Inalienable Rights

A March 20 letter states that "the U.S. Constitution focuses its power on protecting the rights and beliefs of the minority." Unfortunately, this couldn't be more wrong. That so many believe the Constitution is a document which grants rights and privileges to special groups or minorities is a point of view that continues to gain support regardless of its divisiveness. The Constitution is a document that tells the government, in no uncertain terms, how to behave. The founders understood that any government, regardless of how benign, craves more and more power over the governed.

The Obama administration Tuesday called on the U.N. Human Rights Council to fight discrimination against gays and lesbians around the world. "Human rights are the inalienable right of every person, no matter who they are or who they love," Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe, U.S. ambassador to the council in Geneva, said in a statement. "The U.S. government is firmly committed to supporting the right of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals to lead productive and dignified lives, free from fear and violence.

I appreciate the efforts of Thousand Oaks High School's Associated Student Body in its nighttime installment of the AIDS Awareness Week Program. It was better than others of its kind that I've seen. There was no cavalier attitude justifying the sexual liberation of teens and no false claim that condoms are the solution. There were, though, some other disquieting aspects of the meeting. The most serious was that many teens expressed disdain for parental authority over education such as this, i.e. education with sexual content.

The president of Iran declared Saturday that his country had an "inalienable right" to develop nuclear energy and offered a role in its program to other nations and companies to show that it was not producing nuclear weapons. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad refused to suspend Iran's uranium enrichment activities and his speech failed to convince the United States or European officials that Iran was serious about anything but stalling international action to halt its nuclear program.

I note that the Randall twins are back in the news requesting membership in Boy Scouts, which they have not earned ("Scouts Seek to Bar Atheists' Advance," Sept. 27). The boys are to be congratulated on their perseverance and on the diligence, which has enabled them to proceed this far in the organization. I'm sure that they have learned much and developed good character through the past eight years. At the time the boys first hit the headlines, one was quoted as saying that they were guaranteed "a piece of happiness."

Thank you for the article on Canada's enlightened legislation that protects those who may have a different sexual orientation than the majority of us (Dec. 29). It is always helpful to read about another country's treatment of the homosexual issues. If nothing else, it allows us to see how archaic our nation's attitudes really are on this subject. I do not think it is helpful, however, to continue to headline and use the often misleading term "gay rights." There really are no "gay rights" as the press and those who have problems with homosexuality might persuade us to believe.

* Bill-y Holiday: The Bill of Rights is celebrating its 206th birthday today, and you can celebrate it too by rereading the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution at http://pacific.discover.net /~dansyr/billrigh.html. Did you know there were originally 12 amendments in the Bill of Rights? That 1789 draft can be found at http://Constitutionby.net/ uSA/BillOfRights.html. The American Civil Liberties Union, a champion of those rights, is at http://www.aclu.org. And http://www.smpcollege.

For almost 30 years, liberals have preached, contrary to historical experience, that minorities can't progress without the helping hand of racial and sexual preference. They have claimed today's immigrants, unlike all before, can't learn outside their native tongue. And they have taken as gospel that this land of opportunity, which people still risk death to reach, is an oppressive racist society. So should we be surprised by the new generation's neo-Marxist educational elite's secular canons that individual rights are secondary to group racial and sexual entitlements, that democracy is a mechanism for white exploitation and that free speech is a luxury we cannot afford?

Every so often another editorial or article appears depicting the very real toll zero tolerance and standardized punishments regarding illicit drug use have exacted on our society ("When Sentencing Laws Don't Do Justice," Jan. 19). This country's apparent obsession with punishing drug use is vastly more damaging than the drug use itself ever was. There seems to be a complete dearth of common sense when it comes to this issue. We are spending billions of dollars a year in punitive measures while cutting rehabilitation prospects with mindless abandon.

On this day 200 years ago, the House of Representatives finished writing what may be the most memorable and vital phrases of the U.S. Constitution. In a dozen amendments--10 of which finally were ratified by the states--the members of the first Congress spelled out a Bill of Rights that specifically limited the government's power over its citizens. Americans were guaranteed the right to speak out without fear of the state. They could worship as they pleased.

A March 20 letter states that "the U.S. Constitution focuses its power on protecting the rights and beliefs of the minority." Unfortunately, this couldn't be more wrong. That so many believe the Constitution is a document which grants rights and privileges to special groups or minorities is a point of view that continues to gain support regardless of its divisiveness. The Constitution is a document that tells the government, in no uncertain terms, how to behave. The founders understood that any government, regardless of how benign, craves more and more power over the governed.

* Bill-y Holiday: The Bill of Rights is celebrating its 206th birthday today, and you can celebrate it too by rereading the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution at http://pacific.discover.net /~dansyr/billrigh.html. Did you know there were originally 12 amendments in the Bill of Rights? That 1789 draft can be found at http://Constitutionby.net/ uSA/BillOfRights.html. The American Civil Liberties Union, a champion of those rights, is at http://www.aclu.org. And http://www.smpcollege.

I note that the Randall twins are back in the news requesting membership in Boy Scouts, which they have not earned ("Scouts Seek to Bar Atheists' Advance," Sept. 27). The boys are to be congratulated on their perseverance and on the diligence, which has enabled them to proceed this far in the organization. I'm sure that they have learned much and developed good character through the past eight years. At the time the boys first hit the headlines, one was quoted as saying that they were guaranteed "a piece of happiness."

Every so often another editorial or article appears depicting the very real toll zero tolerance and standardized punishments regarding illicit drug use have exacted on our society ("When Sentencing Laws Don't Do Justice," Jan. 19). This country's apparent obsession with punishing drug use is vastly more damaging than the drug use itself ever was. There seems to be a complete dearth of common sense when it comes to this issue. We are spending billions of dollars a year in punitive measures while cutting rehabilitation prospects with mindless abandon.

I appreciate the efforts of Thousand Oaks High School's Associated Student Body in its nighttime installment of the AIDS Awareness Week Program. It was better than others of its kind that I've seen. There was no cavalier attitude justifying the sexual liberation of teens and no false claim that condoms are the solution. There were, though, some other disquieting aspects of the meeting. The most serious was that many teens expressed disdain for parental authority over education such as this, i.e. education with sexual content.

Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Woodland Hills) has again introduced a bill to amend the Constitution to say that those children who willfully or negligently choose illegal aliens for parents will not be citizens of this country, even though they were born on this side of the border. This is one seriously bad idea. One cannot be a foreigner if one has not moved! It is a factual impossibility. You are a native of whatever country you were born in, however your parents got there.

The Western Hemisphere is the democratic hemisphere. North America has been won by democracy. And democracy is the only political system that will satisfy the soul of Latin America, Octavio Paz has written, the only system that will ever be regarded there as wholly legitimate. This is true, Paz notes, even though Latin Americans have difficulty making democracy work.

The Declaration of Independence we commemmorate this long weekend is the best known and probably most deeply cherished of U.S. documents. Yet its real function was not to declare independence--that had already been taken care of by George III when he declared the Americans to be in a state of rebellion, and by the Americans at the battles of Lexington, Concord and Bunker Hill. No, its purpose was to make clear the causes of separation and the objects of independence.

For almost 30 years, liberals have preached, contrary to historical experience, that minorities can't progress without the helping hand of racial and sexual preference. They have claimed today's immigrants, unlike all before, can't learn outside their native tongue. And they have taken as gospel that this land of opportunity, which people still risk death to reach, is an oppressive racist society. So should we be surprised by the new generation's neo-Marxist educational elite's secular canons that individual rights are secondary to group racial and sexual entitlements, that democracy is a mechanism for white exploitation and that free speech is a luxury we cannot afford?

Thank you for the article on Canada's enlightened legislation that protects those who may have a different sexual orientation than the majority of us (Dec. 29). It is always helpful to read about another country's treatment of the homosexual issues. If nothing else, it allows us to see how archaic our nation's attitudes really are on this subject. I do not think it is helpful, however, to continue to headline and use the often misleading term "gay rights." There really are no "gay rights" as the press and those who have problems with homosexuality might persuade us to believe.