Free speech and written rights.

At 10:06 PM 1/24/96 +0800, Bruce Murphy wrote:

> Which brings me to another point. At least [Americans] *have* a free
> speech bit in your constitution. While it's generally considered a
> right [in Australia], legally that's not really good enough.

About twenty or thirty years ago, there was big debate on in Australia
on whether Australia should have a bill of rights.

The natural rights crowd popped up from obscurity and vigorously opposed
a bill of rights.  They successfully argued that if a bill of 
rights were written down on paper, these rights would then become 
mere creations of the courts.  This same concern is voiced in Article nine
of the American bill of rights.

In my judgement, America is reasonably free despite having a bill of rights,
rather than because of a bill of rights.

The American nation derived its cohesion from the ideology of liberty, not
from a race or religion.  This is the reason America has a bill of rights,
and this is the reason it remains somewhat free despite possessing a bill
of rights.

Despite this debate and referendum in Australia, the government has 
been sneaking some rights into the Australian constitution by 
various stratagems, and I think that this will have the effect of
undermining liberty.
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              				|  
We have the right to defend ourselves	|   http://www.jim.com/jamesd/
and our property, because of the kind	|  
of animals that we are. True law	|   James A. Donald
derives from this right, not from the	|  
arbitrary power of the state.		|   jamesd@echeque.com

> James Donald said...
> In my judgement, America is reasonably free despite having a bill of rights,
> rather than because of a bill of rights.

This is a point that is difficult to get across to people, but is indeed
important and applicable to rampant law-passing today.

I explain to people that _before_ the Bill of Rights, the Constitution of
the United States placed the federal government in a very small box.
The rights of people were not discussed; this was a document to limit
government, not legislate rights.  The rights of people are preassumed.
The Bill of Rights "undid" this a little (lot) by putting the peoples'
rights into a box (maybe a somewhat roomy box, but a box none-the-less).

Thus we get ridiculous statements like, "The Constitution does not grant
you the right to..."  (Rights of people are preassumed ("endowed").)

We ought all be saying, "The Constitution does not grant federal gov't
the power to..."

The "Creator" grants rights; the Constitution limits federal government.

Another analogy draws on computer science (mathematics).

In computer science an "enumerated type" is much more restrictrive than
an unbounded data type.  Consider the Bill of Rights an attempt to enumerate
the rights of people.