b322da wrote:
I cannot however, agree with you that the Declaration of Independence gave us the right to anything, other than perhaps to frame the justification of a "right" of the people to revolt against a tyrannical government and institute a new government of their design. (I do hope that my saying this is not an invitation to members to discuss our current national government, not my intent, and which I sincerely think would be way off-topic).
Elmo
You are correct. I stated what I meant badly. Please allow me to try to correct that.
The Declaration of Independence merely confirmed that I do have the God given rights, not that it created them or granted them. It was from that framework that the creation of our country occurred. In the larger picture, if you will permit some poetic license, the Declaration of Independence was an re-affirmation of at least some of the concepts in the various iterations of the Magna Carta. The principle theme is that government does not grant me rights but that I have the without government.
My point here is that even with the gross over control of our various levels of government there still is "blank space". As long as I'm in that blank space, I have the freedom to exercise my rights. I assume the boundaries of that blank space to be the laws and regulations with which I must comply. When you add policies of organizations into the mix, I freely admit that defining that blank space gets murky at best. I refuse to accept, however, than any figure in authority from any entity can simply infringe on that blank space at their whim, for their own personal purposes. That is precisely the line of reasoning that our Federal government has used to turn the Commerce clause into an attempt to control every aspect of my life. I cannot easily fight the Federal government. I will not, however, give up so easily when the authority figure is at a much lower level of control, especially in a matter that should be inside legally defined boundaries.
I'm not singling out the professor. I think the overreach is rampant. It is my intent to call it out every time that I see it. I have a pet peeve about educators to the point that you might call it a chip on my shoulder. Please bear with me on another example.
I ride my bike on my Town's designated bike trails for exercise 3 times a week and have been doing it for over 5 years. One part of the trail goes across, by design, the rear part of an elementary school playground. Typically, I ride early in the morning (summer) or late in the afternoon (winter) so riding when kids are present is a rarity. One day it happened. Rather than attempt to stay on the trail and confront 10s of kids, I took the bus path around the school, across the parking lot in front and was heading for the exit to the street - when a man yelled to me. I stopped. He asked what I was doing there. I explained my exercise routine and that I was detouring the trail because the kids where on it. He told me that I wasn't allowed to do that. When I didn't respond, he went on into a diatribe about how I was exercising all wrong in the first place and that I really needed to so things completely differently. Calming, I asked him why I wasn't allowed the detour and he said "because I'll get 20 phone calls from mothers about this strange guy riding a bicycle." Seeing that further conversation was pointless and, besides, I was loosing my heartrate that I'd built up, I simply left. It turns out that it was the diminutive stature principal of the school. (Read this as my believing that he had a self inflated D.ed attitude.)
If the principal had exercised his right to post no trespassing during school days signs on the school grounds, I would have obeyed. If he had worked with the Town's parks group, the bike trail would have been rerouted and I won't have had to re-route. Because he elected to take neither of those actions, I was violating no laws and not even a written school policy (I later checked.) He was simply expanding into my blank space. I continue to try to avoid riding while the kids are there but I'm not going to stop riding there because of him. I still ride across the back of that school 3 times a week. Needless to say, I'm not alone.
Edit. I meant to add this. What is the difference between carrying past an invalid 30.06 sign and not cooperating with the professor in dismissing me from his class for concealed carry? In both cases, I'm compliant with the laws and someone is attempting to impose their will upon me that is not legally valid. I have the right to bear arms but am limited the the TPC for doing so. Anything inside to the TPC is blank space and I can exercise my rights. Yes, I know I've mixed TX and AZ but it was to make a point.