See my response to ScottBurson. The Constitution does not protect individual rights in general. Instead, it protects a small set of individual rights that are m

See my response to ScottBurson. The Constitution does not protect individual rights in general. Instead, it protects a small set of individual rights that are most relevant when that individual finds himself in a minority, so-called minority rights. It was expected that democratic self-governance would protect against other basic rights (e.g., to freedom from unreasonable taxation, the right to not be raped and murdered, etc.). But most individual rights are not listed in the Constitution, because the purpose of the constitution was to establish democratic self governance with protection for minorities against mob rule. NOT to provide for individual rights. > What specifically can you point me to, what founding father, specifically wrote that the Bill of Rights was to protect minorities and not individuals? Read Thomas Jefferson's First Inaugural Address, for starters. Of course rights of minorities are individual rights, since minorities are composed of individuals. But the constitution was designed specifically to protect the rights of minorities, not to protect individual rights in general. The assumption was that democratic self-governance would provide for "little-r" rights; i.e., for fir and just governance.