There’s a lot of discussion over at Townhall, and I’m sure it’s the same on other conservative blogging sites, about the origin of our “rights.” Some say our rights come from God, some say they are derived from the Constitution, some say they come from nature and some say they simply exist and are not granted or bestowed on us by anyone or anything. In reality, none of the above is true.
What makes a right a right – what gives it value, in other words – is the mutual agreement that such a right exists and/or the ability to defend that right.
Consider a scenario in which two people are stranded on a deserted island with no expectation of being rescued. Now suppose that the stronger of the two demands that the other work as his slave, or else he will kill him. If the right to life and freedom were truly unalienable, then the weaker fellow need simply assert those rights and the problem would be immediately resolved, correct? In reality though, if the stronger man does not agree to those rights and cannot be held accountable for depriving the weaker man of them, then those “rights” are meaningless and may as well not exist at all.
It is the Declaration of Independence which declares that, “…all men…are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights;” however, the mere declaration of such rights is not sufficient to establish them. If it was, then we would also be enjoying the right to free food, housing and medical care as per the declaration of such rights by one resident leftist over at Townhall. Anyone can declare themselves entitled to “rights,” as the Left frequently proves. Going back now to the DOI, England did not agree that our right to liberty was “unalienable.” We had to fight to defend it, with many learning in the process that the right to life is not so “unalienable” either. Ultimately it was only the demonstration of our ability to defend those “rights” that preserved them for the remaining Americans.
The Constitution does not “grant” us rights; however, it does three vital things that give us the best chance for being able to exercise certain rights. First, it defines those rights with specificity, the founders having undoubtedly understood that specificity is key to enforceability. Next, by incorporating the Bill of Rights into the Constitution they established the presumption of mutual agreement by virtue of citizenship. It is this presumption of assent that then makes it possible to fulfill the third criteria and establish a means to defend those rights by way of due process and our justice system. Brilliant? That’s up to each of us to judge, but what it says to me is the founders astutely understood the intangible and precarious nature of “rights” and the problems associated with both guaranteeing and not guaranteeing them.
Ultimately our “rights” are only as good as our ability to enforce them. Keep that in mind whenever someone presumes to declare what their "rights" are.
CW, great post! You have a great way of giving good analogies to complex issues. To me, many of our rights are not material things or things you can purchase. They are free speech and freedom in general - things we take for granted. I think I also posted this by accident under your previous post about leftwing bullies.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Patrick (I assume that's you). I think all of us tend to take our rights for granted and clearly that's a mistake.
ReplyDeleteCW, yes that is me - Mr. Anonymous.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, the "Bill of Rights" is not about granting rights, but about restricting government from interfering with said rights. The preamble to the "Bill of Rights" is left off and therefore the context has been changed. If I'm not mistaken, one of the arguments against the "Bill of Rights" was the fact that once this was done, all other inalienable rights were up for grabs by the government, given they were not articulated in the Constitution. (hope I said that clearly enough)
ReplyDeleteGreat post, CW!!!
Thank you, Mrs. AL, and you bring up a great point about the arguments against the Bill of Rights, which I had to do some research into (I’m still learning too). The notion struck me as a little convoluted at first but after taking a few minutes to absorb the argument, there was some very sound reasoning in there as well. Having observed the manner in which the federal gov’t has put its hand in every area of our lives and diluted what we generally consider to be our natural rights, it would be hard to argue that there wasn’t genuine merit to their concerns; however, how much worse might things have been had there not been a Bill of Rights? Ultimately it comes back to the question of whether or not establishing a federal gov’t was the right way to go, but for this – alas - we don’t have the benefit of seeing both ways play themselves out. This is the kind of argument that underscores the difficulties faced by those who were trying to guide the direction of this country as it was in its infancy.
ReplyDeleteGreat discussion. Thanks!
Mrs AL correct about the BOR, that was one of the main arguments against doing one at all. Rights are not granted by the government ever, we have God given rights. The left wants to establish new right all the time for their pet items.
ReplyDeleteCW if you are doing research into the BOR you know this already. From what I have discovered is that BOR was about the limits the BOR put on the Federal government.
Good job Mrs AL
Excellent perspective CW. Ironically in a round-about way Mrs.AT and I were chatting about this a couple weeks ago; the need/purpose of government. Government is a necessary evil as government will exist in one form or other. The problem is that the direction of maturity of government from any form id to an oppressive government. The natural form of government is a dictatorship which often mutates to an oligarchy both of which are historically extremely oppressive. Often these governments come to power by offering people revenge/redistribution against those successful in society instead of freedom. Its a classic we'll share they're wealth if you give us the power to rule. The founding fathers having only seen monarchy in action, had the knowledge of history and were educated and intelligent enough to see this pitfall and designed our Republic with this in mind. They did such a good job that the erosion has been minimal over 235 years. The premise of all of this is simple and the founding fathers' intent was to say it that way: If man is truly to be free it can only be by an inalienable rule of law by a government that cannot be challenged by mans greed for power. As the more power man has over that government, the less rights the free man is allowed to keep.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Jim! I agree with you completely. Gov’t provides a vehicle for taking power away from the people, but its existence is inevitable. This means that the best we can hope for is to limit its power, which is what I believe the Founders were attempting to do through the Constitution.
ReplyDeleteOh geeez, there's such a love fest here. Why do I wanna rain on a parade with everyone so in step with each other?
ReplyDeleteThat a right isn't a right unless you are powerful enough or have bigger weapons for self-defense is nonsequitur. Though a misuse of the phrase, might does NOT make right.
I guess our government has a right to hand us unfunded liabilities of $120 trillion, current debt of $14+ tril, and deficit exceeding $100 bil per month. Why? They/ve done it and we weren't powerful enough to stop them. They have the tanks and the nukes.
The Bill of Rights does NOT specify our rights. It provides civic examples of them. For example, the 2nd amendment affirms our unalienable right to liberty and to self-defense of our unalienable rights.
Because I have an unalienable right to life, doesn't NOT mean that I'm impenitrable. Someone who murders me violates my right to life, and THAT is why murder is a crime.
Actually, drpete
ReplyDeleteAlthough I’d been mulling over this subject for some time, it was something you said that finally inspired this post. You said something about having the right to abuse your dog if you like, because of your inalienable right to property (I’m paraphrasing so please correct me if I got that wrong). This was a bit puzzling to me, since most local governments have laws against abusing animals and hey, didn’t Michael Vick spend a couple of years in prison for abusing his dogs? How can that be, I wondered, if we have “the right” to treat animals as we please? I considered debating the issue with you but ultimately I figured, what was the point? All declarations aside, you can’t enforce your “right” to abuse animals, and the reason you can’t enforce it is because society won’t let you. So what does that say about your “right” to abuse your dog? If it’s a right, it’s a worthless one. That’s why the premise of this post was to understand what gives a right VALUE. That understanding, IMO, is of greater consequence than any one individual declaring what his rights are because, as you know, 10 different people will give 10 different lists if they’re asked to list their rights.
>>”Someone who murders me violates my right to life, and THAT is why murder is a crime.”
What about those countries where men can legally murder their wives or daughters? If it’s not a crime, does that mean those women and girls don’t have a right to life?
While I agree in principle that people have the right to live, I would say that murder is a crime here because citizens have come to a mutual agreement that it will not be tolerated and society has enforced its will by creating and enforcing laws against it.
I am more convinced now, CW, that our disagreement is semantic. If some people have government pass and enforce law infringing on my unalienable (from the Creator)right to liberty, I contend that such a right still exists, but is being illegally infringed. You say that, since the right is no longer exercisable, it doesn't exist.
ReplyDeleteAm I correct, then, that while I'll fight to the end to impeach the progressive plunderers, you'll merely say "c'est la vie"?
Yes, drpete, I think semantics is definitely a factor in our disagreement.
ReplyDelete>>”You say that, since the right is no longer exercisable, it doesn't exist.”
I wouldn’t say that they don’t exist, in part because I can’t say that they ever existed in the first place. I would say that if you cannot exercise a “right,” it becomes meaningless.
>>”Am I correct, then, that while I'll fight to the end to impeach the progressive plunderers, you'll merely say "c'est la vie"?”
No, that’s not correct. A right BEGINS with our belief that we are entitled to certain things, and when we declare something to be our right we are essentially asserting that we intend to fight for that entitlement. That’s what the authors of the Declaration of Independence were doing when they wrote that document. They were notifying England and anyone else of concern what they were prepared to fight for. It was, essentially, their line in the sand.
Like everyone else, I believe there are certain things in life I am entitled to, including life, liberty and property, and I am willing to sacrifice and fight for those things. But my declaration of these entitlements does not guarantee that others will agree with me and honor my right to them. This is why the Constitution, to the extent that we are able to uphold it, is so vital. As the Law of the Land it provides the assumption of mutual agreement and the mechanism of defense that give our rights significance.
I think, CW, that the Founders DEDUCED that humans must be born with certain rights, that human life made no sense without these rights having been endowed. They were certainly also aware that in the entire history of humankind, those rights had been infringed and plundered by despots of one or another stripe.
ReplyDeleteThese men set out to forge America as the first place in history to respect, protect, and defend those rights. I agree with their thinking processes, their deductions, and their conclusions. And I'd like to help restore their vision.
I think you’re right, drpete, but in the end they were merely men and their deductions were merely their opinions, just like you and I (except that I’m not a man, but you get what I mean). I agree they showed enormous wisdom and I, too, would like to see it restored, but this brings us back to the eternal struggle – what gives us the “right” to do so if others disagree with that vision? I would say that, to the extent we have the “right” it’s because the Constitution is still the Law of the Land and mutual agreement is implicit; but enforcing it is a whole other ball of wax.
ReplyDeleteIn your last post you talked about marching on Washington to physically remove those people that you perceive to be illegally messing with the Constitution, and restoring the founders’ vision via your own “benevolent dictatorship.” Doesn’t that sort of smack of the “might makes right” which you chided me for? That’s not meant to be any sort of gotcha. I’m sincerely interested in what you see as the difference.
Might, CW, doesn't MAKE right, but self-defense with force as necessary to protect and defend life, liberty and property is an unalienable (from the Creator) right with which each of us is endowed. It is THAT -- self-defense -- that We the People empowered our federal government, the authority and duty to do collectively what each of us had the right to do individually.
ReplyDeleteNow that the federal government has overstepped its authority (by in my estimation fourfold) and plundered, rather than defended, individual liberty, it is the right of each and all of us to UNDO that.
As aside, it scares me that the federal government is not only the enemy of the people, but it out "guns" us by a cubic pantload.
I want to disagree, CW, with your contention that the Founders' "deductions were merely their opinions . . . " The conclusions they drew from reasonable premises and deductive reasoning, it seems to me logically follow.
ReplyDeleteHumans have intelligence both different from and superior to other animals and all plantlife. They are capable of planning and organizing, of inventing, of agriculture and manufacturing, of choosing and behaving as they choose. Choices have consequences. Behaviors have consequences. Humans are capable of living and surviving, indeed thriving, sans cooperation or assistance.
They must be free to choose or they cannot help in their own survival. Their first property is themselves. The taking of a human life is totally unnecessary for a human to survive and thrive. The right to control one's own property, oneself, is. Etc. Etc.
Such thinking isn't just opinion. It's logic. It's rational. It's the opposite of progressivism which is mindless feeling.
drpete:
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that it’s logical and rational, but so what? That’s merely my opinion, agreeing with your opinion which agrees with the Founders’ opinions. To the extent that you can persuade people with that reasoning, that’s great.
A liberal I used to argue with once said that the right to life means we also have the right to food, housing and employment because life cannot be sustained without these things. That, to him, seemed perfectly logical, therefore HE was right. You see?
The only thing we have going for us right now is the Constitution, because (at the risk of being obnoxiously repetitive) it is still the Law of the Land and it still contains the assumption of mutual agreement that existed at the time of the founding, and which is the only way, IMO, to enforce our “rights” (other than by physical confrontation, and the odds, as you point out, are against us). Granted, the Constitution is hanging by a thread…
Your arguing here, CW, reminds me, sorry, -- Oh don't go there, Pete, don't -- of my wife. "It's just YOUR opinion. Others have THEIR opinions. Doesn't make you right."
ReplyDeleteThere ARE facts. And 2+2=4, regardless of someone's opinion. I have a pantload of facts to support my premises that humans have assets that other animals don't and that plants don't. Once there, reasonable premises added to facts yield logical and supportable and verifiable conclusions. Data and observation prove those with contradictory opinions WRONG.
I knew I shoulda quit while I was only slightly behind.
It’s obvious, drpete, that your wife is an intelligent woman (she chose you, didn’t she?).
ReplyDeleteIf facts and logic ruled the day, we wouldn’t have a leftist in the Whitehouse.
I rest my case. :)