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What constitutes a right? This is a controversial topic in today's America and one that it seems many Americans are confused by. Part of the confusion has to be credited to manipulative politicians and their influence on the susceptible. The other part, simply put, is ignorance; those who do not know better either because they have yet to learn the facts or were otherwise ill-informed. Plainly stated, a right is an inherent ownership by the nature of a person’s creation, whereas a benefit is a payment or a privilege granted at the cost of another.
Many people today think that birth control or even healthcare is a right; this is not the case. These are benefits in that they require some form of confiscated payment in order to be acquired, largely at the cost of another. Rights, on the other hand, may require a cost to protect them, but they do not require payment at the cost of another. Rights are something that cannot be created by legislation nor are they granted by the government but rather, they precede it. Governments were only established to protect rights as depicted in the Declaration(s) of Independence, The Rights of Man and of The Citizen, and The Right of Woman and The Woman-Citizen. The Declaration of Independence states “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” (p 18), which was meant to convey to the British Monarchy that they possessed certain rights that government could not govern nor confiscate. Not only does life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness exist prior to government establishment, but the right to protect it from forced confiscation or oppression is indivisible from the rights themselves. Benefits do not require protection, rather they must be taken because they are not inherently rights. Benefits can be anything from subsidies, healthcare, or any assistance granted by the government in which the payment comes from the collection of taxes. In The Rights of Man and of The Citizen, the National Assembly declares “All citizens have the right to ascertain, by themselves or by their representatives, the necessity of the public tax, to consent to it freely, to follow the employment of it, and to determine the quota, the assessment, the collection, and the duration of it” (p 23), which depicts that rights do not depend on taxes or any form of payment but rather, it is the right of the people to regulate it as they see fit.
In short, rights apply to all people while benefits are only available to a defined group, subject to terms decided upon by an authority. As a matter of natural law, rights belong to all people which is why the first ten amendments were fused into the constitution, to serve as aides-mémoires. If they were fused with clauses pertaining to healthcare, birth control, or welfare, they would be known as the “Bill of Benefits” rather than the “Bill of Rights”. We have the right to pursue education, but we are not entitled to it.
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