You Really Can’t Prove A Negative, Can You?

I’m sure you’ve heard by now that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has, in a terrifying bit of hair-splitting, said that Americans have no explicit right to habeas corpus: the Constitution doesn’t grant us the right to habeas corpus, says he, but merely says such a right can’t be suspended.

Forget for a moment the obvious question of how the government can be forbidden to suspend a right which doesn’t exist. What frightens me the most is that by Gonzales’ reasoning, Americans have almost none of the rights we take for granted.

Think we have freedom of speech and the press? Read what the first amendment in the Bill of Rights says:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedomof speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

This does not say Americans have freedom of speech; it merely says Congress can’t pass a law abridging it. Same goes for the right to a free press, the right to peaceably assemble, or to petition the government for the redress of grievances: nowhere does the Constitution say we have those rights; it merely says Congress can’t take them away.

Nor does the Constitution grant the explicit right to bear arms; it merely says such a right shall not be infringed.

Think you have the right to vote? Not according to the fifteenth amendment (and a Gonzales-style interpretation thereof):

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color,or previous condition of servitude.

Got that? It doesn’t say you have the right to vote; it merely says such a right can’t be denied on account of your color or race.

When you get right down to it, there are very few rights which the Constitution explicitly says people have; there are mostly rights which the government can’t take away. And according to Gonzales, such rights aren’t really rights at all.