While I don't believe that rights are God-given, An Interview With the Statue of Liberty by John Ruane over at ViewsHound is pretty darn awesome! Here's an excerpt regarding the "rule of law" that I rather liked:
JR: You sound like a radical with all that “for the people” stuff. But if we grant amnesty to all those who came here illegally that would be an incentive to others to break the law. We must enforce this law no
matter what the consequences!
Miss Liberty: As Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis said, “Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.” Understand this: laws are made to serve us; we are not made to serve the laws. We must never in our zeal for the law allow ourselves to break the true spirit on liberty and America. Change laws to protect liberty; don’t change liberty to protect laws. John Adams wrote: “You have rights antecedent to all earthly governments: rights that cannot be repeated or restrained by human laws; rights derived from the Great Legislator of the universe.”
You can read the full article here http://www.viewshound.com/politics-usa/2011/9/14/an-interview-with-the-statue-of-liberty (H/T to my friend, Pablo, for the link.)
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I wonder what she would say about the OWS movement and about unfettered markets generating inquality and squashing economic freedoms.
Unfettered markets?! I'd like to know what country has unfettered markets (i.e. capitalism.) I will move there immediately!
To say that America's markets are unfettered is dishonest at best. I work for a financial planner and I can tell you the financial and banking industry in this country is regulated to the point of strangulation. Many firms have to hire a crony to live in DC to wine and dine the fat cat politicians and try to make things better for us. It's ridiculous how much of my day is wasted doing compliance bull crap to satisfy the local, state and federal governments. It's a waste of time, money and resources.
All industry is becoming more and more regulated. The government needs to get out of the economy and go back to it's only proper, moral function...protecting individual rights!
And as far as immigration is concerned, government regulations are the very thing causing the problem!
"One of the methods used by statists to destroy capitalism consists in establishing controls that tie a given industry hand and foot, making it unable to solve its problems, then declaring that freedom has failed and stronger controls are necessary." -Ayn Rand