re: #715 Salamantis

Whether or not we admit it, they fundamentally issue from mutual consent between people who both refuse to dictate to their fellow citizens and refuse to be dictated to BY them, and who will even campaign to stop or prevent others from being coercively dictated to.

That is the uniquely American synthesis of the thesis and antithesis in Hegel’s master/slave dialectic; the self-reliant, rugged individualist.

I think our foundational documents reflect the belief that our rights are inherent in our very existence as products of Divine creation — “endowed by their Creator” and all that.

The issue of mutual consent of the governed is that it’s much more fluid than the concept of an innate worth of each human being. Do our rights really disappear when the Constitution changes — or even when a court’s interpretation of the Constitution changes?

And if one faction becomes ascendant and determines that its rights are superior to the rights of all others, does that mean that its judgment is correct? Or is it merely the start of an era in which our God-given rights are suppressed by a man-made tyranny?