RUSH: Jim in Boone, North Carolina. Welcome to the EIB Network, sir. Hello.
CALLER: (dropping things)
RUSH: Yeah, Jim?
CALLER: Yeah. Rush, hey.
RUSH: Hey.
CALLER: This is Jim in North Carolina. I’m an attorney and longtime listener. We love you out here and keep you in our prayers.
RUSH: Thank you.
CALLER: Yes, sir. Listen, the reason I was calling you is I was listening to the show yesterday when you were talking about the Elena Kagan Supreme Court nomination hearings, and I really appreciated Tom Coburn’s line of questioning, because he asked her if she believed that there are rights that are inherent to us, and she said she only believed in rights that came from the Constitution and from the laws. Well, I agree with Senator Coburn, of course. The Declaration of Independence clearly says ‘we are endowed by our Creator with inalienable rights, including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,’ and interestingly, the Constitution itself actually gives support for that position. If you look at the First Amendment preamble it doesn’t say —
RUSH: The Ninth and Tenth as well. I think the Constitution incorporates the Declaration in the Ninth and Tenth Amendments as well.
CALLER: Speech, freedom of the press as well.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: It says, ‘Congress shall make no law’ abridging our freedom of speech and our freedom of the press and to assemble together, our freedom of religion. So what the Constitution does is it’s designed to preserve rights and freedoms and liberties that we actually have inherently —
RUSH: Right. And that —
CALLER: — that viewpoint is —
RUSH: Testing, one, two, three, four.
CALLER: — is a very dangerous viewpoint on her part.
RUSH: He doesn’t hear a word I’m saying. He’s on a cell phone.
CALLER: As you pointed out, it’s positive liberties — the belief that the government bestows rights instead. These are rights that belong to us. The Constitution actually sets out a set of negative liberties, which means it constrains the government from taking our liberties or infringing upon them. That is such a big issue that I believe the Republicans should step up and filibuster her.
RUSH: Well, look, I agree with this. I agree. You’ll also find the Ninth and Tenth Amendments specifically I think are where you can find the Declaration incorporated in the Constitution. But, you know, the charter of negative liberties. Leftists, statists, Obama and Kagan, they look at the Bill of Rights, and they use the word ‘constraints,’ because it tells them what they can’t do, and as tyrannical-oriented, authoritarian-type leaders, they don’t like that. I mean, you don’t tell a Hugo Chavez what you can’t do. You do not have Fidel Castro constrained by a document that tells him what you can’t do. So you have people like Obama, and they want us to believe that their devotion to the government is based on good works and goodwill and justice — social, and all the other things — when in fact it’s just a quest for power. So you had a guy like Obama who’s no different than Castro in the sense that, ‘What do you mean I can’t do that? You mean I gotta work under a document that says I can’t do this and I can’t do that? I want a document that says what I can do to people,’ and that’s what Obama wants, and that’s what Kagan wants because that’s what Obama wants and Kagan’s a rubber stamp. So you’re exactly right out there, Jim, and I appreciate the phone call.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: By the way, pop quiz. Pop quiz. Does anybody think that the word ‘equality’ is in the Constitution? Well, I ask because Elena Kagan’s out there talking, ‘Yeah, equality is the big thing. We need to make everybody equal.’ You won’t find the word. I’ll just short-circuit it. You will not find the word ‘equality’ in the Constitution. You’ll find the word ‘equal’ in the Declaration, but you won’t find it in the Constitution.