https://freedomisobvious.blogspot.com/2019/02/the-truth-about-human-rights.html





In a previous essay, I addressed the question "what are rights?", describing what they are, precisely. What I failed to address in that work, was reveal a deeper truth about them, an error I shall correct presently.

People yak a blue streak about "rights". Forgetting the nonsensical ravings of the misguided who go on about "gay" rights, "women's" rights, and so forth, the only rights of which to speak in the realm of men are humanrights. There are no special rights for these guys, those gals, or the creatures lurking over in the dark corners. We all share the same rights.

There is, however, a deeper truth to the story of rights, one that is rarely, if ever, discussed. It is that short, but important story, to which I now turn our attention.

As previously discussed in the above reference essay, a right is a claim. To wit, the definition from Worcester's dictionary of 1840 states a claim to be:

CLAIM, v. 1. To ask as a right ; to demand as due; to request authoritatively; to require.;CLAIM, v. To become entitled to a thing; to derive a right.
CLAIM, n. 1. A demand as of right ; a challenge of ownership;

Note that a claim always refers to some property and, in the relevant sense, a demand. Therefore, your right to life is your claim to your own life, which in turn is the demand and notice you assert and serve to the world that said life is your property, or what I like to call one's "First Property", or "FP" for short.

The deeper truth about rights, to which little or nothing has been written of which I am aware, is that in order for a right to actually exist, it must be asserted. That is, the claim must be explicitly staked, the demand to property due made clearly, or it does not exist. Courts and other institutions of Law may rule for the sake of practicality that a right may be inferred through certain assumptions for particular cases, and they would perhaps be correct in doing so. After all, it would likely be a terrible waste of energy to feel that one must assert his claim to life anew with every person he passed on the street, for fear of some stranger's attempt to take him as a slave or even to slay him for want of having stated his claim to First Property in advance. The world would become a very much more complicated place to navigate than it is already.

But are all claims to be assumed? Clearly not. If a man finds a gold coin on the roadway, is be obliged to leave it where is rests on the assumption that its rightful owner retains claim to it? No. The coin may be reasonably regarded as lost and without owner. Furthermore, the discoverer of the coin is under no demonstrable moral obligation to seek out the most recent owner for the sake of restoring his property.

What is the same man discovers a car in a ditch, keys therein? May he, after perhaps some "reasonable" amount of time waiting there, get in and drive away? Practically speaking, no. Why? Because the property is by the means of a state motor vehicle institution, registered as belonging to someone in specific, the apparent abandonment of it not perforce giving license to a passer-by to claim it as his own. There is a demonstrable link of claim between the property and the registered owner.

As we see, these things can become a mite complicated in some respects, yet for the most part people appear to manage well enough.

That all said, it remains that a claim must be asserted in order to become valid. Some will say that the mere happenstance of birth establishes the individual claim to First Property, and I can accept that as an eminently obvious and practical view to take on the matter. And yet, that claim may in cases have to be reasserted under certain circumstances.

For example, imagine you are accosted by a police officer who demands you produce ID because he "needs" to know who you are. In such a case, faced with a man with a gun, the class of such men having statistically proven themselves ready and willing to use those guns in the event you fail to comply with their invalid orders, you have a choice to make. You can meekly accede to his invalid demand, or you can remind him of your countervailing right not to be molested by strangers, regardless of the presence of a sidearm and a meaningless badge, connoting no actual authority whatsoever. Often times, when capably challenged, a cop will back down precisely because he knows he doesn't have Law on his side.

So then, the reality of rights is this: they must be asserted explicitly in some manner and they must always be defended. A right is not a guarantee to the property it claims. Just because I assert my right to my First Property, which is to say my life, it does not follow that I am guaranteed that life from being taken from me. I must take steps to best ensure that my life will remain intact and my own throughout my time on this earth. My claim may be effectively voided through events beyond my control, such as a building collapsing upon me, or it might be destroyed through the criminal action of another human being. Finally, my life could be expropriated as the ill-gotten property of other human beings.

Tax laws, for example, reduce every tax-paying human being to the status of a serf because there is now some proportion of his time spent at his labor, the fruits of which are taken from him without consent, by another. That is, at best, serfdom, but more likely the better label is "slavery", bearing in mind that one need not have manacles of iron about his ankles in order to be a slave. The threat of physical violence to coerce compliance is sufficient when compliance is the result. Such people are slaves no less than those with said manacles. They are, in fact, more so slaves because they remain compliant in the absence of immediate physical restraint and compulsion. That tells us that they are men defeated in their minds and spirits, unwilling to walk off the plantation for fear of the master's retributions. It is one of the most wretched states in which any man can find himself.

The "state", or "government" if you prefer, routinely acts to violate your rights. It is done every day, all day long. In New York City and under the colored authority of the so-called Sullivan "law" (which is no Law at all), anyone choosing to walk down Broadway at noon with his sidearm openly displayed on his hip will be arrested and charged with illegal possession of a firearm, that is, if the cops do not simply dispense with those formalities and start shooting right off the bat. The "state" is fact in the sense that people believe it is actually there and behave accordingly. Those who comprise the "state" will violate your rights without compunction, which is why onus rests with you to defend those rights against trespass. Normatively speaking, this should never be the case, but in the real world, it is almost always the case where the "state" makes contact with you, the sovereign man. The only hope you have of escaping an encounter without some damage is to assert your rights and stand fast no matter what the goons may throw at you.

Remember that even though agents of "government" may know they are doing wrong, that will not stop them from trying. Intimidation and deceit have been primary tools of tyrants for thousands of years because they tend to work, and they work because the people against whom those tools are turned most often cower in fear when they ought to be standing tall, come what may. This is a primary reason the world has been what it has, politically speaking: people willing to tolerate the intolerable. That is where the vigorous defense of one's rights through proper and effective assertion comes in, along with the attitude of absolute intolerance of that which must never be tolerated.

Therefore, learn your rights and how to defend them from the caprice and violence of the "state" and its goons with badges and other symbols of false authority. Adopt an attitude of intolerance, backed by one of an absolute determination to make those goons back the hell off as you unleash upon them volley after volley of ironclad assertions of your rights such that they have no choice but to abandon their perfidious behavior. Be aware that it may not always work. Goons are well known for murdering people for having had the temerity and brass to question their authority. That is a risk only you can weigh as to whether it is worth assuming. But consider the wretched state to which you reduce yourself every time you back down from their criminal trespasses upon your rightful claims. What price, your self-respect? Only you can answer that, but I will advise great care and deliberation when deciding the question, because crawling from the pit of despair is far more difficult than remaining out of it in the first place.

Attitude is nearly everything in life. To quote Charles Swindoll:

The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, the education, the money, than circumstances, than failure, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company...a church...a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past...we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. And so it is with you. We are in charge of our attitudes.

Take that one to the bank and invest in it. I promise you before God that the dividends it pays are well worth the efforts of investment.

Thank you once again and as always, please accept my best wishes.