During Friday’s Faith and Family Forum, Gov. Jeb Bush attacked Barack Obama for describing the Bill of Rights as consisting of “negative rights.”
Bush said, “It was jaw-dropping to the think the Bill of Rights is a set of negative rights. This is the most radical left-wing judicial philosophy that emanates apparently from the Harvard Law School…that’s whats at stake, are we going to move from a society that protects ourselves from our government — that we are a self-governing people — or are we going to do that many constitutions do around the world which is give the false hope of a guarantee.”
The comments that Bush was referring to was then-Senator Obama speaking on Canadian television that the Bill of Rights are “negative rights and what we really need are positive rights.”
Former law professor Obama is correct in his assessment that the Bill of Rights consists of negative rights.
In the Obergefell v. Hodges same sex marriage case, conservative Justice Clarence Thomas wrote, “[L]iberty in the eighteenth century was thought of much more in relation to ‘negative liberty’; that is, freedom from, not freedom to, freedom from a number of social and political evils, including arbitrary government power.”