Quotes About Rights

Majorities and minorities cannot rightfully be taken at all into account in deciding questions of justice.

Christians, Yezidis, and other religious minorities have every right to remain in their ancestral homelands.

Ability to speak the majority language is not just important for inclusion; it is important for minorities to be able to claim their rights and entitlements.

All Bangladeshi citizens, including minorities and women, must feel safe and confident in exercising their right to vote.

The right of a minority is so important in a democracy.

Of strong importance to me is the defense of minority rights, not just racial minorities, but ideological and religious minorities.

Women are a minority the same way gay people are.

Instead of minority and majority politics, if we try and give the same rights to all, it is not polarisation. This is the core value of our Constitution.

since 1886, the Bill of Rights has been explicitly applied to corporations. Perhaps most astoundingly, no branch of the U.S. government ever formally enacted corporate personhood "rights": • The public never voted on it. • It was never enacted into law by any legislature. • It was never even stated by a decision after arguments before the Supreme Court.

And those rights are not to be lightly infringed upon by government in any way. They're explicitly protected by the Constitution from the government. We are, after all, fragile living things that can be suppressed and abused by the powerful.

Thomas Paine said, "The right of voting for representatives is the primary right by which other rights are protected. To take away this right is to reduce a man to slavery."1

The Constitution doesn't give us rights: it restrains government from infringing on rights we acquire at birth by virtue of being human beings, "natural rights" that are held by "natural persons." The Constitution holds back (restraining government) rather than gives forward (granting rights to people).

And because the condition of Man . . . is a condition of Warre of every one against every one; in which case every one is governed by his own Reason; and there is nothing he can make use of, that may not be a help unto him, in preserving his life against his enemyes; It followeth, that in such a condition, every man has a Right to every thing; even to one anothers body.

And from this followeth another law: that such things as cannot be divided be enjoyed in common, if it can be; and if the quantity of the thing permit, without stint; otherwise proportionably to the number of them that have right.

That a man be willing, when others are so too, as farre-forth, as for Peace, and defence of himselfe he shall think it necessary, to lay down this right to all things; and be contented with so much liberty against other men, as he would allow other men against himselfe.

W]hen a man hath . . . granted away his Right; then is he said to be Obliged or Bound, not to hinder those, to whom such Right is granted, or abandoned, from the benefit of it: and that he Ought and it is his Duty, not to make voyd that voluntary act of his own.

Modern governments actually spend relatively little on programs and systems that benefit all citizens, such as national defense or the judicial system; mainly they are concerned with infringing on the property rights of one (less politically powerful) group of citizens for the benefit of another (more politically powerful) group.

Of course, no one can have a right to such material things unless someone else can be compelled to pay for them.

When it comes down to it, what are being traded in a capitalist economy are property rights—the ownership rights in goods and services.

We who live in capitalist countries tend to take all of this—property rights, free-market pricing, entrepreneurship—for granted, but every socialist country that has ever existed in the world has taken away these key ingredients of capitalism and has consequently created an economic catastrophe.

The equal rights of man, and the happiness of every individual, are now acknowledged to be the only legitimate objects of government.

To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.

I am increasingly persuaded that the earth belongs exclusively to the living and that one generation has no more right to bind another to it's laws and judgments than one independent nation has the right to command another.

Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends [life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness] it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government...