![]() The remaining five amendments are either quite clearly freedoms “from” (freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, from having to quarter soldiers during times of war, from excessive bail and the infliction of cruel and unusual punishment) or, in the case of the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, relate to the Constitution itself. What can our history teach us about our collective emphasis on freedom “to?” How did this emphasis evolve? Perhaps the most important record of American freedoms, the Bill of Rights, contains a number of famous freedoms “to.” They include the right to freedom of speech and assembly, to bear arms, to due process, to a speedy and public trial, and to a trial by jury. With this tension in mind, a note on these two notions of freedom, and how public health can work to ultimately make freedom “from” just as integral to our society as freedom “to.” In doing so, however, we sometimes find ourselves accused of paternalism, of infringing on the freedom “to” rights of others. Promoting freedom “from” is, in large part, the work of public health. But there is another kind of right-rights that are founded on the basis of freedom “from.” These include the right to live free from socioeconomic insecurity, or from the threat of environmental disaster, or the hazard of preventable injury and disease. ![]() Notably, all of these rights are rights “to”-this is to say, they represent our freedom to perform an action or access a resource that benefits us, and, in most but not all cases, enriches our civil society. In the case of the Tea Party, these rights notably include the right to bear arms, and the right to assemble and speak freely on the left, the emphasis has been on issues like the right to safe reproductive care and pay equity, and the right of workers to unionize. It is telling that the Tea Party resistance to the agenda of Barack Obama, and the burgeoning progressive resistance to the Trump administration, while sharing little in common ideologically, are united by their reverence for rights, and by their concerns about losing them. ![]() ![]() In the United States, we place a high premium on freedom, and on the legal extension of that freedom-rights. ![]()
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