I guess you woke up this morning with everything just fine, no attacks on you or family. No worrys thru the night about this either, right?
You might be surprised.
Ever wonder what it would be like to live in a country where you could have awaken to something of this nature?
Sure I have. I'm as prepared for it as I can reasonably be, although of course my resources are limited. As I said on another board here, I fully expect that I will die either in prison or during my arrest. Let's see: I'm a white heterosexual male, a fundamentalist Christian, a husband, a father, a libertarian, a firearms enthusiast, a militia member, a general-aviation pilot (one that likes to fly VFR in uncontrolled airspace, to boot), an occasional cigar smoker, and a loudmouth. Each of those is a reason for the government to hate me, and I have no doubt that it'll get around to me sooner or later. I'm just not cut out to be a "dying peacefully in your beds, many years from now" kinda guy.
It isn't because you were just merely born, You think this because you never did have to worry, because from the day you were borm you have been protected from it, you now assume it is like that anywhere you go and it is your birth right. The only reason you can have this is thru our country leaders and soldiers protecting these rights.
"You sleep peacefully at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence in your defense," eh?
Look--if you managed to get through all the apparent paranoia above, there seems to be a misunderstanding that needs to be set straight.
There are differences between the existence of a right, the recognition of a right, and the free exercise of a right. When I quoted the Declaration of Independence, I was talking only about the existence of rights.
According to the Declaration, I had the God-given rights to life, liberty, and property the instant I was born. So do Europeans (even the French!); so do Iraqis; so do the poverty-stricken, illiterate, disease-ridden subjects of the very worst tyrannies that exist or have ever existed on this earth. The Declaration says
all men.
Different governments recognize these rights, and allow the free exercise of them, to different extents. For example, I have the right to keep and bear arms. For good measure, that right is guaranteed to me by the Constitution, although I would have it even if that wasn't the case. The government I live under, however, recognizes that right only in my home, at a government-inspected shooting range, and in a couple of other government-approved places. That doesn't mean that I don't have the right to carry a concealed weapon into a post office or a courthouse: but my government does not allow the free exercise of that right--in much the same way that Iraqis have the right to free speech, but Hussein doesn't allow the free exercise of that right. The government's refusal to recognize the right says nothing about the existence of the right, only about the character of the government.
To get a government to recognize a preexisting right generally takes some kind of fight--maybe voting, maybe argument, maybe litigation, maybe bloodshed. This is the conflict of which you speak, and I'm well aware of its necessity--perhaps more aware than some. But rights themselves are absolute, whether they're recognized and freely exercised or not. That's what I meant when I quoted the Declaration.
Aside from that, I think that either we've already covered most of the other stuff in your post, or that we agree about it. If there's some point to which you particularly wanted me to respond, let me know.
