All For One And One For All
In August 2007, iCitizenForum interviewed Manny Hidalgo, Executive Director of the Latino Economic Development Corporation in Washington, D.C. The full interview can be viewed here.
In the above clip Manny explains to us that when the rights of one group are under threat, the rights of all of us are under threat. We should not stand by and let others have their rights restricted or infringed upon because if we do, we are opening the door for everyone’s rights to be infringed upon. Manny’s statement reminded me of the sentiment expressed by the founders of the United States, Thomas Jefferson wrote in the declaration of independence, "all men are endowed by their creator with unalienable rights", in other words, our rights are given to us by god purely by virtue of being, and are not any privilege given to us by a state or peoples.
The danger that Manny alerted in the interview was that if we accept the curtailment of one group in society’s fundamental rights, we are accepting that these rights are no longer universal, but exclusive to some.
We leave ourselves open to persecution because with exclusive rights, we have to decide who gets them and who doesn’t. This process leaves open the possibility that rights will be granted to some and taken from others based on political decisions.
The revolutionary nature of the US constitution was that it outlined rights that were to be enjoyed by all, perhaps the first document to do so. For the founders, writing at a time where there was no American citizenship, the rights outlined in documents such as the bill of rights are not the rights of Americans exclusively but the rights of all who live in America. For people like Manny, this sentiment is as strong today as it was at the founding of the nation.
