The Bill of Rights Is Also A Bill of Responsibilities
By Scott R. Cooper, Crook County Judge
first published in the Central Oregonian, July 2007
A time honored part of the Independence Day holiday is public soul searching about what it means to be an American.
Inevitably, this conversation will turn to a discussion of rights.
Americans are very proud of their rights. We have whole lists of them: taxpayers rights, voters rights, individual rights, the list goes on. And why shouldn’t we be proud of this distinction?
No country before our ever granted its citizens rights as broad as ours. Even today our Constitution is modeled by other emerging democracies.
But what too often goes overlooked in all this talk of rights is talk of an equally important concept: the idea of “responsibilities”. This is important because the exercise of rights without the acceptance of responsibility is just another form of tyranny. That tyranny occurs when you use your rights to keep someone else from pursuing “life, liberty and happiness” (which incidentally is not a Constitutional right but rather a goal outlined in the Declaration of Independence).
If we are to preserve the independence which has made this country great for the past 231 years, we must be cognizant that implicit within our cherished Bill of Rights are unstated corollary responsibilities. If they were written out, they might look something like this:
Amendment I
You have a right to free speech, but you have a responsibility before speaking to be informed. You have a right to exercise freedom of religion, but you have a responsibility to recognize that others may believe differently and are just as entitled as you to pursue their beliefs.
Amendment II
You have a right to bear arms, but you have a responsibility to handle your firepower safely and to teach your children to do the same.
Amendment III
You have a right to have no soldier quartered upon you in your home, but you have a responsibility to be respectful of the brave men and women of the U.S. military who defend freedom for the rest of us.
Amendment IV
You have a right to be secure from unreasonable search and seizure of your home and your person, but you have a responsibility to obey the law, to promote good morals and to generally behave yourself in such a way that searches and seizures aren’t necessary.
Amendment V
You have a right to due process of law but you have a responsibility not to turn the law against your neighbors as a weapon. Seeking compensation for damages above and beyond what you’ve actually suffered or using the law simply to stop others from their activities is a perversion of the law and the protection we all derive from it.
Amendment VI
You have a right to a fair trial but you have a responsibility not to allow justice to be perverted by playing legal games to avoid the consequences of your crimes.
Amendment VII
You have a right to trial by jury, but you also have a responsibility to do your part for ensuring the integrity of the jury system by responding to a jury summons.
Amendment VIII
You have a right to avoid cruel and unusual punishment, but you have a responsibility not to desire the same for others. Justice is done when the misguided are brought to penitence and restored to a productive place in society, not when the misguided are punished for years on end without hope of reprieve.
Amendment IX
The rights of the people are paramount in the our Constitution but nothing in the Constitution relieves you of your responsibility to have compassion for your fellow citizens and human beings in distress, wherever distress may be found.
Amendment X
The rights not enumerated in the Constitution are reserved to the respective states, but the responsibility for the welfare of the whole United States belongs to all of us.
The founding fathers of our country understood the importance of guaranteeing rights. They had surprisingly little to say about responsibilities. I think they probably couldn’t envision a world where someone might sue for hundreds of millions of dollars because she spilled hot coffee in her lap. Nor could they imagine a world where the mention of god or evolution in the schoolhouse might lead to discipline of a teacher or where governments might seek to take guns out of the hands of ordinary citizens.
But even though they couldn’t imagine such things, they would have recognized immediately the problem that accompanies the exercise of rights without the corresponding exercise of responsibilities.
Attention to both is what makes us and keeps us truly free.
first published in the Central Oregonian, July 2007
Vesting your rights means carrying out your responsibilities
A time honored part of the Independence Day holiday is public soul searching about what it means to be an American.
Inevitably, this conversation will turn to a discussion of rights.
Americans are very proud of their rights. We have whole lists of them: taxpayers rights, voters rights, individual rights, the list goes on. And why shouldn’t we be proud of this distinction?
No country before our ever granted its citizens rights as broad as ours. Even today our Constitution is modeled by other emerging democracies.
But what too often goes overlooked in all this talk of rights is talk of an equally important concept: the idea of “responsibilities”. This is important because the exercise of rights without the acceptance of responsibility is just another form of tyranny. That tyranny occurs when you use your rights to keep someone else from pursuing “life, liberty and happiness” (which incidentally is not a Constitutional right but rather a goal outlined in the Declaration of Independence).
If we are to preserve the independence which has made this country great for the past 231 years, we must be cognizant that implicit within our cherished Bill of Rights are unstated corollary responsibilities. If they were written out, they might look something like this:
Amendment I
You have a right to free speech, but you have a responsibility before speaking to be informed. You have a right to exercise freedom of religion, but you have a responsibility to recognize that others may believe differently and are just as entitled as you to pursue their beliefs.
Amendment II
You have a right to bear arms, but you have a responsibility to handle your firepower safely and to teach your children to do the same.
Amendment III
You have a right to have no soldier quartered upon you in your home, but you have a responsibility to be respectful of the brave men and women of the U.S. military who defend freedom for the rest of us.
Amendment IV
You have a right to be secure from unreasonable search and seizure of your home and your person, but you have a responsibility to obey the law, to promote good morals and to generally behave yourself in such a way that searches and seizures aren’t necessary.
Amendment V
You have a right to due process of law but you have a responsibility not to turn the law against your neighbors as a weapon. Seeking compensation for damages above and beyond what you’ve actually suffered or using the law simply to stop others from their activities is a perversion of the law and the protection we all derive from it.
Amendment VI
You have a right to a fair trial but you have a responsibility not to allow justice to be perverted by playing legal games to avoid the consequences of your crimes.
Amendment VII
You have a right to trial by jury, but you also have a responsibility to do your part for ensuring the integrity of the jury system by responding to a jury summons.
Amendment VIII
You have a right to avoid cruel and unusual punishment, but you have a responsibility not to desire the same for others. Justice is done when the misguided are brought to penitence and restored to a productive place in society, not when the misguided are punished for years on end without hope of reprieve.
Amendment IX
The rights of the people are paramount in the our Constitution but nothing in the Constitution relieves you of your responsibility to have compassion for your fellow citizens and human beings in distress, wherever distress may be found.
Amendment X
The rights not enumerated in the Constitution are reserved to the respective states, but the responsibility for the welfare of the whole United States belongs to all of us.
The founding fathers of our country understood the importance of guaranteeing rights. They had surprisingly little to say about responsibilities. I think they probably couldn’t envision a world where someone might sue for hundreds of millions of dollars because she spilled hot coffee in her lap. Nor could they imagine a world where the mention of god or evolution in the schoolhouse might lead to discipline of a teacher or where governments might seek to take guns out of the hands of ordinary citizens.
But even though they couldn’t imagine such things, they would have recognized immediately the problem that accompanies the exercise of rights without the corresponding exercise of responsibilities.
Attention to both is what makes us and keeps us truly free.
Labels: Vesting your rights means carrying out your responsibilities
posted by Scott Cooper | 8:58 AM
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