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Old Nov 25, 2007, 03:22 pm   #12 (permalink) (top)
Foxfyre
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Location: Albuquerque NM
Posts: 425
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Quote by: Osborn F Enready View Post
Life.

Liberty.
The government does have the right to restrict liberty if you break certain laws or to enforce certain laws though. That is a form of regulation.

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Pursuit of Happiness.
The government does have the right to restrict your right to be drunk in public or to go to the opera nude or participate in child pornography no matter how much these might make you happy.

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The right to bear arms.
The government can forbid you to bear arms in a courthouse or school or on an airliner, etc. All regulated.

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The right to free speech.
You already provided examples of regulation of speech which is one of our fundamental rights. We cannot disturb the peace or incite to riot or disrupt court proceedings with speech either. It is not an unregulated right.

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The right to privacy.
Yep. Unless the government wants to see if you have a closet full of AK47s or are bulding a bomb in the basement, in which case they can get a court order to see what you have. We also turn over our luggage, purses, backpacks, and contents of our pockets for scrutiny when boarding certain public transportation or attending certain large gatherings.

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The right to counsel.
Even here it has to be counsel that the government sanctions. You don't have right to counsel with somebody off the street or picked out of the phone book or even visitation by unlimited lawyers.

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The right to own property.
Unless the government decides it is needed for the common good. Also your use of that property is highly regulated by zoning restrictions, the existence of endangered species in the area, or the rules imposed by homeowners' associations. John Locke would be horrified at what the government has done with this one.

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many others....
I bet you can't name those 'many others' though. Tiny Bear has a good case on this one I think. We do not have any rights that the government cannot regulate.

It is for this reason we need to be always vigilent lest the government take more and more of our unalienable rights away from us.


" I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it." -- Benjamin Franklin, 1776
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