The Bill of Non-Rights
Sam King, who I think is actively searching out stuff with which to bait me these days, this morning passed along the Bill of Non-Rights, a bit of self-righteous humor variously attributed to different “conservative” writers. So here’s my reply.
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As soon as I get to this, I know I’m reading a moron whose idea of thinking is parroting what he heard Rush say last week: “liberal bed-wetters…” Smart peope don’t have to rely on clichéd name-calling and brain-dead ad hominem (I mean, come on, if you’re going to write something this ambitious, at least have the initiative to think up a new insult.) But I’ve laid down some poli-smack myself from time to time, especially when dealing with undereducated demagogues like this yahoo, so I’ll forgive him this once for insulting my intelligence.
Now that we have the obligatory posing and posturing out the way, much of what he’s trying to say is correct, and a lot of it is even laudable. I’m definitely with him in several places (Articles I-III and VI, for instance, although is there really somebody out there who thinks they have a Constitutional right to steal? No? Didn’t think so, so chalk this up to cynical grandstanding; and I agree with the principle behind Article X, although I do so for reasons that are probably a bit too complex and informed by cultural scholarship for the author to follow).
That said, there are a couple problems of particular note. First, the debate in many cases isn’t really whether American have a particular right, but whether we ought to have a right. The Constitution is perhaps the greatest political document in history and it has served us well. But it’s also true that it was written for a political/economic and social context that is long gone, and as much as the semi-strict constructionist in me hates to say it, it doesn’t always translate very well into our world, which has become something that people like Jefferson, Mason, Madison and Franklin couldn’t have dreamed of. I think if we dug them up, reanimated them, and gave them a few weeks to acclimate to what the US is today, then asked them to have another whack at the thing, the new Constitution might be different in some ways.
For instance, I think they’d take less for granted. Turns out, humans aren’t as noble and given to informed, rational self-interest as they’d imagined (“self-interest,” you betcha, but we lag on the “informed” and “rational” parts). So I think they’d tackle privacy head-on, and in doing so would be careful to articulate the obvious possibility for contradiction suggested between privacy and free speech. I think they may take a long, hard look at how our present global, interdependent economic context speaks for more Federalism than did the agrarian, 18th Century. Also, I wonder if they’d expand the language in places to protect citizens against intrusions by corporate entities, because these days corps are a far greater threat to liberty than government.
Or maybe they wouldn’t – they may look at corps run amok and think, yeah, that’s about what we had in mind. I mean, TJ was the rich, slave-holding land-owner from hell. So they may think we need to get the right to vote back from women and poor people, and who knows what they’d do about racial minorities. What I think they’d do depends on what kind of mood I’m in, I guess, and I freely acknowledge that there’s just no way to know how the Framers would view the 21st Century. Which is just one of the many differences between me and the author of the piece under consideration this morning. Neither of us knows, but only one of us is smart enough to know he doesn’t know.
Finally, on that last article – that horsewax about America being founded on the One True God® – well, that’s quite simply the kind of silliness you get out of people who haven’t bothered to study their history. This time around the Framers might have to be more explicit in their secularization of the government.
They might also consider launching a big marketing campaign aimed at encouraging folks to read the goddamned stuff before pontificating about it….
lullaby pit 
Actually, as most of the founders were Freemasons, like myself, the One True God concept isn’t horeswax.
Aloha,
Jeff
Actually, as most of the founders were Freemasons, like myself, the One True God concept isn’t horeswax.
Aloha,
Jeff
Yes and no. There is a reality behind the Deist view of a one true god, which is how most of the Founders saw it, but that’s certainly not what this writer was shooting at. So I guess my quibble is with the attempt to make our HISTORY about the evangelical/born again/personal savior god that’s at the center of contemporary American religious/political life. If people would frame it the way the Founders did I’d have no problems at all.
Yes and no. There is a reality behind the Deist view of a one true god, which is how most of the Founders saw it, but that’s certainly not what this writer was shooting at. So I guess my quibble is with the attempt to make our HISTORY about the evangelical/born again/personal savior god that’s at the center of contemporary American religious/political life. If people would frame it the way the Founders did I’d have no problems at all.
I pasted this following passage from a closed Masonic Website. I didn’t write what follows, but this captures the essence of what was in the minds of a Freemason founder, and of a Freemason today.
The Freemasons who signed the Constitution included George Washington, First Master of the now Alexandria-Washington Lodge; Benjamin Franklin, Grand Master in Pennsylvania; Gunning Bedford, Jr., first Grand Master of Delaware: John Blair, first Grand Master of Virginia: and David Brearley, first Grand Master in New Jersey. Freemasons can understand how it happens that the Constitution dwelt on such things as liberty, freedom of conscience, the rights of man, the general welfare, separation of church and state, and the lire principles that we cherish.
The American Constitution has been described as the most important human achievement. Yet, the Constitutional Convention worked for weeks without making much progress. Its delegates were about to adjourn and abandon the great purpose for which they had met when a certain Brother, Benjamin Franklin, mature in years and ripe in wisdom, rose and, addressing George Washington in the Chair, spoke as follows:
In this situation of this assembly, groping, as it were, in the dark to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when presented to us, how has it happened, sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of Lights to illuminate our understandings?
I have lived, sir, a long time; and the longer I live the more convincing proofs I see of this truth, that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?
I therefore beg to leave to move:
That hereafter prayers, imploring the assistance of Heaven and its blessings on our deliberations, be held in this assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the clergy of this city be requested to officiate in that service.
And from that moment, they began to make progress in the framing and adoption of that fame-crowned document, which Gladstone asserted was “the greatest piece of work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man.”
It was during that same Constitutional Convention that some men wanted to write into the Constitution certain popular fallacies to fool and please the people in order to get the Constitution adopted. It was then that Chairman George Washington, who had taken no part in the discussion of the Convention up to that time, rose and said:
It is too probable that no plan we propose will be adopted; perhaps another dreadful conflict is to be sustained; if, to please the people, we offer what we ourselves disapprove, how can we afterwards defend our work? Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair; the event is in the hands of God.
Another great American President, Abraham Lincoln, expressed this same sentiment. Someone raid to Lincoln: “I hope God is on our side.” He replied: “My concern is not so much whether God is on our side, my great concern is to be on God’s side, for God is always right.”
Our Country came into being through sacrifice. Brave men laid down their lives so that the American Colonies could be carved out of the wilderness of a new world. Our independence was not given to us. It was won by fighting men. The Signers of our Declaration of independence pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honors. History records that most of them did give their lives and spent their fortunes to establish our independence.
If some men should die far our Country, is it asking too much that the rest of us should live for our Country – that we love our Country–that we obey its laws — preserve its cherished institutions and system — pay our Country’s bills — and retain its solvency?
No self-governing country can survive with out a moral restraint upon the individual citizen which comes from a Higher Authority. The founder of Pennsylvania, that great Ouaker statesman, William Penn, said it so well: “Man must either be governed by God or ruled by tyrants.”
I pasted this following passage from a closed Masonic Website. I didn’t write what follows, but this captures the essence of what was in the minds of a Freemason founder, and of a Freemason today.
The Freemasons who signed the Constitution included George Washington, First Master of the now Alexandria-Washington Lodge; Benjamin Franklin, Grand Master in Pennsylvania; Gunning Bedford, Jr., first Grand Master of Delaware: John Blair, first Grand Master of Virginia: and David Brearley, first Grand Master in New Jersey. Freemasons can understand how it happens that the Constitution dwelt on such things as liberty, freedom of conscience, the rights of man, the general welfare, separation of church and state, and the lire principles that we cherish.
The American Constitution has been described as the most important human achievement. Yet, the Constitutional Convention worked for weeks without making much progress. Its delegates were about to adjourn and abandon the great purpose for which they had met when a certain Brother, Benjamin Franklin, mature in years and ripe in wisdom, rose and, addressing George Washington in the Chair, spoke as follows:
In this situation of this assembly, groping, as it were, in the dark to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when presented to us, how has it happened, sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of Lights to illuminate our understandings?
I have lived, sir, a long time; and the longer I live the more convincing proofs I see of this truth, that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?
I therefore beg to leave to move:
That hereafter prayers, imploring the assistance of Heaven and its blessings on our deliberations, be held in this assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the clergy of this city be requested to officiate in that service.
And from that moment, they began to make progress in the framing and adoption of that fame-crowned document, which Gladstone asserted was “the greatest piece of work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man.”
It was during that same Constitutional Convention that some men wanted to write into the Constitution certain popular fallacies to fool and please the people in order to get the Constitution adopted. It was then that Chairman George Washington, who had taken no part in the discussion of the Convention up to that time, rose and said:
It is too probable that no plan we propose will be adopted; perhaps another dreadful conflict is to be sustained; if, to please the people, we offer what we ourselves disapprove, how can we afterwards defend our work? Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair; the event is in the hands of God.
Another great American President, Abraham Lincoln, expressed this same sentiment. Someone raid to Lincoln: “I hope God is on our side.” He replied: “My concern is not so much whether God is on our side, my great concern is to be on God’s side, for God is always right.”
Our Country came into being through sacrifice. Brave men laid down their lives so that the American Colonies could be carved out of the wilderness of a new world. Our independence was not given to us. It was won by fighting men. The Signers of our Declaration of independence pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honors. History records that most of them did give their lives and spent their fortunes to establish our independence.
If some men should die far our Country, is it asking too much that the rest of us should live for our Country – that we love our Country–that we obey its laws — preserve its cherished institutions and system — pay our Country’s bills — and retain its solvency?
No self-governing country can survive with out a moral restraint upon the individual citizen which comes from a Higher Authority. The founder of Pennsylvania, that great Ouaker statesman, William Penn, said it so well: “Man must either be governed by God or ruled by tyrants.”
I don’t believe this piece really rebuts anything I was saying, or have ever said, unless you’re suggesting that all people mean the same thing by the word “God.” And obviously that’s not what you’re saying.
I don’t believe this piece really rebuts anything I was saying, or have ever said, unless you’re suggesting that all people mean the same thing by the word “God.” And obviously that’s not what you’re saying.
Not everything I say always has to be a rebuttal. I just thought this was a cool article.
Aloha,
Jeff
Not everything I say always has to be a rebuttal. I just thought this was a cool article.
Aloha,
Jeff
Ah. In that case, yes. Sorry to have taken it wrong.
It’s always interesting reading people like Franklin for the perspective. They were SO brilliant and so accomplished in the arts of diplomacy and statecraft. But at the same time, they lived in such an incredibly different context than we do now.
I ought to read more Franklin, Jefferson, Madison, Mason, etc.
Ah. In that case, yes. Sorry to have taken it wrong.
It’s always interesting reading people like Franklin for the perspective. They were SO brilliant and so accomplished in the arts of diplomacy and statecraft. But at the same time, they lived in such an incredibly different context than we do now.
I ought to read more Franklin, Jefferson, Madison, Mason, etc.
Madison and Mason are so unappreciated by today’s public and scholars alike. They should make today’s students read the Federalist Papers in their entirety like we had to do.
Aloha,
Jeff
Madison and Mason are so unappreciated by today’s public and scholars alike. They should make today’s students read the Federalist Papers in their entirety like we had to do.
Aloha,
Jeff
And I should REread them, because at the time I really didn’t have the brains and focus I needed to fully grasp them.
And I should REread them, because at the time I really didn’t have the brains and focus I needed to fully grasp them.
They have a course at Exeter devoted solely to the Federalist Papers. I told my kid to take it, but he wants to take Chinese instead. I told him that he can’t take Chinese, because he already takes Latin, Ancient Greek, and Spanish. It then dawned on me that he’s really top heavy in languages. My lovely wife told me to not worry, as she replied with my own words that “Prep school is like a banquet, and one should sample as many different things as one wants to.” I hate it when she does that.
Aloha,
Jeff
They have a course at Exeter devoted solely to the Federalist Papers. I told my kid to take it, but he wants to take Chinese instead. I told him that he can’t take Chinese, because he already takes Latin, Ancient Greek, and Spanish. It then dawned on me that he’s really top heavy in languages. My lovely wife told me to not worry, as she replied with my own words that “Prep school is like a banquet, and one should sample as many different things as one wants to.” I hate it when she does that.
Aloha,
Jeff
Your kid would have died of boredom at my high school.
Your kid would have died of boredom at my high school.