Rights Is Rights – Right?

Like many Americans, my first introduction to the concept of rights was in the 60’s, when the word, and the notion, seemed to dominate everything.  Indeed, the notion of rights, in my opinion, has been taken far beyond reason, such that rights can now be “created”, seemingly out of thin air, causing me to wonder if we even know what a “right” really is.  Let’s analyze a bit…

For my own purposes, I divide “rights” into two broad groups.  The first I call natural rights, the other I call artificial rights.

Natural rights, I consider the real thing.  These are the rights that Mr Jefferson called “unalienable” and “endowed by (our) creator”.  Not being in the creator business, I see them as rights each person has, simply due to the fact of their existence as a living creature.  Everyone has these rights, has always had them, and will always have them.  For sure, there are human forces that interfere, in varying degrees, with our ability to exercise these rights, but the rights themselves are still there.

A key thing to remember is that natural rights do not come from government.  In fact, I contend that no government has ever had, or will ever have, the power to grant true rights to anyone.  If we are diligent, governments can be constructed to help us protect and preserve our natural rights.  What is far more likely is that governments will intrude on our natural rights – even those governments originally constructed to do just the opposite.  In my thinking, a primary difference between good government and bad government is the degree to which a government intrudes on, or curtails, the natural rights of its citizens.

So, what are these natural rights?  Mr Jefferson listed 3 examples:  “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”.  There are myriad others that one might add, including the right to to the fruits of one’s own labor, the right of self determination, etc.  I will go so far as to suggest that one’s natural rights include the right to do whatever one wishes to do, so long as what we do does not impede others in the exercise of their own natural rights.

It is true that most of us voluntarily limit or curtail certain of our natural rights because the perceived value of the order, safety, or other advantage gained by curtailing the right is greater than not doing so.  A good example is that most of us gladly curtail our right to drive wherever and however we might choose, in return for the safety and convenience that comes from sensible traffic rules.  Likewise we curtail our freedom of speech such that it does not include yelling fire in a crowded building, we curtail our right to keep and bear arms such that we forgo the right to fire a gun without regard to who or what the bullet might hit.

But, if we are wise, there are very definite limits to our willingness to curtail our rights.  In all cases, the benefits to ourselves from the curtailment should clearly outweigh the benefits to ourselves of keeping the right intact.  In other words, I should only agree to curtailment of a right because it makes rational sense to me that it is in my own best interest to do so, not because someone else “feels” it might be a good idea.

I think it goes without saying that many of us have become lax in this regard as so many of our natural rights have been curtailed, to varying degrees, without needed protest from “we the people”.  And, I fear we will soon discover that is is much easier to guard a right that to recover its free exercise once it has been curtailed.

So, what about those artificial rights?  First, let me suggest that they are not rights at all.  Usually, they are privileges, advantages, or silly notions created through the exercise of power.  Most often governmental power.  A good example is the so-called  “right to vote”.  Clearly, this is a privilege.  A privilege that exists only because some governmental structure exists (else, what would there be to vote about?).  Another example is the so-called “right to a living wage”.   While it is very noble to want that everyone could earn a living wage, to pretend there is such a “right” is the sort of silliness that could only come from a pandering government.

Then there are those “artificial rights” that pose a real danger to our freedom.  One timely example is the so-called “right to health care”.  Since health care is a commodity that must be paid for, and, since some users of the health care system choose to be too poor to pay, this so-called “right” is actually a license for the government to confiscate the fruits of one person’s productive labor, to be used to make up for another person’s failure to be productive enough to pay for the health care they use.  By what leap of fantastical thinking can the  willful violation of one person’s natural rights, by the implied use of force, in order to provide an advantage to another, be called a “right”?  If I seriously called a cat a dog, you might accurately think I was deluded.  Yet we allow our government to conduct plunder, in the name of “rights” and too few of us even question it.  Does this mean I want to withhold health care from the poor?  No it does not.  I think the American people are, for the most part, very generous and would take care of such situations willingly and voluntarily, without the imposition of government force or plunder.

Lastly, how can one reasonably separate natural rights from artificial rights?  Simple.  If a supposed right exists only because of government, it is artificial, ergo, not a right at all.  Natural rights are like the universe itself — they simply exist without apparent cause.  Governments can interfere with your exercise of your natural rights, but, no government can create a right any more than a government can create wealth.  To believe otherwise is dangerous to your continued freedom.

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