Monday, August 23, 2010

A construction to remember

I'm always on the looking for out for concise, powerful ways of conveying important ideas. The bolded phrase below, from a speech by Michigan Supreme Court Justice Stephen Markman, jumped out at me.
Should the privileges or immunities clause [of the Fourteenth Amendment] be used. . . as a charter of positive rights, ours will become an America in which citizens are constitutionally entitled to their neighbors’ possessions. [emphasis mine]
This is good language to have handy in response to those who insist that things like health care are "rights." People need to be reminded that government produces no resources of it's own; it can't give without first taking from someone else. Formulated another way, Thomas Sowell asks: How much is your "fair share" of what someone else has earned?

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