to disarm us if they know exactly which doors to break down.

If they attempt to register any more of our weapons, we have two options. We can unite and choose to vote these abuses away at the polls today,or wait until we must do it with our guns tomorrow. A word of advise; we will never again be stronger than we are today.

Will we be stronger if we wait until the confiscation starts?Will we be stronger if we wait until half of our guns are gone?Any law calling for additional gun registration must be disobeyed, for if we ever lose our right to anonymous gun ownership, we will soon and forever live in slavery to tyrannical government.

Benjamin Franklin said, "They who would give up essential freedoms for the sake of a little security deserve neither freedom nor security."

Like our founding fathers in 1776, who were armed equally to the British, when England sent troops to confiscate their weapons, chose to take a stand and fight for freedom; we must also revolt and change our government; we cannot give up what they risked life and fortune to gain for us over 200 years ago.

Like Patrick Henry said then, "Give me liberty, or give me death."

The United States government, with all its arsenal of weapons cannot stand up to a guerrilla war waged by its citizens; when freedom or tyranny with slavery, are the only options.