Quotes About Rights

If political leaders choose which rights to give citizens, then there must be a caste of leaders who enjoy greater freedom than do the citizens who are the recipients of these "rights." That is, the rulers must stand on a higher plane from which they can hand down judgments about what rights are to be given to or withheld from the people below.

brings to mind the tribulations of those groups—blacks in the 19th century, women in the 20th, gays in the 21st—who have learned through struggle that freedom is not given, only claimed.

to presume that some people are fundamentally entitled to decide how much freedom others should enjoy. What Would It Mean if the State Did Create Freedom? The danger of confusing the state's protection of prepolitical rights on one hand, with its creation of rights/privileges on the other, becomes clear when we ask whether the state creates, say, a woman's right not to be raped.

When states are absent, rights—by any definition—are impossible to sustain. States are not structures to be taken for granted, exploited, or discarded, but are fruits of long and quiet effort.

People who assure you that you can only gain security at the price of liberty usually want to deny you both. You

People who assure you that you can only gain security at the price of liberty usually want to deny you both.

Rather than reporting the violation of basic rights, our media generally preferred to mindlessly indulge the inherently salacious interest we have in other people's affairs.

It is the government's job to increase both freedom and security.

The state is for the recognition, endorsement, and protection of rights, which means creating the conditions under which rights can be recognized, endorsed, and protected. The state endures to create a sense of durability. A

defense of states and rights is impossible to undertake if no one learns from the past or believes in the future.

Most nations' constitutions enshrine a right to health care. The list includes Japan and Germany, whose new constitutions the United States influenced after defeating them in the Second World War. Today Germans and Japanese live longer and healthier lives than Americans.

Il primo passo di ogni guerra è la disumanizzazione del nemico. Il nemico non è un uomo come te, quindi non ha gli stessi diritti.

primo passo di ogni guerra è la disumanizzazione del nemico. Il nemico non è un uomo come te, quindi non ha gli stessi diritti.

if we are going to continue to be proud that we are Americans, there must be no weakening of the code by which we have lived; by the right to meet your accuser face to face, if you have one; by your right to go to the church or the synagogue or even the mosque of your own choosing; by your right to speak your mind and be protected in it. Ladies and gentlemen, the things that make us proud to be Americans are the soul and the spirit.

What I think about vivisection is that if people admit that they have the right to take or endanger the life of living beings for the benefit of many, there will be no limit to their cruelty.

I know we will look back on this and think how odd it was we were championing the rights of lone mothers to bring up their children on benefit.

How odd that the proponents of free expression think 'free' only applies to them.

If you're not going to offend somebody you don't need the First Amendment.

I believe in absolute freedom of expression. Everyone has a right to offend and be offended.

People have the right to live as equal citizens under the law. They do not have the right to demand that their identities be coddled and celebrated lest they might otherwise get offended.

There is no right to not be offended, nor should there be.

If the only way a library can offer an Internet exhibit about the New Deal is to hire a lawyer to clear the rights to every image and sound, then the copyright system is burdening creativity in a way that has never been seen before because there are no formalities.

I was born in Canada for a reason. It was because my parents wanted me to have the freedoms that this country offers.

Abortion is either OK or it's not.