Modernizing Locke’s Natural Rights Essay -- Government

In Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall’s article, â€Å"An African American’s Perspective on the Constitution†, he concedes that the founding father’s Constitution contained numerous imperfections. Marshall feels it was a product of time and tremendous courage that brought forth the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution, which guarantees an individual’s Lockean rights to â€Å"life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness†. Marshall believed the achievements that secured these individuals rights â€Å"belongs to those who refused to acquiesce in outdated notions† of life, liberty, and property. Thus, Marshall points out that the progression of time necessitates the modernization of the Constitution. Thomas Jefferson even anticipated the future evolution of our society and substituted the words â€Å"pursuit of happiness† for â€Å"property† in the Declaration of Independence having realized that someday our values would reshape. As public support for federal involvement has increased overtime, the Constitution is amended to better represent our evolving society. Although current public opinion favors federal support to provide access to healthcare, the design of our government dramatically lengthens the time necessary to implement modernize the Constitution. As the importance in maintaining one’s health has increased in America, the public has demanded the government to provide healthcare, however, the Constitutional prose recognizes the right to health but not the right to healthcare. The current escalating debt the federal government is accumulating to provide funding for programs like Medicaid is increasing the probability the United States will one day default on it’s debt. America’s primitive system of health care, known for its outstanding... ... Society. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown Univ. Pr., 1994. Faunce B.Med., Ph.D., Thomas. Who Own's Your Health: Medical Professionalism and the Market State. Baltimore, Maryland: The John Hopkins University Press, 2007. Marshall, Thurgood. â€Å"An African American’s Perspective on the Constitution† in Shafritz, [edited by] Jay M., and Lee S. Weinberg. Classics in American Government. 3rd ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing, 2006. The Declaration of Independence in Wilson, James Q., John J. Dilulio, and Meena Bose. 2011 American Government: Institutions & Policies. Boston, Mass: Wadsworth Pub. Co. Ruger, Jennifer Prah. Health and Social Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press, USA, 2010. Wilson, James Q., John J. DiIulio, Jr., and with Meena Bose. American Government: Institutions & Policies. 12th ed. Boston, MA.: Wadsworth Publishing, 2011.