I have a little thought about something that I would like to express, and that something is the idiotic precept contrived by our American courts that “individual rights are not absolute” and that “government has the power and authority to either take away or diminish those rights” based upon whatever contrived ‘necessity’ it can dream up.
I would argue that, UNTIL someone exercises their rights in a manner that violates the rights of others, then their own individual rights ARE absolute. At the point of harming the rights, person, or property of another, or through such reckless or negligent acts that almost certainly could have resulted in such an injury, then, and ONLY THEN, can those rights be legitimately and temporarily taken away. Try pointing to ANY Bill of rights where it says that there is any other exception to absoluteness to be had in relation to an individual’s rights, because it just ain’t there!!
“Nothing is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man.” –Thomas Jefferson to John Cartwright, 1824. ME 16:48
“A free people [claim] their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.” –Thomas Jefferson: Rights of British America, 1774. Papers, 1:134 ME 1:209.”
“The equal rights of man, and the happiness of every individual, are now acknowledged to be the only legitimate objects of government.” –Thomas Jefferson to A. Coray, 1823.
“Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plenitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.” –Thomas Jefferson to Isaac H. Tiffany, 1819.
The courts are the ones who created the “rights are not absolute” doctrine with absolutely no legitimate constitutional authority upon which to base it, and then promptly began using it stealthily and continuously on an ever-increasing basis to permanently diminish ALL individual rights belonging to the American people for ANY reason the courts themselves have deemed to be a “government necessity,” i.e. their version of the “law of necessity.”
“Every man, and every body of men on earth, possesses the right of self-government… This, like all other natural rights, may be abridged or modified in its exercise by their own consent, or by the law of those who depute them, if they meet in the right of others.” –Thomas Jefferson: Opinion on Residence Bill, 1790. ME 3:60
Just like any other thing done wrong by our government, our simply accepting that the courts or other parts of government have created their own fraudulent authority to limit our rights as they see fit without any challenge from us will NEVER see it changed back to how it is SUPPOSED to be.
Thomas Jefferson and John Locke made it clear that the formation of societies and the governance of the constitution was never intended to, and never did, authorize any such supposition on the government’s part.
“What is true of every member of the society, individually, is true of them all collectively; since the rights of the whole can be no more than the sum of the rights of the individuals.” –Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1789. ME 7:455
“Natural rights [are] the objects for the protection of which society is formed and municipal laws established.” –Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 1797. ME 9:422
“The reason why men enter into society is the preservation of their property.” –John Locke: Second Treatise, sect. 222.
Therefore, the only LOGICAL and constitutional conclusion in relation to how individual rights are NOT absolute is when they are used to violate the rights of others. Outside of that caveat, there is ZERO legitimate authority for government to deprive or diminish ANYONE of ANY right for ANY OTHER REASON.
Without a doubt the courts have the subject of individual rights not being absolute absolutely WRONG, that their misinterpretation is INTENTIONAL, and that it is being done and used for nothing less than the unconstitutional purpose of increasing the personal and governmental power and authority of such elitist individual’s over areas and subjects where it should NOT even exist. That makes the actions our courts and our government are engaged in absolutely CRIMINAL, because those actions directly and unlawfully violate the rights belonging to ALL of the people for the benefit of only those few who think they should have more rights and power than everyone else, especially over the lives and property of others, and that is neither the American dream nor the original plan for its individual Republics.
Tao of Law 