Liberals don't understand rights

From the Huffington Post, we read this new tactic of one, radical liberal who wants to foist gun control on us:

The Second Amendment is highly contested. There is no doubt that people do have the right to carry and have a stockpile of guns (“the right of the people to keep and bear arms”) and a state has the right to organize a well-regulated Militia. But, the main issue is on the right to self-defend with a firearm.

The main problem with the notion of self-defense is it imposes on justice, for everyone has the right for a fair trial. Therefore, using a firearm to defend oneself is not legal because if the attacker is killed, he or she is devoid of his or her rights.

OK, so it's not that new – I've heard variations of this argument before. I just think it's hilarious. I really don't think such an assault on common sense could ever gain much popularity among the population at large and certainly couldn't become law. Still, liberals have surprised me before so I never take their crazy ideas too lightly.

Do I really even need to explain what's wrong with the idea of making self-defense illegal? Such a bizarre concept can't even stand up to its own logic: The constitution also says I have the right to life, liberty, and property. Therefore, an attacker who intends me harm or an intruder who intends to steal from me has already infringed upon my rights. So the liberal's solution is that I should let this person victimize me so he can face a fair trial later? This is why I say liberals are brain damaged.

I believe the flaws in this argument are self-evident so I won't waste any more time pointing them out. Instead, I want to use this as an opportunity, once again, to educate liberals in the concept of rights.

Our founding fathers believed our rights are endowed by our Creator. It's not the government or the constitution that grants us our rights. They are literally, God-given. We establish governments to do things like keep the peace, build roads, and defend our borders. We give them the power to make laws and we agree to live by those laws. We also understand the government needs money to do the things we expect it to do so we also agree we'll pay taxes.

When we grant the government so much power, we risk creating a tyranny. To help prevent this, the founding fathers placed specific restrictions on the government saying there are certain things we will never allow it to do: it cannot infringe on our right to practice our religion, for example, or to speak, or to assemble, or to own guns. The government can't search our homes without a cause and, if we're ever accused of a crime, we must have a speedy trial and be judged by our peers – not by some bureaucrat. The thing to remember about our Bill of Rights is that the restrictions are meant to limit what the government can do and protect us!

Private citizens aren't restricted by the Bill of Rights. One right I have is the freedom of speech. This specifically means I am able to share my thoughts about politics or religion or whatever strikes my fancy and the government cannot censor what I have to say. Believe me when I say I have a lot of opinions and I exercise my freedom to speak every time I blog. If you have a different opinion than mine, go start your own blog but don't expect me to open my blog to you so that you have a forum. If I want to censor the comments people leave on my blog, I will. If I should censor someone's comments, I'm not “violating” his free speech. He's free to speak somewhere else. I'm not obligated to provide someone else a forum to speak but neither can I stop him.

Liberals have a misunderstanding about rights. They believe the constitution gives us our rights and that it's the job of the government to guarantee that we get to exercise our rights. For example, liberals believe there is a “right” to health care. Therefore, they want the government to either provide medical insurance (like medicare or Medicaid) or force private employers to provide insurance. In other words, if someone doesn't have medical insurance, liberals think everyone else is obligated to provide that person with insurance so that his right to health care is not infringed. This attitude about rights is exactly backwards. It grants more power to the government and places more burdens on citizens.

The liberals' abuse of rights can be seen in many forms. I've already talked about the “right” to healthcare. There's also some imagined right to birth control so Obamacare requires insurance companies to provide contraception for free. There's a right to have an abortion so federal funds are made available to groups like Planned Parenthood. From time to time, liberals bring up the fairness doctrine that would require radio stations that air conservative radio hosts, like Rush Limbaugh, to provide equal time to people with a liberal point of view. They believe this “protects” the freedom of speech by ensuring the speech is “balanced.” That's funny, I don't remember the word “fair” being part of the first amendment – only “free.”

So now liberals want innocent, law-abiding citizens to become victims so that rapists, murderers, and burglars can be guaranteed their right to have a trial. I'm sorry, but that's not my job. The criminals are the ones who are putting their lives and liberty at risk when they choose to commit crimes. If someone tries to harm someone in my family, I will let God judge him; I'll also do what I can to arrange the meeting.