Re: Napster destroys Western Civilization

On Thu, 11 May 2000, Marty Hayes <9ball[_at_]hostsite.net> originally wrote:
>
> [...] there is no *natural* right to anything
> [...] any *right* we have is conferred by law.

I wrote to disagree, saying that the USA is founded on natural rights that either may or may not be limited by law, as the people see fit. Unaccountably, 9Ball interprets this as meaning that there is a natural right to shoot someone and Congress shall make no law preventing someone from doing so. I have carefully reviewed my posting and find nothing that even remotely suggests such a conclusion. To the best of my knowledge no one has ever asserted that shooting someone was among the fundamental rights that inhere in and are retained by the people. The people, in constituting both the federal and the state governments of our country, have most emphatically enabled their elected representatives to enact legislation protecting them from being shot at by one another, and to the best of my knowledge every state has criminal statutes prohibiting this activity.

Let me try to make myself perfectly clear: I am not saying that every imaginable activity is a fundamental right that cannot be legislated against. I AM saying that those rights we in the US recognize as fundamental (life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, speech, religion, assembly, association, jury trial, protection against self-incrimination and unreasonable search and seizure, etc.) are held to be inherent in the people. We do not have those rights by benefit of law. Rather, we enacted our Constitution and its several amendments in part to ensure that the law would do nothing to impair those rights.

I don't know whether 9Ball is an American or not, but I encourage him to read carefully the Bill of Rights. I am continually amazed at how many Americans are unaware that our Constitution is a grant of rights from the people to the government, not the other way around.

> Robert C. Cumbow
> Graham & Dunn, P.C.
> 1420 Fifth Avenue, 33rd Floor
> Seattle, Washington 98101-2390
> Phone: 206-340-9619
> Fax: 206-340-9599
> E-mail: rcumbow[_at_]grahamdunn.com
> Website: http://www.grahamdunn.com/
>

		Big law firm experience
	without the big law firm experience.SM

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