If you are in a country that promises to protect your freedom of speech, consider yourself lucky. Most places do not, or do so to a very equivocated degree.
But even in the countries that do promise to protect that right, we have to ask ourselves where the threat to that right comes from in the first place. From whom, exactly, are they protecting us?
It cannot be from private entities. Private entities have the right to restrict speech on their own property, or based on contractual arrangements…
Your job can tell you that you may not reveal company secrets.
A private apartment building can tell you that you can’t scream at the top of your lungs at two in the morning in the stairwell.
A homeowner can forbid people from holding rallies on their front lawn.
It’s not private entities. So let’s see…hmmm, what could it be?
When government says, if they say it at all, that they will protect your right to free speech, they are saying that they will protect it from them.
Interesting. Here is a right that you have, naturally, and then an entity comes along as says, Hey, don’t worry, you have that right. And the reason you have it is because we say so, and because we promise we won’t violate it.
Well…that’s a bit ominous.
How about your gun rights? Nothing could be more natural than the right to defend yourself, and that right is useless if you do not have effective means to do so.
Yet private entities can certainly decide how they want to handle gun possession on their own property…
No, you may not bring a gun to work.
No, you may not bring a gun into this house.
No, you may not bring a gun into this shopping mall.
It’s their property. They can do what they want.
So, even if you are lucky enough to live in a place that has something like America’s 2nd Amendment, what are you really being told?
Hey, don’t worry—you have the right to defend yourself, and to possess the means to do so effectively. You have the right because we say you do. We promise we won’t violate it.
But wait…didn’t I already have that right?
I have the right to think. I have the right to express my thoughts. I have the right to get together with others so we can express a variety of thoughts together. I have a right to purchase paper and ink and turn those thoughts into a newspaper.
No, I cannot print the newspaper in someone else’s basement, but I can do it in my own.
No, I cannot force people to read it. But I can certainly ask if they want to buy a copy.
When government tells you that you have a right to “freedom of the press,” what they really mean is that they won’t bust into your newspaper office, smash all the machines, and drag you away in chains.
You already had the right. They are just promising that they won’t kill you for exercising it.
I already had the natural right not to have soldiers quartered in my home. Good thing government promises they won’t do it.
I already had the right not to allow people to rifle through my pockets, papers, person, or property, looking for God only knows what. I had that right naturally. So why did I need government to tell me I have that right?
Oh yeah—because they were the ones who otherwise were planning on violating it.
In fact, I know that my rights are essentially limitless, save for the one restriction that I may not initiate coercive force against any other. Why would I need anyone to tell me that the enumeration of certain rights “shall not be construed to deny or disparage” any others?
I already know that. I already know that if another person initiates force against me, I have a right to protect myself. So what the 9th Amendment is really saying is that maybe, hopefully, this entity called government won’t start violating all my other rights. (And note that the 9th and 10th amendments have basically been ignored and trashed to the brink of irrelevance.)
Your rights are yours, naturally. If government went away tomorrow, you would still have them. The only difference is that the entity with the greatest power to violate those rights would be gone.
It is better to have a Bill of Rights than not to. It certainly is the best part of the United States Constitution. Having a government that promises not to violate your rights is certainly a step up from a government that makes no such promise.
But we also need to confront the reality of what it really is. If we ever expect to evolve to the next stage of human freedom, we must be under no illusions. Even the great Bill of Rights is still an entity saying…
You must submit to our rule.
We will hurt you if you don’t.
In exchange, we will list a few of your rights and promise that we won’t violate them.
Or at least we’ll try not to.
A step up? Yeah. But is this protection racket really the best we can do?
Enjoying the cold splashes of inescapable logic? I cannot keep going unless I can make this a paying gig, and I cannot do that without your help. The good news is, a cup of coffee once in a while oughta do it. Thanks!
Reading what you write always starts me thinking in a a way and in a direction I haven’t before. Thank you!
It says our rights are not a privilege bestowed on us by government. It says that the federal government is allowed to exist under these terms, and if the terms are violated by the government, or government actors, then the contract is violated and the actions are illegitimate. Therefore, governments have a duty to prosecute those who violate our rights, including those who do so under the color of law, acting as agents of the state.