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Al Cross, the Constitution, and your rights to life, liberty and property…

Or: You Can’t Cheat (deceive) an Honest Man

By: Claude A. Bohn

In the July 14^th, 2003 edition of the JeffersonReview.com, editor, Resa Comoriano, reported on the recent visit of C-J political reporter, Al Cross, to the last JCLP meeting. In her article, she mentions:

“Cross said that, if the cost of health care had been as expensive when our country was founded as it is today, the founding fathers might have put a right to health care into the Constitution.  This was challenged by a member of the audience, who said that providing a “right” to health care would be contrary to the founders’ goal of protecting property rights, since it would involve taking property from someone to provide that health care.”

Being that particular “member of the audience” [that offered the above comment], I’d like to elaborate a bit.

In an earlier editor’s comment, in the same article, Ms. Camoriano states that: “This statement [that journalism is the only profession mentioned in the Constitution] may indicate both that journalists consider themselves above the rest of society and that they do not read the Constitution.” However, it may not be merely a matter of either reading, or not reading the text of that document alone but, rather, of a paucity of knowledge concerning the history and philosophy behind the document, that is the real problem - for Mr. Cross, and so many others as well! As I pointed out to Mr. Cross, the Constitution can be better understood when considered for what it really is, namely, an economic instrument.

“The Constitution was essentially an economic document based upon the concept that the fundamental private rights of property are anterior to government and morally beyond the reach of popular majorities.” – An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States, by Charles A. Beard (Page 324, “Conclusions”)

Contrary to popular delusion (and/or the propagandistic rhetoric of its own opening line, “We the People,” there is nothing particularly “democratic” about the Constitution, as written and originally intended. In fact, it was, and IS, a most decidedly UN-democratic instrument! *

“The movement for the Constitution…was originated and carried through principally by four groups of personalty interests which had been adversely affected under the Articles of Confederation: money, public securities, manufacturers, and trade and shipping… No popular vote was taken directly or indirectly on the proposition to call the Convention… A large propertyless mass was, under the prevailing suffrage qualifications, excluded at the outset from participation (through representatives) in the work of framing the Constitution… The Constitution was not created by ‘the whole people’ as the jurists have said; neither was it created by ‘the states’ as the Southern nullifiers long contended; but it was the work of a consolidated group whose interests knew no state boundaries and were truly national in their scope.” - Ibid

When I offered my comment to Mr. Cross, his reply was, that, the founders also spoke to a right to life. Indeed, they did, Mr. Cross! Your OWN life!! Mr. Cross, apparently, sees some innate difference between “human” rights and property rights but, they are, always have been, and always will be, one and the same.

I recall reading somewhere, ‘once upon a time,’ that slave owners were once known as “man stealers”. That is because, once you “steal” [i.e. – take by force] a man’s ability to produce, FOR HIMSELF [i.e., his labor, and/or the fruits of that labor], and/or his ability to use the fruits of his own labor as HE sees fit, you have – in effect - stolen his very life! That is, if I am FORCED to surrender my labor, or the fruits of my labor, in order to support someone else, then, in effect, I have become nothing more than a slave!

No, Mr. Cross! NO MAN has [or can have] ANY “right” to another man’s property – or life! Which, as I hope I have successfully demonstrated, are one in the same. You, or I, may VOLUNTARILY give away any and all of what is rightfully ours, but NO MAN has a “right” to take it from us against our will, regardless of the “justification,” or the “need”. That would, clearly, be theft.

“To lay with one hand the power of the government on the property of the citizen and with the other to bestow upon favored individuals, to aid private enterprises and build up private fortunes is none the less a robbery because it is done under forms of law and is called taxation.” – Supreme Court; Savings and Loan Assc. v. Topeka, 20 Wall. 655 (1875).

* For those of you who would learn more about the Constitution, I HIGHLY recommend, that you procure, and read, the book, from which some of the above quotes are taken: “An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution,” by professor Charles A. Beard. You are guaranteed never to look at the Constitution, the founding, or the founders in the same way again.

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