What Are “Rights”, anyway?
Rights are intangibles: can’t be seen; have no substance in reality but they exist.
How can people talk about something that is not only invisible but without substance? Rights exist as ideas, as concepts. There are many concepts that have no physical form, like “good”, “evil” and “good will”. Some intangibles can be “concretized”. They can be constructed into something real. Rights are “concretized” in the Bill of Rights, the first ten amenments to the Constitution.
Rights are intellectual inventions. They place Government and Cultures under moral law by being used to control power. Power is Force. It’s Rights against Power. Rights to offset Power and Rights as the moral authority needed to control Power. Government does not need Rights because Government has the exclusive use of legal force, legal power. Power trumps rights as a practical matter since power is real and temporal. Power exists in the form of orce. Bigger people can force smaller people act as they command and Rights are the way to control a bigger person. Governments use armies; police; judges; and government in general to force people to do as the government decides shold be done. People need something to control power and that’s the basis for Rights.
Rights are used most often to control government. That’s the most important use of rights.
Rights exist just as other intangibles exist, and we can know them because they have a definition and a description. They are “concepts”.
Concepts:
Concepts are “mental integrations of two or more units which are isolated according to a specific characteristic(s) and united by a specific definition”. Thanks, Ayn Rand “Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology”
Most of the political problems of the world are because of the lack of respect for as well as the purposeful deconstruction and destruction of Rights.
Rights do not have responsibilities attached to them. In the words of the Declaration of Independence, Rights are “inalienable”, – intrinsic with the person. Some say Rights are “Unalienable, not able to be seperated.
Duty Free and Without Responsibility
Both descriptions show there is nothing needed to have Rights. Rights exist when there is an individual because the descriptions include Rights as part of the nature of an individual. There is nothing that must be done to have Rights. No duties need to be performed; no money needs to be paid, no test has to be passed and no resposibility is attached to be able to claim the protection of Rights. Rights exist because you exist.
But those who desire to destroy the protections of Rights have sucessfully watered down the idea of Rights. Everything it seems has rights. From bears to beans, and most importantly government is said to have Rights
But that’s massively wrong.
Rights only apply to people. Neither beans, bears nor States have rights
A State is not a person. Neither is government
The explanation of Rights is not the phrase in the Declaration of Independence that says “Rights are Self-Evident”
Rights are not evident at all to dictators and millions have been murdered partly because the rest of the world stood by and shielded dictators and totalitarinan murderers by the false doctrine of Self-Determination
There are thousands of definitions for Rights but most are wrong and do not apply to the Rights that are in the Declaration of Independence
The UN Charter states, wrongly, that Rights are whatever government wants them to be. That’s as useless and as dangerous as Rights for Dictators.
Without a knowledge of Rights, people are in great danger. They could lose them without knowing it and during the 20th century a lot of Rights have been lost.
How were “Rights Lost?:
The political basis of Rights has slowly been replaced by “Duty”
A duty is an obligation that must be done.
Duty is the counterfeiting of Rights.
The deconstruction of Rights and the elevation of Duty is the philosophical work of Immanual Kant. Kant was the biggest champion of individual sacrifice, duty and human degradation in history and his damage has been the protection of truly evil murderers. That cannot be denied. Kant underlies Marx. Lenin drove to power because of Marx. So did Mao, Castro, Chavez of Venezuela, and hundreds of dictators
Rights protected Americans for about 150 years. Freedom came under attack around 1880 when laws started to be enacted that slowly elevated the Federal Government until today when Washington now has more power than the States and the States have more power that can be protected by what’s left of the idea of Rights.
Rights have been overcome in the name of Duty and Responsibility. Individuals are in more danger in the 21st century then they were in the 19th and 20th because the protection of Rights has been degraded. Individuals have very little protection from the force of government because of the erosion of the power of Rights.
If Rights are to be returned to their correct place, Liberty restored and used to protect individuals, their lives, property, & family, it is the concept of Duty that has to be attacked, put in it’s place and the concept of Rights that has to be restored.
Duty is a term of Service; of obedience; of obligation, penalty and Servitude.
Responsibility is a term of Service; of obedience; of obligation, penalty and Servitude.
Government has duties to the people being governed.
Government has responsibilities to the people being governed
People have Freedom’s, not duties to government; not responsibilities to government
People need their Liberty protected. Government has the duty and the responsibility to do that.
Anarchy is not a product of Liberty. Anarchy has no need of law.
Liberty needs government for the protection of the individual against the government. Freedom needs laws, courts, police and military. Liberty protects freedom and Liberty need to be re-discovered.
The way to do that is to attack the basis of personal service to the government; attack the basis of of duty; and attack the basis of responsibiliy to government.
Bill O’Neill, Independent, Free and At Liberty.
The Night is Black. There is no Moon. Everything’s Gone Wrong.
What Should We Do? Elect Bill O’Neill
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