Decades later, both the purpose and the consequences of the Great Society are disputed. More fundamental is the question of the nature of rights themselves. Do they come from God and/or nature, or do they come from government? Or some mixture? The controversy over the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is a modern example. The ACA requires that companies provide insurance that covers birth control - including drugs that prevent the implantation of a fertilized egg, which some consider to be abortion - and sterilization. Catholics and some Protestants see these practices as wrong and contrary to the word of God. Conservatives also think it is against what is best in human nature that individuals be promised entitlements.

In order to enjoy our tradition of rights in the United States, we must also fulfill responsibilities to assure that all can benefit from the liberty and equality on which the United States was founded. Many of the rights we can exercise have concrete responsibilities of actions we must take to assure the common good. This lesson will examine the differences between rights and responsibilities, and how both relate to the concept of the common good.

Presidents Herbert Hoover and Franklin D. Roosevelt responded to the Great Depression by asking for - and receiving - much greater powers to intervene in the economy. Congress passed hundreds of bills and created dozens of new offices and agencies, dramatically expanding the size and power of federal bureaucracy. In his 1944 State of the Union address, FDR proposed a “second bill of rights.” The political rights in the 1791 Bill of Rights, he argued, had “proven inadequate” for the challenges of the times. While the natural and inalienable rights in the U.S. Bill of Rights are mostly negative in nature, the new rights FDR proposed were positive in nature. Rather than protecting the individual’s natural liberty so he would be free to pursue happiness, FDR’s list of rights was a set of entitlements and services to be provided to certain individuals at the expense of certain others.