Comment & Debate
Ed Morrissey. “The Internet, the BBC, and ‘rights'” Hot Air. March 8th, 2010: “The right to speak springs from the innate sense of owning one’s self rather than being a property of the state, which means that each individual has the right to their own thoughts and to express them. That right doesn’t extend to publication, however, which is where Toure’s argument runs off the rails. If one wants to get published, then either one has to own the means to publication or pay someone else for the service. After all, no one has the right to confiscate someone else’s printing press in order to get published.”
Ed Morrissey. “AIP column: Rights and wrongs” Hot Air. August 13, 2009: “Rights cannot be confiscatory in a society that respects the individual right to property. That’s why none of the enumerated rights in the Constitution involve confiscation. Americans have the right to free speech, but they do not have the right to demand publication in a newspaper, nor do they have the right to demand that other people listen when they speak. The right to free expression of religion does not involve occupying someone else’s church and using it to your own ends. You have the right to keep and bear arms, but you do not have the right to demand free or publicly financed weaponry. All of those examples involve confiscating someone else’s property or services, whether done through the government or by force individually.”