Daniel Akst Quotes
… nearly universal is a never-ending effort to balance the rights of individuals with the needs that, in the modern world, it seems only government can meet.
Daniel Akst, Columnist, Essayist & Editor, “Manifesto at 50”, The Wilson Quarterly, Spring 2012
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Note the use of the phrase “against the government.” One of the unique aspects of the American Constitution and The Bill of Rights is that the government is considered a potential and even probable infringer on the liberties of the people. It is almost as though the government was the potential enemy. Modern libertarians state this very explicitly and it is ever present in the views of both the right and left wings of American politics. Most centrists recoil at the thought that some citizens see the government as the enemy, but even in America there have been times where the government has infringed on the rights of citizens only to have the courts or future administrations and Congresses correct the error.
The Grammar Curmudgeon. Almost every government action to protect rights impinges on the rights of some. For example, laws to protect minorities from discrimination in the workplace impinge on the right of employers to hire whomever they want. The Voting Rights Act eliminating the Poll Tax instituted to prevent Negroes from voting, impinged on the Southern States’ rights to determine the election rules and standards for their states. Laws requiring all pharmaceuticals to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration to protect the public from dangerous drugs interfere with the doctor’s and patient’s rights to determine the best treatment and the drug company’s right to sell whatever products they want.
While this was a strong central political principle for Reagan, a substantial part of his political party strongly advocated the against the government interjecting itself into people’s lives.
The early legal meaning of Civil Rights was very narrow. It referred to rights in normal non-governmental activities---shopping, education, social interaction, etc. However, it was the government who was depended on to enforce these rights. Later activities operated by state and local government were included like public education or the right to use a public bathroom, and for many even includes voting rights. Modern definitions consider civil rights to include all those rights to which an individual is entitled by virtue of his citizenship—including voting rights and others having to do with government—especially those of the 13th and 14th Amendments.
