Negative Rights

The Bill of Rights in the Constitution are what are called negative rights by people who study the Constitution. What this means is the government cannot take these rights away from you. They are God-given. But they are also don’t cost you anything—or shouldn’t anyway (one might, I’ll explain later). As philosopher Ayn Rand I believe said one time about rights if you ask “At what cost?” to a right and if the answer is nothing then it is probably a right.

For instance, freedom of speech, association, and religion doesn’t cost anyone (ie the government) anything. Well, it doesn’t cost the average citizen anything. If you tell the truth against the gov’t, or if join a religion that teaches to be skeptical of the gov’t then the gov’t might not like it---they they interpret that as a cost to them.

What about a right to work?  That’s a cost. And they are not God-given. The right to work was a right in the old Soviet Union. Since you had a right to work you were assigned a job the state calculated was the best fit for you. You did not have a choice which job you wanted. The state made that choice for you. It controlled your wages and benefits. Your working hours too. After all it had your best interests in mind. Isn’t that nice? Oh, yea you wouldn’t be allowed to be unemployed.

What about a right to a house? Again a cost. Labor, materials, and finding a place to build the house are all costs. And if it was a right, you would have no right to decide what the house would look like, what it would be made of, or how big it would be if the state had to build it. Also the state would put you in a house it deemed would fulfill your needs. Even though you might (probably would) disagree with them. Again the state is just looking out for you. You probably wouldn’t be allowed to be homeless either.

The same with healthcare. If it is a right, then the state basically owns your body. Think about that. It can tell you what to eat, drink, how much exercise to do, what drugs you can and cannot take, and any surgeries you would get. Also, it would decide if you should live or die if you have a incurable disease. If that doesn’t scare you, it should.

I could go on but you get the point. Earlier I said there might be a right that could be a cost and that is the right to bear arms. The state could go and give you gun (like that would happen). Although, I heard about an American town that required it citizens to own a gun. Their crime rate was near zero.  Anyway, if the state was that generous the gun would be cheap and not work half the time. And they would probably have you buy the ammunition. That’s why in the US Constitution it says “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”  In other words it is not going to give you a gun.