Sunday, September 13, 2009

Where do we get our rights?

The article below from Big Government, points to a pervasive problem in this county - namely sloppy speech. Even people who may know what they are saying, produce words that do not convey the truth of what they are trying to articulate. The result of sloppy speech is sloppy thinking. I am as guilty of this as anyone, and try very hard to choose the right words.

Words make a difference. In the novel "1984" by George Orwell, changing language was one of the primary ways used to control the populace. By changing the meaning of words, or even eliminating them, subtle shifts of understanding can happen without the person affected even realizing a change has taken place.

Our current culture prides itself on the odious idea of "political correctness." Even though we make jokes about the movement, we still are led down it's insidious path, and soon we are incorporating the new language in our day-to-day speech.

You Don’t Have a Constitutional Right to Free Speech
by Derek Hunter

You’ve undoubtedly heard someone, maybe even yourself, say that you have a Constitutional right to free speech, right? While that seems to make sense, it’s not true, or at least wasn’t before the government got so big that it started intruding into areas of our lives in which it has no business; and it is part of a modern mentality that has the potential to harm our individual liberty. read the rest

2 comments:

Roz | La Bella Vita Cucina said...

Hi Adrienne, I've been following your blog now for nearly a year and have decided to give you something for having such an informative blog. It is on my blog on August 16. I thought you followed my blog and knew about it, but I guess you didn't know. Roz (aka Bella)

David Murdoch said...

Our dignity and human rights are not founded on what governments say, but on what Our Creator has graciously given to us. If human rights come from God then they cannot be taken away, but if they don't, then they are of course open to be re-interpreted and re-understood.

I personally have doubts that the American revolution was a justified war, because I don't think violence is justified by simply a lack of democracy. Although the founding fathers of the United States still got something right in their idea that the Creator had given people their dignity and that it is the state's responsibility to respect those rights.

Along with inalienable rights, however, we also have inalienable 'duties' and these include duties to look after each other and do charitable works for each other, including especially duties towards the poor, the down-trodden, those who have no voice, etc.

God Bless,