The Future of Rights

The 9^th Amendment says:

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

All of the rights in the Bill of Rights (the first ten amendments) protect the individual from the power of government, and the 9^th amendment is clearly intended to empower the Supreme Court to recognize additional protections of the individual from the power of government. For example, the Supreme Court has recognized a right to privacy and a right to abortion, and it may someday recognize a right to anonymity and a freedom of association. A freedom of association would prevent the government from telling us with whom we must or must not associate.

For reasons unknown to me, the Supreme Court never actually bases any decisions on the 9^th amendment, but I predict that will change. I predict that the justices appointed by Barack Obama will use the 9^th amendment to actually expand the power of government.

Consider that Democrats are claiming that free health care is a right.

If you are familiar with the Bill of Rights, then you should immediately conclude that a right to health care is fundamentally different than all of the other rights in the Bill of Rights. Whereas, a right is a protection from the power of government, free health care requires government to either force doctors to serve us, or it requires government to force us to pay enough taxes to persuade doctors to cooperate.

Forcing doctors to serve us is too obviously a form of slavery, but forcibly taking the fruits of one man’s labor and giving it to a doctor to persuade him to serve another man is less obvious.

If someone else has a right to the fruits of your labor, then you do not have a right to the fruits of your own labor. How can someone else have a greater right to the fruits of your labor than you do? How is that not a kind of slavery?

Clearly, any right that requires the confiscation of the fruits of anyone’s labor; whether a doctor or a taxpayer, is not a right at all.