Sen. Kamala Harris, who is widely expected to run for president in 2020, recently made a fool of herself by showing that she is ignorant of basic human rights principles. As a result, she got schooled by social media users and conservative journalists alike.
Sen. Harris marked Human Rights Day on December 10 by tweeting the following:
“From women’s rights to LGBTQ rights, to Indigenous rights, to disability rights, to immigrant rights, there’s so much work still left to be done.”
She then called for her followers to re-dedicate themselves to fighting for the rights of all people. However, as many accurately noted, the rights of “all people” clearly weren’t on her mind when she sent out the tweet. What is more, Sen. Harris seemingly failed to realize that there are protections in place to protect the rights of all people.
The senator seems to have forgotten that the Bill of Rights, in no uncertain terms, applies to all Americans. These rights are granted to everyone living in the United States and are meant to provide individuals with freedom of speech and religion, freedom to bear arms, protection from unlawful searches and seizures of property and other goods, the right to a jury trial and more. These rights are freely available to all, regardless of gender, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation or even immigration status.
However, the Bill of Rights does not provide many so-called “rights” that left-wing activists feel are integral for certain groups of people, such as the right to use the bathroom of one’s choice, the right to play on the sports team of one’s choice, the right to demand that one provide services that go against his or her religious beliefs or the right to not be offended by “microaggressions”. However, that is because these things are not actual rights, not because the Founding Fathers wanted to deprive the people.
Furthermore, as various social media users have accurately pointed out, Sen. Harris’ list of people whose are lacking rights excludes large segments of society. There is no mention of veteran’s rights even though many of them are ill, homeless or both — and the VA hasn’t exactly done the best job of taking care of them. There was no mention of Christian’s rights even though a number of Christian organizations have faced legal action due to their belief that marriage is between a man and a woman, and individual believers have been harassed by the LGBTQ community for not providing desired services.
It’s also worth noting that there was no mention of Muslim rights, the right to work for jobless individuals, parents’ rights or African-American rights. The truth is that there are so many segments the population can be divided into that there is literally no end to the rights that can be demanded by any one group of people. Sen. Harris, however, seems oblivious to this fact as she proclaims the virtues of working towards the rights of the people that she feels are lacking rights in some way.
Sen. Harris’ statement gives us a hard look into the progressive philosophy on rights. Conservatives, like the Founding Fathers, regarded social political rights on an individual level — meaning things like free speech or free association did not depend on any sort of group identity. However, this identitarian requirement is exactly what Sen. Harris appears to be advocating for when she breaks society down into groups based on race, religion, or whatever else. A republic simply can’t function like this, and it shouldn’t attempt to do so.
~ Liberty Planet
