Quote of the day
In comments on whether or not driving is a right, Phelps says:
Saying that travelling is a right but driving isn’t is like saying that we have freedom of the press but you have to buy all your ink from the state.
16 Responses to “Quote of the day”
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May 9th, 2007 at 2:25 pm
Actually to say that traveling is a right therefore driving on gov’t roads is a right is like saying that freedom of the press means that the gov’t has to give you access to their ink.
May 9th, 2007 at 2:36 pm
No it isn’t.
If the only way anybody could possibly get from point A to point B was for them to personally drive a car, they yes you would be correct. In reality that is not the case.
There are many people in New York that never get a drivers license or a car because they take a cab, ride the subway or walk everywhere.
You do not even need to know how to drive and still be able to travel. If you have the ability to; walk, ride a bicycle, get a cab, ride a bus, ride in a friends car, fly in a plane, or get on a boat, then you can travel without ever driving.
Driving is the easiest form of travel, but it is by far not the only one, which is why the ink example above is wrong.
Traveling is a right. Driving is not a right.
May 9th, 2007 at 2:38 pm
I was responding to Uncles quote, not MM’s response.
May 9th, 2007 at 2:49 pm
Gunstar, you don’t need a handgun to defend yourself, though it’s the easiest way of doing so, generally. You could have a shotgun and your right to arms hasn’t been denied.
May 9th, 2007 at 3:04 pm
Driving is a right, so long as its your car or one that someone else has granted/sold permission to you to drive, and so long as it is on your property or that of someone who has granted you permission to drive on.
Period.
Use of government roads is an entirely different discussion. The “right” of the government to build roads is another.
SayUncle: Who said anything about “denying” anyone the right to own a shotgun. The word, Grasshopper is “infringed” which is at the opposite end of the spectrum from “denyed”. This is an infectious didease thqat has been spreading, and I hereby give you the antidote: “Infringe” and “deny” are two entirely different words. One means complete immunity to any all of even the most trivial encroachments, whereas the other means total prohibition. Don’t confuse the two, please. And for you lawmakers and enforcers out there: Don’t confuse the two, or else.
There is no specific guarantee of a “right” to drive a vehicle on government roads, but of course there in no inumeration in the Constitution of a government authority to build roads in the first place.
May 9th, 2007 at 3:11 pm
The question really shouldn’t be “do you have a right to something.” The question should be “does the govt have the right to tell you you can’t do it”.
May 9th, 2007 at 3:21 pm
Does the gov’t have the right to tell you you can’t be on gov’t property except under certain conditions?
Really? You have to ask?
Try walking into the White House uninvited sometime and see what happens.
May 9th, 2007 at 3:27 pm
Does the government have rights? I thought it had powers 😉
Yes, they can regulate their roads. I did not contest that.
May 9th, 2007 at 4:51 pm
We are not talking about the ownership of an item on your own property. I have as much right to own a pistol or shotgun as I do a car.
The use of that object outside of your own property is a totally different matter. The use of a car is just as restricted as the use of a firearm.
The right to travel is one of movement. On government property you are only being alowed to use it if you agree to follow the rules. That means you have the privledge to use it, not the right.
Right to property… owning the car, yes.
Right to travel… moving from place to place without government consent or approval… yes.
You have no right to drive (can you take a city bus for a spin anytime you want a Big Mac?).
May 9th, 2007 at 4:57 pm
“The use of that object outside of your own property is a totally different matter. ”
I can, right now, head out of the office parking lot which is connected to other lots and probably make it 1/2 mile without ever touching a public road. Is that illegal? My inclination is that it is not.
May 9th, 2007 at 5:19 pm
If a right to travel means one has a right to travel by the means of one’s choice, does that mean that any carrier must take anyone, in any condition?
IE, does Greyhound have to accept people who haven’t bathed in months or who harass other passengers?
If not, why not? If there is such a “right to travel”, and also a right to any specific mode of travel, such that driving is a “right”, I don’t see the difference.
(For that matter, if driving is a right, licenses and insurance can’t be required, any more than for the exercise of speech, can they?)
I think the core distinction being missed here is that as long as one can travel with relative freedom without any specific mode of transit, and as long as the net sum of restrictions does not materially impede this right to travel, any given restriction is valid, goes the legal argument.
(The other huge difference is that the “right to travel” is a common law one, without any significant Constitutional basis. “Shall not be infringed” is a much more restrictive protection than any common law or traditional inherent right.
That people have a general right to travel from place to place does not imply a right to some specific method of transport, unless it’s the only plausible option. And even then, it is at best a right to it subject to being able to afford it and get someone to provide it; someone who lives in an area accessible only by helicopter, for instance, has no right to be provided transit services at others’ expense, even if they have a “right to travel”.
Such a right is really a right to not have the state prevent them from travelling; it’s an important difference. Negative rather than positive rights.)
May 9th, 2007 at 5:51 pm
Does the government have rights? I thought it had powers
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you try to respond using the persons own vocabulary and someone comes along and slaps you with the wet noodle of snarkery 🙂
Yes, they can regulate their roads. I did not contest that
So we can say you have a right to drive, but only a priveledge to drive on public roads? Is that fair?
I can, right now, head out of the office parking lot which is connected to other lots and probably make it 1/2 mile without ever touching a public road. Is that illegal?
I don’t know? Are there signs posted saying “No Trespassing”? If not, then I would say that it falls under private property that you have been (implicitly) granted access to.
I kind of see the right to travel as similar to the right to pursue happiness: Noone ever said you’ll get there, only that you could try. 🙂
May 9th, 2007 at 5:52 pm
Carp, forgot to close the italics tag.
May 9th, 2007 at 8:34 pm
The courts have ruled on this: They said:
The right of a citizen to travel upon the public highways and to transport his property thereon in the ordinary course of life and business is a common right which he has under his right to enjoy life and liberty…. It includes the right in so doing to use the ordinary and usual conveyances of the day; and under existing modes of travel includes the right to drive a horse-drawn carriage or wagon thereon, or to operate an automobile thereon for the usual and ordinary purposes of life and business. It is not a mere privilge, like the privilege of moving a house in the street, operating a business stand in the street, or transporting persons or property for hire along the street, which the city may permit or prohibit at will.
Thompson v. Smith, 154 S.E. 579, 1929
“The claim and exercise of a Constitutional right cannot be converted into a crime.” Miller v. U.S., F.2d 486, 489.
May 10th, 2007 at 2:56 pm
I told you anyone too damn dumb to know why driving is a right on public roads and a privilege only on private roads is correct, is too damn dumb to argue with in the first place.
I think I see some cowardice cover-up in this issue also. You know, the kind of stance that goes something like this. :”I know what it is supposed to be, I know I am getting screwed, but I don’t have enough guts to say so out loud, no wait, I can’t admit to that. Let’s see, yeah that’s it, that’s the ticket, I just decided that the state can do whatever the Hell it wants because it does. When called on it, I will swear I believe it, because that way my betters will know I am on their side (which is mildly paranoiac), and my peers will think we just have an honest difference of opinion. Yeah, that’s it. that’s how I’ll do it.”
May 14th, 2007 at 6:55 am
I keep reading all these articles on how we have the right to travel as I believe we do, but I can’t find any lawyers or anyone else to help me defend myself in court. For those who don’t believe we have a right to travel, do a search on the net for our ” Constitutional Right to Travel by Automobile”. Look at ALL of the sites. There is one site where a 90 year old man had to fight for his right to travel when he was alive when noone but commercial vehicles had to have a license. It shows how people used to help build the roads they were driving on. The public roads do NOT blong to our government and neither do we! Our government does not have the right to force us to show our “papers to travel between states, but that’s what they do every time the cops pull us over for NO reason throughout the state. They might as well have a traffic stop in between every state to ask us for our papers, who would stop them, any of you that agree with the government. For those who say we only have the right to travel by human power or by horse back, does the constitution limit us to travel this way? No! it does not. The Supreme Court recently ruled that we have the right to travel to Cuba and other countries by airplane. They didn’t say we only had the right to travel there by swimming or sailboat. That would be idiotic. So the court ruled that we have the right to use technology to further our rights under the constitution. Just becuase we now travel by automobile doesn’t mean we give up our rights to travel.Furthermore let’s look at our right to bare arms. Just because we only had musket rifles and one shot pistols back when the constitutio n was written that doesn’t mean we are limited to only having the right to bare muskets. We have the right to use technology to advance our rights. If we didn’t have that right then we would be overtaken as a country by another country thbat DID advance themselves. We have the right to have technology to protect us from any coutry that wants to take our freedoms away from us including our own government. We have the right to our own personal freedoms and the constitution does NOT limit us to depending on someone else to travel freely accross our nation. For you who lives in New York and say we don’t need to drive to get anywhere, well let me tell you something, freedom is not only about what one needs. Secondly not everyone lives in New York and has the options of travel that you do. What happens when you leave New York and you want to travel? What about the people who can’t walk or ride a bike because of health reasons? And as far as horseback almost all cities have laws against keeping horses at our properties which I think is funny for our government to say that we can travel by horseback if we want to. GEEE thanks since we can’t even have them anymore unless we live in a farm area. And even if we did travel by horseback there is nowhere to keep our horse at work or at a shopping mall. Where I live we can’t even have a large dog in our home. I live in a very small town and they have one tiny little bus that I can’t even use to go to work because it only runs certain hours of the day. I’m not healthy enogh to walk OR ride a bike and I can’t own a horse so how do you suggest that I get to work when my city government took my license by revoking it? Which is another point that I have to make. They are “Infringing on my RIGHT to work”. We have a right to life! We have a right to TRAVEL to go to work and got to the store to buy food or supplies to fix our homes to keep us alive. We have the right to travel for our own pleasure if that makes us happy, our right to pursue that happiness. Taking out automobile away from us is the same as if our government took our horse away from us and as everyone knows you can be hung for that. It’s probably still on some law books in a lot of cities. Why do you think the laws were made that way? Because our horse back then was our livelyhood. Without his horse one could not travel to where he needed or WANTED to to be able to SURVIVE! Could someone have taken stagecoaches to get to where they needed to go? Yes they could couldn’t they Gunstar1? Does that mean that that’s the only way they were ALLOWED to get there? NO! Just because the automobile and motorcycle was invented that doesn’t mean that travelling is turned into a crime. Just because our government builds us roads does not give then the right to take our rights away from us. Our government works for US we don’t work for them. When the first automobile cam out did the government say that it was illegal for us to travel this way unless we had a license ? NO ! it didn’t. The states were originally allowed to make people get licenses because of commerce in order to tax commercial vehicles conducting business on the highways. The governments ever increasing encroachment of our rights and liberties as well as a growing government trying to stick it’s hands in our pockets is why we are where we are today. I always thought bthat if our government took away our guns that we would lose all of our freedoms. I was wrong, we already lost all of our freedoms one law at a time. If all the laws of today were tried to get passed fifty years ago there would have been a revolution. They were smart these governmant lawyers. They kept passing one law at a time. People kept going along with it thinking that our government wouldn’t encroach on our liberties. Just like with our social security number. The government gauranteed the people that it would NEVER be used for identification purposes, NEVER. Everyone said ok, but look at it now. It’s also a double taxation but who cares right? It’s not to control us or keep tabs on us it’s for our security right? All of these things including the taxes we pay were probably THOUGHT out along time ago to be used together but our government knew that they couldn’t get it past the people all at once so they’ve been passing the laws slowly one at atime year after year and they keep going because noone gives a shit. Only a very few. Our government has been telling lies to us for over 80 years and you people want to believe them when they say we don’t have a RIGHT to TRAVEL? The constitution does NOT say that we have the right to travel UNLESS our government tells us that they changed it to be illegal for some reason. What makes the act of traveling by automobile illegal? NoT a damn thing. If I want to travel to another city or state to get a job, I have that right and freedom to do so. If I am forced to travel by walking, bike or a noe useless way of travelling by horseback then I would not be able to get a job in another city or state which would take away my freedom of choice, my freedom of liberty to choose who or where I want to work.If It paid very well and I couldn’t take the job it woulkd take away my quality of life. Am I suppossed to SETTLE for a $5.00 an hour job within walking distance from where I live simply because my government won’t LET me travel to where I need or want to go? Am I suppossed to risk my health walking in the snow for 15 miles to work because my city says that I can’t use my own property to transport myself in a civil way in the safety of my own autiomobile? If I have a RIGHT to life then I don’t have to risk it by walking in the snow or trying to ride a bike in the snow which would be impossible as well as danderous from automobiles that can’t see you in the bad weather or even think someone would be STUPID enough to be on the roads in the middle of winter on a bike. I DO NOT have to rely on ANYONE ELSE for my RIGHTS given to me by GOD and protected by the constitution. When I went to court my judge wouldn’t even let me present any evidence from the constitution to defend myself, she said she didn’t even need to hear it unless it was a state law. You people better wake up! Our most basic right is NOT to rely or depend upon someone else to be able to travel. One of our most important rights is that of PERSONAL liberty and the right to travel and movement from one place to another by our own choice. Without it we are slaves to the government. Our forefathers would have NEVER, NEVER given the government the power to keep us from traveling AT ALL PERIOD! Do you understand that? The British government was over here telling us that we had to pay taxes to them overseas and not get ANY benifits from it as well as having the British over here as martial law telling us we can’t go here or there and what did we do? We had a freakin war over it. But look at us now. We’re under marshall law from the police telling us unless we have papers or ” permission” from our own government we’re not allowed to travel. It was NOT the intention of the constitution to allow this to happen. People say you have to look at when the constitution was written for what it was intended to mean. It wasn’t intended to restirict and bind the people. Almost everything we do now is illegal unless given permission by our own government. You can’t travel without a license or papers, you can’t work unless you have permission from a social security number, you can’t get married unless the government gives you a license for that, you can’t even own propety anymore you have to buy it with permission from the government by paying taxes for it when we used to be able to own it with an allodial title which meant that NOONE could take it from you and you could even pass it on to your kids, you even have to get permission to FISH! even if you need to do it to survive! Just imagine living back when the constituttion was written and you were standing beside a river trying to catch fish to eat to survive and someone comes up to you and says that you need a license to be able to fish. Imagine now the first person to travel by motorcycle across the country instead of by horse and someone from the government comes up to him and says that he’s TAKING or IMPOUNDING his property because he didn’t get permission for the priviledge of traveling by motorcycle from the government. That IS the same thing as taking a mans horse from him. Just imagine if this same guy is in the middle of the desert and is pulled over by the police for NO reason and is NOT given a ticket but is told that his automobile is being impounded because the guy didnb’t have a license or “permission from the government to travel. It’s the same as if he had a horse taken from him in the middle of the desert. That person was left on his own to get home fifty miles away. That person could lose his job and livelyhood and he could DIE the exact same way if someones horse is taken away back when we rode horses to travel. The intent of the constitution when it was written would NOT be written to allow this to happen. It goes against the very reaon for even writing the constitution. When the cops are sworn in as officers they swear to uphold the laws of the CONSTITUTION. Ignorance of the law is NO excuse for them. It’s also NO excuse for us to allow our government, OUR servants to ignore the constitution either. I don’t know about you but I : I have the RIGHT to LIFE, LIBERTY, and the PERSUIT of Happiness and I’m trying to fight for those rights as well as others that I have. If anyone knows of any lawyers who would be willing to defend my rights and knows about the cases where people have WON in court I would appreciate it if you can contact me at joehalecrimson@yahoo.com. I have to go to court for this and I have NO moneyt to fight them. I gave what money I had to a lawyer in this small town who screwed me badand since I have no more money was given a lawyer by the court with a public defender and guess who I got. The partner of the lawyer who screwed me in the first place. Amazing isn’t it? And the first lawyers wife just happened to be running for office at the time and she won. But noone in my government tries to lie and screw the people do they? Right! Anyone who wants to donate money to me for a real lawyer legal defense can send it to Joe Hale P. O. Box 1526, Cedar City, Utah 84720. Even if I got a second job it woudn’t be enough to pay for a real lawyer to come from a b ig city all the way to this small town and if I were to even try to do so they would take away the only lawyer I do have becaus ethey would claim I make too much money to qualify for a public defender.But yet the District Attorney can make and spend as much as he wants to. Anyway any money or information would be helpful, Thanks, Joe Hale