OCR Text |
Show V Page 4 UTAH INDEPENDENT August 13, 1971 By Fred W. Morrison ' To The Westerner, the vote is a right. The Deseret News editorial writer in the Saturday, June 26, issue began his article under the title, MUD Vs. MONOTONY with the above muddy slosh which is the same kind of mud the semantic perverters have been . 1 throwing in the eyes of the American Public for many years. Perhaps the referred to writer is more of a victim of the perverters than anything else, nevertheless, he perpetuates in his article g per-tainin- to a monotonous Japanese election to be held the next day by boldly stating that, To the Westerner which includes us in the United States-t- he vote is a right. Well, maybe it is so considered now by those in our country who are totally ignorant or deliberately disdainfulof our history editorial writers and other disturbed opinion molders who appear to have a vested interest in purposely distorting the important, exclusive meanings of the valued and institutions of our country which renders them practically useless and meaningless. It hasn't always been so in our land. For many years we in the United States of America have been subjected to the muddy notion that inherent, natural rights are determined, created and dispensed by government. That is, that natural rights are gifts of government to the people. This murky idea was made popular by the United Nations Covenant On Human Rights which purloined the murky idea directly from the constitution of Communist Soviet Russia, the time-honor- ed ening our Constitution through the amendment process as the Father of our nation, George Washington said we could do. There are in the world two schools of thought as to the source of rights. One school is that alluded to in the above para-grap- h that government is the source of all rights. The other school of thought holds that the source of rights is of an inalien- able nature to the individual person. These rights are inherent in him. No government can granl them, no government can take them away. They are his because of his birth into mortality. The) existed before any government was created or formalized and would exist were there no government at all. It was to the latter school of thought that our forebears belonged. The Founding Fathers of this nation were the foremost exponents of this second school ofthought.Menof truth, honor, faith, courage and liberty in all ages of the history of the earth have subscribed to it. That rights per se are inalienable to the individual was introduced into our political dispensation by none other than Thomas J eff erson , the great third President of the United States, an unyielding foe of tyranny and an uncompromising defender of liberty. He wrote in our Declaration of Independence: We hold these truths to be (i.e., they need no further proof to substantiate them other than to declare them) that all men are . . . endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights: . . . . And, when Rhode Island continued to withhold her ratification of the Constitution until a Bill of Rights had been added to the otherwise .great document creating a very tense situation early in our national existence, it was Thomas Jefferson and James Madison who stepped into the self-evide- widely proclaimed harbinger of what the future is to hold for all mankind all over the world. (God forbid!). In Russia voting is a right provided by the more all the time. We are weak- govern- ment, yes, even more, it is forced upon the Russian People to vote only for Communists as they are the only candidates to vote for. But, the Russian People have a right to vote and it is demanded of them by their government that they exercise the benevolent right. With the adoption of the 26th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States our Constitution is being made to resemble that of the Soviet Union is whimsically changed by the passage of time. And also true it is that there has been no improvement or advancement in political thinking since their time. To the By the Constitution you have made , you have protected the Government from the people , but what have you done to protect the people from the Government? contrary, political thinking has Adams, our second great President said that right 8 were antecedent to all regressed. John So imbued was this great champion of inalienable rights with this philosophy that he declared at other times: earthly governments, that they could not be repealed nor restrained by human laws and that these rights were derived from the great Legislator of the The rights of conscience we never submitted , we could not universe. George Washington, James Madison, George Mason and a host of others contempo- submit. We are answerable for them to our God. The legitimate powers of government extend to such actions only as are injurious toothers. rary to the time of the Founding Fathers (and many truly great men since their time) all made similar declarations. Great wisdom, at that time, not demogogic expediency dominated the politi- (What would Jefferson and our other true leaders of a long gone cal thinking. day have to say about powers of government now used to instigate and enforce the violence and injuries upon the people from which it the-illegitim- Thomas Jefferson He that gave us life gave us I have sworn on the liberty. ... In a similar vein, he emphatically stated: Of liberty then I would say that , in the whole plentitude of its extent, . . . rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add within the cate the one and only true that which is natural and inherent to the individual which is the great principle of existence upon which this nation was founded and which differentiated this nation from all other nations on the face of the earth. The great danger in the proliferation of arbitrary rights, aside 262-521- 5 "Painl jrilh (.olitminn t.olnrn uf thv State St. llth EiST PIZZA f ? M BEST EXTERIOR FINISH. OIL BASE. 5 Z - per gal. Z PAINTS GALS. PER 3RD EAST PH. 355-17- 29 aiNTONs'wHEATSHOP NO PRESERVATIVES $8.97 10 LARGE FIREPLACES & LIVE MUSIC Home of Clinton's Famous Wholewheat " j LIMIT 2 j. HOLLADAY 4046 So. Fifth East PIH).E 4SMH55 CUSTOMER. SANDWICHES O SAME ENJOY jj Reg. Reformers (the transformers of society) could be more readily elected to office when there was a more inclusive portion of the populace within the electorate. . . The more extensive the electorate (the greater the number of voters) the more readily can it be LEE PECK - ASH - PARR Y COMPANY IMO SOUTH out: . . . fun & dining! featuring 250 SO. Res. ... FAMILY Motor Rewinding Phones: Bus. inherent rights of the individual, is the undeniable fact that we are continuing the process of transforming a once free society to one that is controlled. And, that transformation is with our own popular consent by the vote made more popular and given greater consent by greatly enlarging the voting privilege which we have now done by ratifying the 26th Amendment to the Constitution. It is as Dr. Clarence B. Carson so . . . the use of the very aptly government to transform society by popular consent means that the populace must sanction the use of force upon itself to make it change its ways. It means too , that men must support measures which decrease the control of their own affairs, that they must give their approval to the reduction of their liberties. They must assent to the reduction of the avenues open to their voluntary endeavor. They must sanction the use of force in ever larger areas (for the transformation is to be achieved gradually) of their lives and the shoving of society into such corners as remain. At least one will have voted, (as they do in Russia) and that is, after all, all that matters! For, as Dr. Carson also pointed often but the tyrants will, and always so when it violates the rights of an individual. Hand Tools And Small Appliances Repaired 1 and importance of natural, limits of the law,1 because law is All Electric Motors, 467-207- from the diminution of the value meaning of a right HOLLADAYS ELECTRIC MOTOR 3231 South have pro- individual, being lost in the all encompassing Held of arbitrary rights. Today anyone can call anything a right and find many supporters of the idea which, of course, has only tended to obfus- further: nt rights ed liferated in the United States over the past forty years to the point where the term right is practically meaningless for the declared altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. So-call- arbitrary rights government was organized in the first place to protect them?) VALUABLE COUPON No. 9,000 LINE. True it is that the Founding Fathers were thinking of an enduring condition, not one that breach to avert added bloodshed and irreconcilable division. Thomas J efferson said, Z Good Selection of Food Supplements A New Taste Delight O O O O O Whole Wheat Donuts Raisin Filled Cookies Date Pinwheel Cookies Oatmeal Cookies Chlorealla-f- or ,gj COUPONEHEH: people on the go. Just Off Bountiful Exit of E a 529 So. 500 West mill - Bountiful III! -1 5 mil 295-340- 5 I |