It’s a sleight of hand, this sequence, for, as Turner wrote in his notes, “government came before.” But it was, and remains, a powerful move, one that premises the virtue of freedom as existing independently of the state and restricts the role of the state to only guarding virtue. That premise makes possible the ongoing refusal of the United States to accept the legitimacy of social or economic rights. Individual, inherent rights, found in nature—to have, to bear, to move, to assemble, to believe, to possess—were legitimate, as was a state that protected them. Social rights—to receive health
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