Your rights should not be flat by Mark Sumner

[Demeter]

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/9/12/899556/-Your-rights-should-not-be-flat?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dailykos%2Findex+%28Daily+Kos%29&utm_content=My+Yahoo


...This nation wasn't founded by people who conducted an international search for the least common denominator in morality. It wasn't modeled after the ugliest, most restrictive, most brutal regime they could locate. Long before Reagan could appropriate the term, those who came to America (especially those who fled from some country where they didn't have the freedom to build their own place of worship) looked to these shores as a site for that "city on a hill."

All people are created equal. All laws are not. Our Constitution, with its guarantees of liberty enshrined as right, not privilege, is a proclamation of noble intent. It's both inspirational and aspirational -- something we should struggle to live up to every day, and a banner we should be proud to wave before the world. These are the rights we should want for everyone, not just ourselves. Only the same people who are the first to champion the cause of American exceptionalism, are crowding to the front of the line to attack the very things that make America exceptional.

How did it come to be that, rather than wishing to spread the best of our nation, we find the American right so ready to absorb the worst from elsewhere? We say that we hold these truths to be "self evident." So why then do we look to people who cross our borders without permission, or even those we capture in battle, with an eye toward stripping these rights away? We proclaim freedom of religion, but those now shaking fists and shaking signs now want to read that as "freedom for those who are strong enough, rich enough, and popular enough to claim it."

The hard truth is that you can not simultaneously believe that these rights are the inalienable gift of a creator, and also that they must be earned by having the right skin color, belonging to the right party or attending the right church. You can not even believe that these rights are the exclusive property of American citizens. Otherwise, they aren't rights at all. They're something you have until shouted down by the crowd...

The difference between justifying restraints on freedom of religion because someone somewhere would do the same, and abandoning workers in search of places where pesky rights don't get in the way is... well, no difference at all, really. So it's no surprise that both views have come to rest among those who will continue to proclaim themselves "patriots" while whittling away everything that makes America worth saving.

[ejpoeta]

1. amen!

[ashleyforachange]

2. Totally Agree!

Totally Agree with your post. +1

[Demeter]

3. kick for monday