"Bill of No Rights"

Great Debates
1

Hey gang, I got this on email the other day, and I thought we’d like to kick it around for awhile. I’m not sure how authentic it is, but it definitely is a little biting.
-Dave

The following was written by State Representative Mitchell Kaye from
GA.

"We, the sensible people of the United States, in an attempt to help
everyone get along, restore some semblance of justice, avoid any more
riots, keep our nation safe, promote positive behavior, and secure
the blessings of debt-free liberty to ourselves and our
great-great-great-grandchildren, hereby try one more time to ordain
and establish some common sense guidelines for the terminally whiny,
guilt-ridden, deluded, and other liberal Bed-wetters. We hold these
truths to be self-evident: that a whole lot of people are confused
by the Bill of Rights and are so dim that they require a “Bill of No
Rights.”

ARTICLE I: You do not have the right to a new car, big screen TV or
any other form of wealth. More power to you if you can legally
acquire them, but no one is guaranteeing anything.

ARTICLE II: You do not have the right to never be offended. This
country is based on freedom, and that means freedom for everyone -
not just you! You may leave the room, change the channel, express a
different opinion, etc., but the world is full of idiots, and
probably always will be.

ARTICLE III: You do not have the right to be free from harm. If you
stick a screwdriver in your eye, learn to be more careful, do not
expect the tool manufacturer to make you and all your relatives
independently wealthy.

ARTICLE IV: You do not have the right to free food and housing.
Americans are the most charitable people to be found, and will gladly
help anyone in need, but we are quickly growing weary of subsidizing
generation after generation of professional couch potatoes who
achieve nothing more than the creation of another generation of
professional couch potatoes.

ARTICLE V: You do not have the right to free health care. That would
be nice, but from the looks of public housing, we’re just not
interested in public health care.

ARTICLE VI: You do not have the right to physically harm other
people. If you kidnap, rape, intentionally maim, or kill someone,
don’t be surprised if the rest of us want to see you fry in the
electric chair.

ARTICLE VII: You do not have the right to the possessions of
others. If you rob, cheat or coerce away the goods or services of
other citizens, don’t be surprised if the rest of us get together and
lock you away in a place where you still won’t have the right to a
big screen color TV or a life of leisure.

ARTICLE VIII: You don’t have the right to demand that our children
risk their lives in foreign wars to soothe your aching conscience.
We hate oppressive governments and won’t lift a finger to stop you
from going to fight if you’d like. However, we do not enjoy
parenting the entire world and do not want to spend so much of our
time battling each and every little tyrant with a military uniform
and a funny hat.

ARTICLE IX: You don’t have the right to a job. All of us sure want
all of you to have one, and will gladly help you along in hard times,
but we expect you to take advantage of the opportunities of education
and vocational training laid before you to make yourself useful.

ARTICLE X: You do not have the right to happiness. Being an
American means that you have the right to pursue happiness - which,
by the way, is a lot easier if you are unencumbered by an
overabundance of idiotic laws created by those of you who were
confused by the Bill of Rights.

It’s not how you pick your nose, it’s where you put the boogers

2

Mitchell Kaye did in fact right the Bill of No Rights. I found it a this site http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a371ca13c094d.htm

FreeRepublic.com touts itself “The web’s premier conservative news discussion forum!” They also ask that everybody forwards the Bill of No Rights to their “congress criters”.

If I was discussing Lucy Lawless but I wrote Lucy Topless, would that be a Freudian typo?

3

I think this could have been included somewhere in Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged”

It is a good illustration that many conservatives feel toward many things happening in this country.

It seems to me that the definition of what a “Right” is has been lost. Defining what it isn’t seems to be a last ditch attempt to teach it’s meaning.

4

Hmmm, reminds me of an email I recieved today too. It’s 'sposedly from a Canadian reporter, although nor on topic, it was worth sharing:

This comes from a Canadian newspaper. America: The Good Neighbor.
Widespread but only partial news coverage was given recently to a remarkable editorial broadcast from Toronto by Gordon Sinclair, a
Canadian television commentator. What follows is the full text of his trenchant remarks as printed in the Congressional Record:

"This Canadian thinks it is time to speak up for the Americans as the most generous and possibly the least appreciated people on all the earth.

Germany, Japan and, to a lesser extent, Britain and Italy were lifted
out of the debris of war by the Americans who poured in billions of dollars and forgave other billions in debts. None of these countries is today paying even the interest on its remaining debts to the United States.

When the franc was in danger of collapsing in 1956, it was the Americans who propped it up, and their reward was to be insulted and swindled on the streets of Paris. I was there. I saw it. When earthquakes hit distant cities, it is the United States that hurries in to help. This spring, 59 American communities were flattened by tornadoes. Nobodyhelped.

The Marshall Plan and the Truman Policy pumped billions of dollars into discouraged countries. Now newspapers in those countries are writing about the decadent, warmongering Americans.

I’d like to see just one of those countries that is gloating over the erosion of the United States dollar build its own airplane. Does any other country in the world have a plane to equal the Boeing Jumbo Jet, the Lockheed Tri-Star, or the Douglas 10? If so, why don’t they fly them?

Why do all the International lines except Russia fly American Planes?

Why does no other land on earth even consider putting a man or woman on the moon? You talk about Japanese technocracy, and you get radios. You talk about German technocracy, and you get automobiles. You talk about American technocracy, and you find men on the moon-not once, but several times-and safely home again.

You talk about scandals, and the Americans put theirs right in the
store window for everybody to look at. Even their draft-dodgers are not pursued and hounded. They are here on our streets, and most of them, unless they are breaking Canadian laws, are getting American dollars from ma and pa at home to spend here.

When the railways of France, Germany and India were breaking down through age, it was the Americans who rebuilt them. When the Pennsylvania railroad and the New York Central went broke, nobody loaned them an old
caboose. Both are still broke.

I can name you 5000 times when the Americans raced to the help of other people in trouble. Can you name me even one time when someone else raced to the Americans in trouble? I don’t think there was outside
help even during the San Francisco earthquake.

Our neighbors have faced it alone, and I’m one Canadian who is damned tired of hearing them get kicked around. They will come out of this thing with their flag high. And when they do, they are entitled to thumb their nose at the lands that are gloating over their present troubles. I hope Canada is not one of those."

Stand proud, Americans.

NOTE: edited to get those damned > off the original piece, hopefully the layout is still in one piece.

5

Hmm, TechChick, it’s eloquent - but I can’t shake the feeling that it was written sometimes in the 70’s (see below) and frankly, there’s a couple of points that are no longer accurate - if indeed they ever were.

True. USA did indeed put the better part of Europe back on its feet, and there’s actually a thing to be proud of. As for the debt repayments, well - USA isn’t the only one not getting what is owed them, if we’re talking WWII debts.

I wasn’t and I didn’t - no comment, really, except that of course it’s wrong to swindle and insult anyone, American or otherwise.

Oooo-kay. Perhaps some of us unwashed furriners think we help out a bit as well. One might even be able to find a country or two with a higher per capita budget for foreign help than the USA. One might not even have to look that hard. As for nobody helping the USA: Rich countries help poor countries - and rich countries are supposed to be able to help themselves. (And besides, which spring was this ?)

Marshall & Truman: Completely true. There’s a fact for Americans to take pride in, and you should. Newspapers: Well, this is another hint to the age of this piece - could it be that the correspondent is referring to the press coverage of the war in Viet Nam ? And if there was criticism of this war in American newspapers, why not in European ones ?

So, who’s gloating ? We’re competing, damnit! If the dollar is weakened, our currencies get stronger - does anybody expect us to be unhappy about that ?

The aircraft mentioned are all 70’s vintage and again point to the age of this piece of writing - as does the reference to the Apollo missions.

Of course, there are competing aircraft now, and they are in widespread use. And nobody wants to put a man on the moon these days, though I personally find that regrettable. The put-downs of German and Japanese technology (I assume that “technocracy” is a typo, otherwise I can’t make any sense of that sentence) are laughable, although they might have been more precise about 25 years ago. Radios and cars - how about microchips and Tornado fighters ?

The first paragraph is unfortunately true even today. But how it connects to draft-dodgers is beyond my comprehension. And the bit about the draft-dodgers again points to the Vietnam War era.

I haven’t heard the railway story before and can’t comment. As for the Americans receiving no help - well, perhaps USA has yet to see the kind of trouble that would send other countries racing to help them. And perhaps you should just consider yourself lucky about that.

Well, the interesting bit here is about coming out of “this thing” with the flag high. What is “this thing” that USA will come out of ? I have a sneaking suspicion that the writer refers to the Viet Nam war - and I don’t really think USA got out of that war with their flag high, sorry. If somebody could date this piece of writing, I’d be very interested.

You should, you’ve a lot to be proud of. But please base your pride on facts and please try not to insist that you’re number one in every conceivable respect.

MAN, that got long.

Bytheway, the “Bill of no rights” was dead on - brillant!

Norman.

Worrying is the thinking man’s form of meditation.

6

And after a bit of research:
http://www.rcc.ryerson.ca/schools/rta/ccf/news/unique/am_text.html

  • dated June 5th, 1973.

Interesting, though!

Norman.

Worrying is the thinking man’s form of meditation.

7

I’m disappointed that nobody has picked up on the fact that the “Bill of no rights” wasn’t written by Mitchell Kaye. It was actually written by Lewis Napper.

See:
http://www.intellectualcapital.com/issues/98/0709/iccyberrep.asp

BoKu

8

Going by that date, I’d say the Gordon Sinclair thing was written in response to Viet-Nam, though he may also have been writing about Watergate, and that was definitely a scandal that was placed in our windows for all to see. The hearings were on national TV every single day, remember.

For that matter, I’d say nearly all of our other scandals are too: Iran-Contra, Bill ‘n’ Monica, Newt’s indiscretions, the savings-and-loan debacle… The list could go on.

As for the OP, I have no complaint with ARTICLE I & II, but I’d change ARTICLE III slightly: "You do not have the right to be free from harming yourself due to incompetence or ignorance or foolishness. If you are harmed because the product you purchased or borrowed was defective, you have the right to sue for compensation and if the manufacturer is found guilty, there will be punishment. But if it’s because you didn’t read the directions, it’s YOUR fault you got hurt and no one else’s.

ARTICLE IV: There are those who do need help and some need more help than others and when private donations fall short, the government should step in. Be glad if you’ve never needed to ask for help and don’t be so quick to judge those who have and do and will need help.

ARTICLE V presumes that public health care would be a disaster no matter what. The writer is not interested in even considering it, it seems. It wouldn’t be free, it would be paid for by taxes. If expensive, what of it? Putting a dollar value on human life actually cheapens it.

ARTICLE VI: The death penalty is morally and ethically wrong no matter what the crime. If it’s wrong for one person to kill another, then it’s wrong for a group of persons to kill another, and a government is a group of persons. Besides, the death penalty is the only penalty that cannot be retracted if the person in question is later found to be innocent after all.

No complaint with ARTICLE VII.

If ARTICLE VIII was followed to the letter, we would not have gotten involved in Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, the Persian Gulf or Kosovo, to name a few. However, if Nazi Germany had not declared war on us, we would not have gone there, either.

ARTICLE IX seems to contradict I, IV and V. You don’t have the right to free food, housing and medical care, but neither do you have the right to a job in order to work for them? You’re really screwed, aren’t you?

ARTICLE X seems to be a sly jab at laws created to ensure we get paid a minimum wage, that we are entitled to overtime pay, and at environmental laws which cost corporations millions of dollars to follow and therefore decreasing those corporations’ profit. “Who cares if you can’t breathe the air in Houston? At least the folks who invested in petrochemicals made a profit! And we employed a lot of people, too! So what if they die from the smog? No one lives forever!”

No, it just seems that way.

>< DARWIN >
__L___L

9

ARTICLE IX seems to contradict I, IV and V. You don’t have the right to free food, housing and medical care, but neither do you have the right to a job in order to work for them? You’re really screwed, aren’t you?

Not quite.

A job is an agreement between a person and a business that is granted to whoever is deemed worthy. Having a job is not an inalienable right, but you have the same right as anyone to prove yourself worthy. If you are considered unworthy, you have the same right as anyone to take advantage of the educational opprotunities designed to give you the skills you need to be worthy, or apply for a job that is more suited to your abilities.

Life is a tragedy for those who feel and a comedy for those who think.

10

I have something to add to this:

ARTICLE XI: You do not have the right to have everything your children could possibly watch, read, listen to, or play when you aren’t looking set a good example or otherwise be suitable for children. As a parent, teaching children proper values is your responsibility. If you don’t do that, don’t go complaining when your kids repeat something they saw on Beavis & Butt-Head.

Life is a tragedy for those who feel and a comedy for those who think.

11

The Gordon Sinclair thing is real. It’s from 1973.

Read this page: http://www.snopes.com/quotes/sinclair.htm

–John

12

“I think this could have been included somewhere in Ayn Rand’s ‘Atlas Shrugged’”

It sure sounds like something from one of those chapter-long speeches from Atlas Shrugged, and Rand surely would have agreed with all the sentiments expressed. Nonetheless, I’m nearly certain that the Bill of No Rights isn’t from Atlas Shrugged, as I’ve read it more than once.

While Atlas Shrugged probably wouldn’t win any literary awards or an A from a lit teacher – chapter-long monologue speeches! morally-perfect characters (even if it’s Rand’s unique flavor of morality)! – it’s a pretty good book and it definitely makes you think about events occurring in the real world.

Mind you, I don’t agree with all of Rand’s ideas. The biggest problem I have is that she seems to be arguing that charity (any sort of giving or transfer other than a tit-for-tat exchange) is a negative thing for society if not an actually evil act. I would agree that, generally, nobody should be coerced or cajoled into “giving” for the sake of others. I don’t buy into a “moral duty of those who have to give back to society some of what they made,” since if one earns their money honestly and legally, one didn’t TAKE anything from society in the first place. But I also think that if someone voluntarily decides to be charitable, it’s a good thing and not some sort of upside-down sin.

13

It seems that Article IX was written largely for two groups:

  1. disabled people who try to misuse the Americans with Disabilities Act to get jobs they couldn’t do if their lives depended on it

  2. minority members who whine for affirmative action after being rejected for jobs they really don’t deserve

Life is a tragedy for those who feel and a comedy for those who think.

14

John,

I love Atlas Shrugged. There is no way this is in it, I was just saying it would have fit.

I also goes to show how much teachers know.

hehehehe

Sorry about that little spiteful slap to some of the teachers in my past.
Anyway…

I think Ayn Rand looked at charity as destroying a man’s soul. Or at least his desire to create, sustain and be responsible for his own life. I agree that she uses many absolutes in her book, but it does work so well when trying to get a point across.
I don’t think you could ever exist in a world where business did whatever it wanted and the people had zero controls except purchasing power.

Neither do I think a world where the state took care of you with her great saying:

From each according to his ability, To each according to their need.
As usual, the best (truth) lies somewhere in the middle. IMHO…hopefully more towards free markets with minimal regulation.
As an aside, how similiar do you think the lawsuits on the tobacco companies and now the gun industry are to the “Looters” she describes in her book?

15

Allow my heart to pump purple puppy piss in pride for the the Sickest nation on earth -America.

It does make me sooo sick to listen to how great American Foreign Policy is when the last century provide ample proof America is the Number one Terrorist state in the world.

American interests have funded the destruction of every Central American country that has ever made the attempt to for an independant and democratic nationalistic government that didn’t suit the American interest.

America heavily sponsored and trained the people responsible for Suharto’s reign of genocide and murder in East Timor. Laid waste to Laos because of is nationalistic and democratic processes, fought a war in South Vietnam AGAINST the popular support of the political support, and insured the Phillipines is managed with American interests.
Sponsored Nazis and Fascists after WWII to do Americas dirty work, busted the French Labour Movement after the war with Mafia support and then rewarded the Mob with the French Connection drug trade.
Not to mention Americas internal policy which blindfolds the “bewildered masses” with non-issues. America makes the drug trade the Number One political issue during the Bush election when, a year earlier it garnered only three percent of the public’s greatest concern. The American public are sheep to the Mass media.
Any Canadian who thinks America is a under-respected nation is a goddam fool.

16

I would recomend decaf from now on.

17

And where will government get the money to step in on Article IV without violating Article VII?

Or do you believe that politicians and bureaucrats should be exempt from the law like they are now?

18

Now now, Libertarian, taxes aren’t quite the same thing as theft.

(They’re more like extortion.)

19

How about:
“You do not have the right to impose your religion or moral code on anyone else.”

or

“You do not have the right to censor anyone’s access to information you do not own.”

or even…

“You do not have the right to distract the public from relevant issues by throwing around loaded buzzwords like “liberal” or “conservative””

20

Mary said

When we intervene to your liking, such as in Iran, Somalia, Kosovo, etc., Well that is no big deal.

But when we intervene in a way that is not to your liking, well then we are the Sickest Nation in the World. Haurumph.

So (he says tipping back the brim of his cowboy hat) what pissant backwater do you come from, missy?

I think that Mary’s attitude is precisely the reason we should not intervene on behalf of other countries. Let 'em blow themselves up. If we help, we are bastards.