Your Rights = Responsibilty and Good Conscience

We have been utterly dying to write this article for who knows how long now. The thesis of this article is the rights we have as Americans that are based within our U.S. Constitution and primarily addressing the Bill of Rights. A couple of years ago whilst reading Original Meanings by Jack N. Rakove he mentions what the Founders felt about human rights transcending into civil rights; yet, it was with Thomas Jefferson and James Madison’s assistance that led to the most common sense ideals that can be found before, during, and after one executes their rights.

Make no mistake about it folks – the entire U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights are ‘documents of contract’ that ensure security between a government and those it governs. The rights espoused in the Bill of Rights were written as a measure to protect us from the abuses of power that a government can wield. Yet, just like anything worth having there is a price to be paid to ensure that those rights are not abused, changed, or too legalistic. This is of course the accountability of a collective society to perform its duties which in earlier times consisted of maintaining the core values, morals, and ethics that America was founded upon.

No matter how one perceives themselves, with all the prominence the world could offer, liberties without conscience are inexcusable. In other words, if one intends on speaking freely—this means that upon engaging to speak one must do so with conscience.

Thomas Jefferson left a profound impression upon the nation he loved so much. However, we believe that Jefferson’s greatest effect on this country are not in his inventions, establishments, or politics – we believe that Jefferson’s greatest influence on our nation is in the notion of “Liberties without conscience are inexcusable.”

Now let’s look to practical application aided by a few issues recently in the news: When Bill O’Reilly appeared on The View television show for an interview he was asked “Is it right or wrong for them to want to build a mosque and cultural center here? O’Reilly responded: “I think that it’s inappropriate.” Behar and Goldberg certainly had a different agenda on their minds and prompted O’Reilly with “why is it inappropriate for them to build there”? O’Reilly responded with because they killed…in an act of war…they killed thousands of Americans.” Who are they? The Muslims, of course. Brouhaha ensued.

Immediately O’Reilly realized what he’s said and changed his wording to “Extremist Islamic Terrorists.” This is when Elizabeth Hasselback chimed in with the skill of an orator: “Don’t you see how all of us are suffering at the hands of ‘political correctness’?”

And Mrs. Hasselback was 100 percent correct as was Mr. O’Reilly. You see it’s the dismantling of language that is the very core reason for political correctness. So the saying goes; “All Muslims are not terrorists…but the terrorists were all Muslims.” So naturally when O’Reilly stated Muslims he was immediately pounced on by those who had set this entire issue up.

Furthermore we believe that the Park 51 - Cultural Center and Mosque being built in the current location are an abuse of speech rendered with reckless disregard of conscience and responsibility, not to mention maintaining the core values, morals, and ethics that America was founded upon.