Submitted by Eric Scher, Dec 17, 2007 21:30

With all due respect to Dr Hurt, that is a noble sentiment and one with which I agree on a philosophical level. However, on a practical level; the sentiment falls apart; and rapidly so.

It is in fact absolutely accurate to say that governments grant rights, because in a strictly practical sense; governments are the entities that hold the power necessary to decide who is free and who is not. Furthermore, with their police forces and armies, they are in a position to back up their decisions. There are Governments and there are Governed, and whether or not the people have a measure of Freedom is not based on any Natural or Divinely Granted Rights; it is based entirely on the construction of the government in question. Understand that the distinction I am drawing here is between "Rights" in a purely philosophical sense and "Rights" in a purely practical sense. These are not mutually exclusive concepts, but they are entirely different and any similarities between the two are completely coincidental.

In the United States, in order to solve the problem of divided sovereignty, to prevent the Colonies' second attempt to form a stable government from failing as the first did, and to ensure that the new government was not hostile to the hard won rights of the people; they decided that the new government would derive its power FROM the governed.

The recognition of this reality underlies the very reason why the Constitutional Convention needed to add a Bill of Rights to the Constitution in order to get it ratified. Without a mechanism to protect the States and ultimately the People from the powers being granted to the new Republic; there would be no guarantee that the new government would continue to remember that it DERIVED its power from the just consent of the Governed.

If we forget the distinction between philosophical sources of Rights and practical sources of Rights, if we fail to teach our children that our practical, everyday Rights were not Granted by God nor Nature; but in fact were wrested sway from a despot at gunpoint; then we are well on our way to returning to the servitude that is our TRUE natural condition; noble sentiments notwithstanding.

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