Natural rights aren't civil rights


Why American blacks are concerned over the "immigration movement"
Captains Quarters has a fantastic piece on the aftermath of the illegal alien demonstrations on many African Americans.

The problem revolves around the entire notion of civil rights and the confusion with natural rights. Natural rights come from human existence and need no authority to grant them. Natural rights include freedom of speech, of thought, and of religious expression, and occupy the primary position in the Bill of Rights as an acknowledgement of their status and not as a government grant. Civil rights, on the other hand, arise from one's status as a citizen or resident alien of the country and are government grants. Civil rights include the vote, the right to due process under the law, access to government services such as education and health care, and so on. Whether illegal aliens now have access to some, all, or none of these comes from government decisions regarding access and not some inherent qualification for these benefits.

Immigration activists do not understand the civil rights struggle in this basic sense, but African-Americans do. Despite their status as American citizens, with lineage in this nation exceeding the immigrant waves that followed the Civil War, the government denied them equal participation in civil rights, as well as some natural rights, such as free speech and assembly. They did not march to become citizens or achieve normalization of their residency status -- they marched to force the government to treat them as the citizens they were and are.

Aside from the self-appointed "leadership," this is an extremely important issue. And as any student of the various Civil Rights movements can tell you, the push was for a uniform rule of law. No exceptions for one person because of their faith, or another because of their gender, or another because of the skin pigmentation.

Without respect to color, creed, or sex.

But the law works both ways. Someone has to respect the uniform rule of law FIRST.

And that is not what is happening with much of the "immigration reform" movement.

Nor does that movement speak for all Latinos and Hispanics.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Fri - May 5, 2006 at 04:42 AM  Tag


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