President Franklin Roosevelt was among those who believed that the rights our Framers intended to preserve in a Bill of Rights were not enough. Thus, he proposed a Second Bill of Rights, which included the following:

The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the Nation; The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation; The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living; The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad; The right of every family to a decent home; The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health; The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment; The right to a good education.

These are, of course, not rights in any sense of the word. This is a promise of Utopia from a Statist president seeking to justify unlimited intrusion upon the right to own property. It is a false promise from a president who fails to understand what separates man from the lower animals.

There is little question that a guaranteed outcome undercuts man’s ability to overcome his weaknesses. The statist fails to realize that by confiscating a man’s property – in service to equality of outcome – he confiscates his incentive to improve his own life by building his own home, growing his own food, and making his own clothes. When the statist confiscates property he also confiscates a man’s ability to improve his life.

The Great Depression made possible the tenure of one statist president whose “solutions” greatly exacerbated our economic woes. Today, we face a similar situation. That is why this discussion must continue in a future column.

Source: Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto, by Mark Levin. New York: Simon and Schuster (2009).