Never in history has the subject of human rights been so promiscuously indulged in as at present, and yet behind the global orgy lies a startling innocence: Hardly anyone can offer a coherent explanation of how these “rights” are conceived and afterward secured, the most common answers provided by international folk wisdom being that they are either delivered by the stork or manufactured in test tubes by academicians in white lab coats.
It is in the interest of dispelling error and focusing the brilliant light of empirical truth upon a subject shrouded in darkness and superstition that Robert A. Goldwin and William A. Schambra have edited an interesting volume called How Does the Constitution Secure Rights? (American Enterprise Institute, 1150 17th Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036; $5.95) in which six contributors of differing or complementary persuasions tackle this complex, intriguing, and misunderstood subject. All six essays are intelligent and unusually well-written, even the one or two that tend in my opinion toward wrongheadedness being, in unexpected ways, illuminating.
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