The Bill of No Rights
(or The Age of Reason Revisited
We, the sensible people of these United States of America, in an
attempt to help everyone get along, restore some semblance of
justice, enhance normalcy, avoid any more riots, keep our nation
safe, promote positive behavior and secure the blessings of
debt-free liberty to ourselves and our great-great-great
grandchildren, hereby try one more time to ordain and establish
some commonsense guidelines for the terminally whiny, delusional,
guilt-ridden, and other thumbsuckers or bedwetters. We hold these
truths to be self-evident: that a whole lot of people are
confused by the Bill of Rights, that a bunch of other folks have
tried to obscure the meaning of the Bill of Rights, and that most
citizens are so dim they require the declaration of a
Bill of No Rights.
Article I:
You do not have the right to free food and housing. Americans are
the most charitable people to be found, and will gladly help
anyone in need, but we are quickly growing weary of subsidizing
generation after generation of professional couch-potatoes who
achieve nothing more than the creation of another generation of
professional couch-potatoes. There is no free lunch.
Article II:
You do not have the right to a flashy new car, big-screen color
TV, or any other form of conspicuous wealth. More power to you if
you can morally acquire them, and legally retain them, but no one
is guaranteeing anything. Recreational shopping, lifestyle
consumerism, and potlatch religiosity are subject to
gerrymandered taxation.
Article III:
You do not have the right to the possessions of others. If you
rob, cheat, steal, or coerce away the goods or services of other
citizens, don't be surprised if the rest of us get together to
lock you away in a confined place where you still won't have the
right to a big-screen color TV or a cozy life of unearned
leisure.
Article IV:
You do not have the right to the love, esteem, respect, or
courtesy of anyone, regardless of relationship or proximity.
Public civility and decorum is variously regulated, but
relationships are mostly reciprocal, and usually private, until
they exceed the currently applicable codes.
Article V:
You do not have the right to mentally abuse or physically harm
other people, regardless of relationship or provocation. If you
kidnap, rape, torture, intentionally maim or kill someone, don't
be surprised if the rest of us want to see you fry in the
electric chair.
Article VI:
You do not have the right to be free from harm. If you stick a
screwdriver in your eye, or shoot yourself in the foot, then
learn to be more careful; but do not expect the manufacturer to
make you and all your relatives independently wealthy. Causes
have effects, and acts have consequences. There is no preventive
for accidents, and no cure for willful misconduct.
Article VII:
You do not have the right to free health care. In an ideal world
or unearthly paradise, that might be nice, but based upon the
results of public housing, we're just not interested in public
health care, socialized medicine, regimented therapy, impersonal
treatment, and other inhospitable privacy violations.
Article VIII:
You don't have the right to a job. All of us sure want all of you
to have a job (a good one if possible), and we will gladly help
you along in hard times; but we expect you to take advantage of
the opportunities of educational and vocational training laid-out
before you to make yourself useful. Once you finally have a job
or a skill, there is no guarantee of tenure, promotion, or
success.
Article IX:
You do not have the right to a comfortable retirement, to a
lavish pension, or to an inexpensive burial. If you work hard,
save carefully, invest wisely, and plan ahead, then you probably
won't become a burden to your relatives, friends, or community.
Nobody is expected to pay your dues for you.
Article X:
You do not have the right to never be offended. This country is
based upon freedom, and that means freedom for everyone ... not
just for you! You may leave the room, turn the channel, switch
products, cancel your subscription, withdraw your patronage,
revoke an association, express a different opinion, annul any
affiliation, and so forth, but the world is full of idiots, and
probably always will be.
Article XI:
You don't have the right to demand that our country risk its
international standing to ease your aching conscience, nor demand
that our children risk their lives in foreign wars to soothe your
bleeding-heart sensibilities. We too hate oppression, and we
won't lift a finger to stop you from going to fight the good
fight if you'd like; however, we do not enjoy policing or
parenting the entire world. We do not want to spend so much of
our time battling each and every little tyrannical tin
god with an operatic uniform and a funny hat. We do not want
to squander our precious resources on every teapot tempest and
each geopolitical hiccup.
Article XII:
You do not have the right to distort, pervert, or destroy our
heritage and traditions by forcing other people to be or become
like you, by acting or by refraining from action in ways that you
approve, by supporting businesses or by contributing to causes
that you endorse, by boycotting businesses or causes you
disapprove, by worshiping or praying in an acceptable fashion, by
abstaining from unacceptable beliefs, by requiring others to
listen to your rants, or by outshouting any objections. Your
alleged freedoms and privileges are not contingent upon the
reciprocal denial of those same rights for others. You may not be
persecuted, nor may you persecute. You are only one of many, and
everything you do, and everything we do, affects everybody else;
so either learn the Golden Rule or suffer the Iron
Rule.
Article XIII:
You do not have the right to happiness. Being an American means
that you have the right to pursue happiness, no matter how
changeable or illusionary. Such pursuit, however it may be
defined, is much easier if you are unencumbered by an over
abundance of idiotic laws created by those who were confused by
the Bill of Rights.
Article XIV:
This is an English-speaking country. We all came here from
somewhere else, so we don't really care where you are from, or
what language you used to speak. The multicultural Melting
Pot is a nice idea, but all those chunks float around in a
common liquid: the English language, Judeo-Christian values,
Western culture. If you don't like our ways, and don't want to
learn them, then go back to wherever you came from. In time, if
you assimilate, your native arts and foreign spirit will
influence us, as we have you, but the result will be American.
Article XV:
You do not have the right to revise our foundation documents into
obscurity or to define our liberty out of existence, because
words mean something. Core values and fundamental principles are
not subject to periodic reinterpretation or misrepresentation. If
you, possessed of native wit and average ability, do not
understand your government, then you have the duty to stop its
so-called progress until it again makes commonsense.
Nobody has the right to diminish or destroy this constitutional
union of counterbalanced elements, because they want it to be
something else.
Expect mistakes and problems, because imperfection is the human
condition. If sensible people don't keep things simple enough for
everything to work, then stupid people will try to improve things
until nothing works and everything is wrecked.
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