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The dichotomy between privileges and rights may have some special legal meaning ascribed to it, but in practice, it's a distinction without a difference. For example, going to Disneyland is almost certainly a privilege, but if Congress passed a law saying Tom Jones from Denver, and only Tom Jones from Denver, was forbidden from going to Disneyland, I bet Tom would have a pretty good case that his constitutional rights were being violated.


Yes, that'd be called a bill of attainder, I believe -- those are expressly forbidden by the constitution. Of course, if powerful groups wanted such bills, we'd see lots of articles explaining how 'attainder' meant something else, something more specific. Maybe it does! A written constitution only helps so much.




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