The idea that there are rights granted by the state and local governments is pretty much anathema to the constitution and the whole ethos of the framers, though. There’s the ‘inalienable rights’ from the Declaration, plus the ninth amendment which was added deliberately to make it clear that the first eight amendments were not the exhaustive list of rights. If your rights are inalienable, then there are no rights granted by governments, state and local or otherwise. In any even, neither the ninth nor the 14th amendment in any way limit themselves to states.
Sure, I agree that the Civil Rights Act doesn’t explicitly prevent discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. On the other hand, the Civil Rights Act should have been entirely unnecessary, since the plain language of the Constitution seems to me to prevent the abuses the Act was written to address. That’s the problem with passing laws to redress violations of the Constitution; you surrender the meaning of the Constitution.
I find it humorous that a thread for non-liberals to state what they dislike about liberalism has devolved to a thread with liberals brow-beating conservatism.
editor’s note: I’m a liberal and have partaken in the activities as well to an extent, just noting the irony
I don’t have any objection to a thread where people voice their complaints about liberalism while liberals refrain from disputing with them, but when that thread is nothing more than rote repetitions of innaccurate conservative talking points about liberalism dressed up as ‘discussion’, it’s damned foolish to refrain from objecting.
Yes, and the specific “inalienable” rights mentioned in the declaration–life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness–were, of course, contingent. Slavery, capital punishment, war, indentured servitude, jails–all situations where life and liberty can be “alienated” from a subject by actions of the state. And indeed the very next line of the Declaration says, “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” Not only were “inalienable” rights contingent, but they also required enumeration and enforcement.
Whether rights are “intrinsic” or “natural” or “legal” is a semantic argument. No right really exists without it being specified and enforced. The necessity of a right may be determined by recourse to a higher (“self-evident”) moral standard: “all human beings deserve dignity” or something similar. But rights have to be agreed upon and protected in order to have meaning.
I agree with you that gays should not be discriminated against. I disagree that there’s any Constitutional standing to bar such discrimination. Tennessee’s and Arkansas’s laws, which prohibit non-discrimination statutes, are both nefarious and perfectly legal.
Here is the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment:
No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. (emphasis added)
Fair enough, but even here it isn’t the case that there are state-granted rights. The ninth amendment makes it clear that there exist rights beyond those enumerated in the Constitution, and the due process clause prevents the federal government from infringing on them. The idea that any state or State grants those rights is, as I said, anathema to the founders.
It is certainly true that the federal government failed at this undertaking, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there. The framers had an incomplete notion of what constituted a free person with inherent rights, but it shouldn’t take a Constitutional amendment or a law to correct that understanding. And yes, I’m aware that we have made such amendments and laws before, but I don’t think they should be necessary.
Strikes me that you’re using a more European definition of liberalism here. American liberals tend toward policies that promote social progressivism (abortion rights, LGBT acceptance, religious tolerance, special concern for the issues that affect marginalized groups), a robust safety net, environmental protections, civil rights, civil liberties, voting access, looser border enforcement, more progressive taxation, and education.
Also I’m pretty sure the leftist wing of American politics are rabidly anti-copyright and damn near sided with Trump over pulling out of TPP far more over its copyright protections than any other sort of economic protectionist bent (but I could be reading the liberal room wrong on that very last part of the sentence).
