By Clint Patterson
Let’s start with two opposing definitions of the term rights. The first was conceived by the Founding Fathers, was based off of English common law, and can easily be defined as those privileges guaranteed to the people, such as assembly, a free press, and freedom of religion. Rights, thus conceived, are inherent in the people, and are free from violation by the state. Many philosophers call these negative rights, because they are in essence the right to be left alone.
Positive rights, on the other hand, are rights to certain things. Under this definition, citizens have a right to police and military protection, the right to petition the government for the redress of grievances, and the rights of Miranda when being arrested. In our republic, both positive and negative rights have their proper places. But recently the term positive rights has been extremely enhanced, so that now you hear that people have a right to healthcare, or a right to own a home.
This enhanced definition is important, because Congress, under the rubric of positive rights, is now prepared to set the terms for credit cards, at the expense of those with good credit.
“It will be a different business,” said Edward L. Yingling, the chief executive of the American Bankers Association, which has been lobbying Congress for more lenient legislation on behalf of the nation’s biggest banks. “Those that manage their credit well will in some degree subsidize those that have credit problems.”
Credit, it used to be understood, was a privilege. It was something a bank offered you because, in the long run, it was good for the bank. They allowed you access to their money (read: their depositors money), in exchange for a higher interest rate than conventional loans. They would only extend this privilege only to those that had proven themselves good financial risks.
In our new statist paradigm, credit is a positive right, not a benefit provided by a bank as an outcome of responsibly managing your finances. This is on par with the entire progressive enterprise, where rights are no longer yours by Natural Law, Providence, or God (whichever way you swing), but are instead awarded to you by the state. This is in direct opposition to the concept of rights as understood by the Founding Fathers, who understood that man is born free, that his rights are inalienable, and that the only thing the state can do is deny the expression of those rights with the use of force. That is why the bill of rights is a list of things the government cannot do; it is an intentional limitation on the use, and abuse, of governmental power, which is grounded in the legal use of force. Or as our President so snidely put it, “the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. Says what the states can’t do to you. Says what the Federal government can’t do to you, but doesn’t say what the Federal government or State government must do on your behalf…”
The things the federal government should, indeed must, do are enumerated in the Constitution, and are clearly limited to things the people cannot do for themselves, such as providing for the common defense (through the military), the negotiation of treaties, providing a common currency, etc. There is nothing in this brilliant document about forcing responsible citizens to carry the load for their slacker counterparts, or forcing banks to extend loans and credit to high-risk individuals. Indeed, the idea that the Federal leviathan would force banks to lend against their interest would be anathema to the Founding Fathers.
But I’m a sucker for an Originalist interpretation of the Constitution, and the deeper philosophical argument that when interpreting a narrative text it is the intent of the author, not the reader, that determines the meaning of the text. And the authors of the Constitution clearly stated, both in the document itself and their numerous other writings, that government unconstrained is a danger to both liberty and to the citizenry it is supposed to serve.
The Federal government is now telling banks whom to lend to (and at what terms), telling car companies how to build their cars, telling states how to spend their money, and individuals how to live (sin taxes, the war on drugs, food nannies, etc.), all under the umbrella of ‘positive rights.’ But at what point are our genuine Rights, among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, compromised?
If we allow the progressives to continue define the term as they see fit, we will have a ‘right’ to easy money in the form of credit and the ‘right’ to health care, it is true. But by definition, this means that we will have a ‘right’ to other people’s money and a ‘right’ to the time and skill of medical practitioners, which is tyranny and slavery. I, for one, have no use for such a loathsome construct. I’ll keep my Rights just as they are, thank you, and remind the leviathan that it serves at the will of the people, not the other way around.
Clint Patterson is a writer and martial art instructor who lives in Western Colorado. He once audited a political science course because he thought that there would be cute girls in the program. You can contact him at cpatterson@quantumconservative.com
