Quotation of the Day…

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… is from page 30 of Timothy Sandefur’s 2014 book, The Conscience of the Constitution: The Declaration of Independence and the Right to Liberty [original emphases]:

The characteristic difference between rights and privileges is that rights are not held at the mercy of another person, or of the state. We deserve rights; we cannot be made to pay for them, and are not answerable to our neighbors or to the state when we exercise them. But privileges are given to us by one in a superior position, who retains authority to restrict or to eliminate those privileges. One cannot deserve a privilege, and one can be required to pay for it. To obscure this distinction and contend that rights are permissions issued by the state is to reject the basic proposition of equality articulated in the Declaration, and to presume that some people are fundamentally entitled to decide how much freedom others should enjoy.