The US Constitution, by itself, grants US citizens everything as a right, then enumerates the exceptions to those all-encompassing rights carved out as necessary for the operation of a government.

The correct question is: Where does the US Constitution grant governments the power to poison and lie to residents?

This isn’t some pedantry but fundamental American civics. The US Constitution explicitly does not enumerate rights. It’s default-allow, explicit-deny regarding human rights. It’s rather alarming that anyone would think it’s default-deny, explicit-allow. That’s not how the Constitution is written.

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JuniperMesos an hour ago | parent [-]

By this logic, state employees and elected officials, who are themselves US citizens, have the right to say anything at all to the public, including blatant lies about public health issues, because there's no specific legal exception banning them from doing so.

	▲	kstrauser an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		As government representatives, they’re limited to the behavior that the Constitution grants to the government. Here’s an explainer to said Constitution you may find useful: https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/article-1/sec... After reading that, please do tell where the power to poison water and lie about it is granted to the government, and the members of that government.
	▲	Brian_K_White 27 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		They are only merely citizens outside of work, and they are indeed that free but only during those times. When they are at work acting as the state, they are the state and their actions are limited to the rights of the state. This should not have been something that needed explaining.