Is Tom Delay Stupid or Just Fucking Evil? What "Negative Liberty" Really Means

Tom Delay was just on Hardball, stating that Barack Obama hates the US Constitution because Obama has described the Constitution as being composed of "Negative Rights."

HOLY SHIT! I didn't know you could be THAT STUPID without your head exploding, but apparently Delay has mastered this art. Either that, or he is deliberately lying on the meaning of "negative rights." (Oh yeah, we're talking about Tom Delay.)

"Negative rights," also known as "negative liberty," is an essentially CONSERVATIVE philosophy regarding the rights granted under the Constitution. It does NOT mean that "the Constitution is Bad."

"Negative rights" or "Negative Liberty" means that the Constitution does NOT obligate the Government to grant citizens a bunch of entitlements. The Constitution does not give citizens the right to GET anything. Rather, the concept of "Negative Rights" means that the Constitution requires the Government to LEAVE PEOPLE ALONE.

THAT is the meaning of "Negative Liberty" or "Negative Rights." It is a perspective on Constitutional interpretation that has been developed most extensively by scholars at The University of Chicago School of Law. As a lecturer at U Chicago, Obama would have been very familiar with this essentially Conservative and Libertarian philosophy on Constitutional rights.

Accordingly, it should be clear that Obama was referring to an interpretation of the Constitution best summed up by Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis:

"The makers of the Constitution conferred the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by all civilized men — the right to be let alone."

To claim that Obama's description of the Constitution as made up of "negative rights" meant that Obama was saying that "The Constitution is bad," or that Obama doesn't like the Constitution is so stupid, ridiculous and deliberately misleading that an army of Constitutional Scholars need to be invited onto Hardball to personally kick Tom Delay HARD in the keester!!!

HOLY SHIT WHAT A LYING ASSHOLE!