The rights of the citizen

The Democratic nominee for president, Vice President Al Gore, and the Republican candidate, Texas Gov. George W. Bush, both believe that citizens should be free in the exercise of their essentially private rights but subject to regulation when rights are exercised in public. But while they agree on this general framework, they differ on which rights are public and which are private. To Gore, a right is private so long as it does not infringe on the life or liberty of another human being. Bush, on the other hand, says that a right should be free from regulation if, when exercised appropriately, it does not do harm to others. To wit, Gore views abortion as a private matter -- a free choice for a woman to exercise on her body -- because he does not consider the unborn fetus to be a living person. On the other hand, he sees gun ownership as a public act with often grave social repercussions, which therefore should be subject to strict regulation. Bush approaches abortion from the viewpoint that a fetus is a living person with rights independent from its mother, and therefore seeks to prohibit abortion as a matter of public policy. However, Bush contends that gun ownership is a constitutional right that should be considered private because, when exercised responsibly, it does not interfere with the life or liberty of another. The same matrix can apply to an issue like school prayer. Gore sees worship in the classroom as an act that infringes on the religious rights of other students; Bush, however, maintains that school prayer can be exercised without offense to others, and is therefore protected. In this race, the choice isn't whether we have a government that regulates the conduct of its citizenry, but the circumstances under which it does so. Your responsibility as an informed voter is to assess which candidate better meets your idea of the relationship between our government and its people.

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