The title for tonight is, it's my right, understanding national rights and the purpose of politics.

And I think in a certain way you can sum up when we're talking about rights,

which is something that we talk about almost everywhere in our culture.

You know, it's constantly coming up, and certainly it's all over the place in the law,

but it's all over the place in our political conversations.

It's all over the place even on university campuses.

And if we were to take just a very average, contemporary, popular understanding of rights, you might be able to sum it up with the phrase,

it's my right.

Like, it's my right, therefore I want it, or I deserve it, I'm owed it.

But as people in our culture are very quick to perceive first what they're entitled to, or what they think

is their due somehow, and to perceive an injustice as a violation of their rights.

And increasingly, when they perceive this, they seek some remedy, they seek some redress.

And that's only understandable because in our contemporary understanding, if you have a right,

you must be able to enforce it.

That means to get other people to respect it and even to use the law or to use some other

administrative remedy that has a kind of bite

to accomplish that.

And the courts in our system increasingly recognize and provide remedies for even new formulations

of rights and sometimes you might even say new rights

altogether.

So just a little personal background here.

I worked for a number of years at the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C.,

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