things as killing for food, evading capture,
defending territory, breeding, and so forth. Such things aren't rights.
They're only abilities, many of which we try to repress or regulate nowadays.
There are some natural abilities that we might want as rights. However,
there are other natural abilities that we'd prefer to omit from the agenda.
Just because something is within a person's natural abilities doesn't necessarily
mean that we want him to claim the thing as a right. To claim that
we should all be able to exercise our natural abilities as rights is absurd.
God-Given
Rights The perception of God and spirituality today consists largely
of many different rigid and parochial dogmas. In every sect, denomination,
religion, or cult people claim to follow the One True Religion. Accordingly,
members of each group declare a different set of "God-given rights".
Worse yet, the claim that the declared rights come from God creates the
perception of a mandate. That makes it easy to justify the conversion
of the "God-given rights" into "God-given laws". After that, the
forcible imposition of the "God-given laws" onto non-believers just naturally
follows. The result isn't liberty. The result is arrogance,
hypocrisy, intolerance, jihads, "holy wars", persecutions, pogroms, repression,
and theocracies.
If
God and spirituality were widely understood, then I suspect that the application
of "God-given rights" to politics would be irrelevant. Indeed, in
that case even politics itself might be irrelevant. However, for
the foreseeable future "God-given rights" should be left in the churches,
the synagogues, the temples, and so forth. There isn't any place
today in politics for "God-given rights".
Civil
Rights "Civil rights" are not rights. They are privileges.
They are created, granted, and regulated by government. They exist
under the jurisdictions of legislatures or of courts. Rights and
"civil rights" are mutually exclusive conditions. When we mistakenly
declare "civil rights" to be rights, then we confuse ourselves and give
the government an irresistible tool with which to control us. "Civil
rights" don't have any place in a discussion of rights.
Animal's
Rights, Women's Rights, Children's Rights, Homosexual's Rights, Minority's
Rights, Handicapped People's Rights, Commuter Lane User's Rights, Old People's
Rights, Fat People's Rights, Prisoner's Rights, Patient's Rights, Shopper's
Rights, Consumer's Rights, Victim's Rights, Snowmobiler's Rights, Hunter's
Rights, Etc., Ad Nauseam Ideas such as these are a further degeneration
of the general idea of "civil rights". They are not rights.
They are privileges created, granted, and regulated by government. They
don't have any place in a discussion of rights.
Rights
I've observed that, even if I try to exclude such ideas as "God-given
rights", "natural rights", "human rights", "civil rights" and so forth,
then people STILL don't know what a right is. I ask them for a definition
of rights and, instead, they give me a list of things that they believe
ought to be rights. A list isn't a definition. Worse yet, everybody
has a different list. Rights are going to be sought to everybody,
regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, or anything else. Therefore,
we need to be extremely careful and specific in what we declare to be a
right. We don't want rights to become mandates, resulting in repression,
stronger government, or intolerant special interest groups. We can't
do that with a million different lists of so-called rights. We need
a definition of actual rights that is general and unambiguous. For
about ten years now, I've been proposing such a definition.
A
right is something that is within your ability, for which you don't need
permission, and which is generally or customarily approved or at least
generally or customarily tolerated. |
My
definition of rights provides an objective test, independent of anybody's
preconceived notion of what is "right and proper" and without regard for
the agenda of any special interest group. Test something against
the definition. If it satisfies the definition, then it's a right.
If it doesn't satisfy the definition, then it isn't a right. The
definition is general and unambiguous. It can be used to test any
behavior or opinion. I recommend that we start to use it.![10x5 Page Background GIF Image](../../Images/10x5_Page_Background.gif)
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June 2004
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Frontiersman,
1510 North 22nd Drive, Show Low, Arizona 85901
Also see Pharos at http://www.ida.net/users/pharos/ |
frontiersman@ida.net |
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