Just what are Rights Anyway?
Here is a reprint post. I wrote this back on July 22, 2000 for a message board: Conservative Forum for Unitarian Universalists. Don't worry - some of them didn't like it, and it's not something you will typically hear in UU circles today, unless you peek in on the Conservative Forum (but as I am a former UU, I don't post there anymore). At the time I wrote this, I was not a Christian. I was a disillusioned Unitarian Universalist who had just recently discovered Ayn Rand. Here's what I wrote back then:
In a section of Tom Paine's pamphlet "Common Sense", the author describes the evolution of a simple society from a primitive state where people are concerned simply with survival, to a more complex state where people interact with trade, exchanging value for value, and necessitating a government to preserve certain characteristics of civil human life.Posted by joelfuhrmann at November 8, 2002 07:18 PMIn Ayn Rand's essay "Man's Rights", the author argues that rights flow from the simple law of identity, "A is A and Man is Man": "If man is to live on earth, it is right for him to use his mind, it is right to act on his own free judgment, it is right to work for his values and to keep the product of his work. If life on earth is his purpose, he has a right to live as a rational being, nature forbids him the irrational."
She criticizes the reclassification of economic entitlements as human rights by asking the question "At whose expense?"
Reading from the list of FDR's economic bill of rights (just a few examples for brevity):
- 1. The right to a useful and remunerative job....
- 2. The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing...
- 5. The right of every family to a decent home...
- 6. The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health.
- 8. The right to a good education.
Ayn Rand states, "A single question added to each of the above eight clauses would make the issue clear: 'At whose expense?' Jobs, food clothing, recreation (!), homes, medical care, education, etc., do not grow in nature. These are man-made values--goods and services produced by men. Who is to provide them? If some men are entitled by right to the products of the work of others, it means that those others are deprived of rights and condemned to slave labor."
After reading these two great essays, imagine a conceptualization combining the two.
Suppose you are on a cruise ship with six other people, like in "Gilligan's Island", and you all wind up a deserted island, without any hope of rescue, at least for a long time. Quite possibly the rest of your life will be spent here. You set up a simple little government, electing a leader, and passing simple laws based on our civil structure.
Do you have the right to free speech? Of course. Religion? Yes, you do. A free press? Yes, even though your printing methods will be primitive. You will have to pay for (i.e. expend effort) to enforce these rights, but lack of this effort does not mean these rights do not exist. They exist simply because of your existence as rational human beings.
Now, on the other hand:
How about the right to an education? How? You might have a teacher in your group, but are they to be forced to teach the others, just because everyone has a right to an education? What if they are too busy with their own survival? Wouldn't forcing someone to provide a service involuntarily represent slavery, a violation of their rights? How about the right to a decent home? You'll have to build it first! You may agree with your friends to build homes together, but that involves work, and they won't help build your home if you're not willing to help them build theirs, unless they are fools who are willing to sell themselves into slavery for your sake. That's a lot different than you walking up to Life and saying "Give me my home - it's my right!!" And how about the right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing? You're all going to be working your asses off saving your lives on a daily basis. You don't work, you don't eat, buddy!This example may be simple, but the principle is the same in larger groups. Anytime someone speaks of the right to an education, medical care, or a secure retirement, just ask "At whose expense?" Basically, anything that has to be paid for, an economic entity, cannot be considered a right, it must be considered an entitlement paid for by someone, either individuals via free trade, or the collective via taxation or slavery.