The Constitution: A Document of Negative Rights?

What a month. Our President out making a fool of himself and our country at the UN and on the world stage, President Obama lobbying before the NOC in Copenhagen and getting rejected, school children being indoctrinated by singing chants about the President, Iran thumbing its finger at us and the world by ramping up its nuclear program, the war in Afghanistan going to pot because Pres. Obama is still voting present on critical decisions, and unemployment at 9.8%.

I, for one, am hoping for some "change".

But let's turn the discussion toward the Constitution for a moment... Pres. Obama is quoted as having said that the Constitution is a document of negative rights by telling the government what it can't do to you and not what it can do for you. To hold that understanding of the constitution is to have a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of government in a constitutional republic. The role of government is to protect the rights and freedoms of the people. Evidently Pres. Obama believes that rather than the constitution being a job description of what freedoms to protect and how, he views the constitution as a restraining order that restricts his power and what he can do to the people. As a citizen the right to free speech, free religion, trial by jury, free press, the right to bare arms, etc. are all positive rights. Only a person whose power is restrained by these rights would consider them negative. It is frustrating to Pres. Obama that the people hold the power and he is only their servant. It is his desire to hold all the power and have the people of the United States be his servants. We must be on our guard. This mentality is the seed of despotism, tyranny, and slavery.