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The constitution repealed restrictions on voting and added universal direct suffrage and the right to work to rights guaranteed by the previous constitution. In addition, the Constitution recognized collective social and economic rights including the rights to work, rest and leisure, health protection, care in old age and sickness, housing, education, and cultural benefits.
IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, ...
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,--
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
The Declaration of Independence
Originally posted by charles1952
reply to post by Hefficide
I also believe that a negative rights Constitution is preferable from both a freedom and economic point of view. We have ways of helping the poor now. They may or may not be funded as much as we'd like, but I'd hate to have it as a Constitutional requirement that taxpayers cover all the costs Rep. Jackson are describing.
well i can see his thinking, but i am unsure how that would work in the U.S. system. by making it peoples right to these things, you are creating more jobs rather than cutting them. unemployment would come down and tax contributions would increase. if it is a right for a certain standard of education for example, then cutting jobs/closing schools would stop, they would build more and maintain them better, not only would it create extra jobs, building/manufactoring parts/employing more school staff etc etc,
but you'd also have a better educated population who are more capable of work and less likely to line up with the remaining jobless due to lack of qualifications.
i can see the benefits of what he proposes but as i said unsure if it would work in the U.S. system, plus you always have a certain portion who are against any such things regardless because they moan about their tax dollars being paid to help the unemployed regardless of it turned most of them back into tax payers.
the question needs asking, why are there so many unemployed to begin with in america? lack of education? cuts? closures?