Voter ID vs Carry ID

[texasprowler]

That we 'have' rights means that we are in possession of them and are prepared to fight to the death to keep possession, or willingly waive them.

Citizens of Mexico do not 'have' the right to bear arms. They did not fight to acquire that right and therefore do not possess it.

[texasprowler]

Sorry OP ferric021 for side-tracking your issue.

I too wonder why most folks seem to feel voter id is ok, while carry id shouldn't be required.

I'm not in favor of either because my wallet is already heavily burdened with id's and licenses for hunting, boating, atv, carry, visa, TWIC card, driving car, truck, motorcycle, and the list goes on.

These things are required of many good citizens because of the bad acts of a few. I believe the bad actors should carry the burden instead, that they carry a big red tattoo on their forehead denoting they have lost their rights and priveleges granted to the rest of us.

And while showing id is a simple act, the small infringements of freedom keep adding up. In Madison WI, for example, when a rape occurs, all male adults are rounded up and coerced into providing a semen sample. "For the good of public safety".
Then I just heard about the little girl in colorado. While very tragic indeed, the police reported they searched 'hundreds' of homes.

So I tend to resist things like voter id or a national id. I see where society is going and no way to turn back.

Why not just impose 20 year prison sentences for those who steal my voice/vote?

Why not repeal the MPPA? The libs would vote for that and it would leave gun possession legal.

[tman]

=And while showing id is a simple act, the small infringements of freedom keep adding up. In Madison WI, for example, when a rape occurs, all male adults are rounded up and coerced into providing a semen sample. "For the good of public safety".

Seriously?

Can you give us a link to that?

[Heffay]

=And while showing id is a simple act, the small infringements of freedom keep adding up. In Madison WI, for example, when a rape occurs, all male adults are rounded up and coerced into providing a semen sample. "For the good of public safety".

Seriously?

Can you give us a link to that?

It's true. I read about this myself here:

viewtopic.php?f=21&t=34759&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=30#p391499

[ferric021]

Sorry OP ferric021 for side-tracking your issue.

I am enjoying the discussion, and a debate between rights/priviledges is actually what made me post the question initially.

I still believe that according to jshuberg's definition of a right, what is deemed a 'right' is a personal choice made by him. And that the founding fathers may have codified certain things as 'right's according to their belief systems in the constitution, but that doesn't change anything in the context of what each person individually decides are 'unalienable' or 'god-given' rights.
What really ends up deciding what is a god-given right is what The People are inclined to believe at any given moment in time, regardless of what any government body decides, and this in turn allows the idea of what is a 'right' to be fluid and evolving.

My system of beliefs could forgo the right to self-defense ('turn the other cheek') and that in itself would whether or not self defense is a human right to me, regardless of which governments decide self defense is constitutionally protected or which governments decide that self defense is not protected by their laws.

Rights are things that a person can enjoy without having to compel any other person to action to enjoy the right.
Rights cannot be denied to any class or group of people, but only individual persons by due process of law.
Rights do not require any specific form of government or any other man-made construct to be in place to enjoy.
Rights are not granted by a government, merely recognized by it.

In the end, the idea of a 'right' is either a man-made construct, or a divine construct, and in any case cannot be absolutely defined the same by all humans universally.

[ferric021]

I'm not in favor of either because my wallet is already heavily burdened with id's and licenses for hunting, boating, atv, carry, visa, TWIC card, driving car, truck, motorcycle, and the list goes on.

Another thing that this always comes down to in the end, is that every protection is a freedom taken away:
To protect people against food poisoning, the freedom to sell whatever food I made in my kitchen to the general public is taken away.
To protect people from illegal guns being carried on the street, the freedom to openly carry a gun without being stopped to provide ID and carry license is taken away.
To protect people from potential voter fraud, the freedom to vote without a government id is taken away.

The question is really which freedoms people are willing to give up for which protections.

[edited to correct typo.]

[tman]

It's true. I read about this myself here:

viewtopic.php?f=21&t=34759&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=30#p391499

There are days I could love the pink pony.

[texasprowler]

I think many otherwise good people are in prison or shot by police while protecting a right they 'believed' their creator endowed them with.

The best argument I've seen yet that voting is a right:

The concept of representation is an extension of speech, that one appoints another to speak on his behalf. A vote denied is a voice silenced.

I do not agree that rights guaranteed by the US apply to all citizens of the world. We extend 'some' rights to invited guests as a privilege, which can be revoked.

[jshuberg]

The concept of representation is an extension of speech, that one appoints another to speak on his behalf. A vote denied is a voice silenced.

Contrary to popular belief, the concept of representation is not an extension of free speech. It is an extension of property rights, and that when the government takes your property in the form of taxation, you have a right to a voice in how that property is used. It was not without argument though.

This was debated at the constitutional convention. Is suffrage an extension of personal rights, or of property rights? James Madison gave a speech to congress defining the issue. It's a very good read:
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders ... 16s26.html

While Madison argued for a free and universal right of suffrage as an extension of personal rights, Hamilton argued that suffrage was in fact an extension of property rights, as it was the taxation of that property that funded the government. In the end, suffrage was deemed to be an extension of property rights. While the original discussions dealt with property in the sense of taxation, it did quickly become an issue of the ownership of land in most states. I'm not 100% certain, but I believe this was due to the fact that landowners were the principal taxpayers, and it was easier to identify landowners (property deeds) than other types of taxpayers. Below is a map of the property qualifications for suffrage in 1775:
http://www.leventhalmapcenter.org/id/12425

You'll note that all states required a person to own land to vote, except for South Carolina, whose qualification was simply the paying of taxes.

While the constitution has been amended to prevent discrimination in voting due to age, sex, and race, there has been no amendment or court ruling that changes the fact that suffrage is an extension of property rights. Despite this however, the individual states began to eliminate the property requirement to vote, and by 1850 there were no states that required a person own property or pay taxes in order to vote. Regardless of changes to the state requirements on who can and cannot vote, nothing has changed the fact that the federally recognized right of suffrage is still an extension of property rights, not an extension of personal rights. As I stated earlier in the thread, there have been attempts to add a universal legal right to vote to the constitution, but so far they have gone nowhere.

When someone claims that the "right" to vote is an extension of free speech, they are mistaken. Perhaps they mean to say that the "right" to vote should be an extension of free speech, but currently it is not. Voting is an entitlement provided by the government to ensure that the right to suffrage, which is an extension of property rights, is not infringed by government taxation.

[texasprowler]

You also mentioned earlier that land ownership is a right. In thinking about the Montana land wars of yesteryear, it was a matter of WHO had the right. I bet that made voting complicated.
Can you speak more about the source of the right to own a particular plot of land?

[jshuberg]

Honestly, I can't. I've never dove into that area before.

[Heffay]

When someone claims that the "right" to vote is an extension of free speech, they are mistaken.

You're right. It's part of the 9th Amendment, not the First.

[jshuberg]

Yep, the right to own property was not explicitly enumerated in the bill of rights, and so is covered implicitly by the 9th amendment. It's actually an interesting story why.

At the time that the constitution was being drafted, slavery was a very contentious issue. Because slaves were considered property, and part of a slave owners estate, these terms were intentionally left out of both the declaration of independence and the constitution. Those who opposed slavery didn't want to imply a justification for slavery by introducing the right to own property explicitely. When Jefferson penned the initial drafts of the declaration of independence, it originally read "life, liberty, and estate" as the quote was directly lifted from John Locke's Two Treatises of Government. Jefferson changed estate to the pursuit of happiness for fear that the term estate could be used as a justification for the ownership of slaves.

When you consider that the revolution was based in large part on a violation of property rights by the crown, and that suffrage and our representational from of government is derived from property rights, it's really remarkable that the right to own property was not one of the explicitly enumerated rights. The organization and implementation of our entire form of government is based on a right that was intentionally left out of the very documents that created our government.

EDIT - While the 5th Amendment does protect against the government seizing property without due process, it does not explicitly state that ownership of property is a right in and of itself.

[texasprowler]

And the Christian deity doesn't give a right to land either. But I would maintain that we have that right based on natural law, which are self apparent.

The original constitution of 1639 was drafted for the purpose of defining land rights, and is based on organic law, but the founders seem to have used positive law to get there. Was this doctrine considered when making the bill of rights?

Also, does the right to self-govern concept include voting as a right?

[jshuberg]

1639? What are you talking about?