I’ve got a blog where I’m trying to introduce the layman to our political worldview. Today I posted on the subject of natural rights. (also seen here: http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474979264662)
I’m interested in any critiques of the article. Did I provide a good snapshot of the concept? Is there anything I should change?
Hey Mattew, you seem to have a pretty good understanding overall of rights. That said, here is my critique:
I think in your initial definition of rights, you should make it even clearer that you are emphasizing negative rights (which you go into later). But it is absolutely important that you define negative rights immediately.
I think you can add just a little bit more to self-ownership. You already quoted the Declaration, so I think you just need to emphasize “inalienable” - that is, non-transferable. You own yourself because you cannot transfer your will to anyone else. This is why I don’t believe in voluntary slavery. You could “sell” youself to me as a slave, but your will is still your own. Only you can control your body and mind. I can give you incentives (discussion, monetary, violence, etc), but I cannot control your will. This is self-ownership.
I think you should be careful when defining things you have a right to, as you don’t actually have a right to any of those things. You did state they are derived from property rights, so I’m just saying to be careful with how you demonstrate that those concepts are derived from property rights. For example, you have a right to free speech on your property; on anyone else’s property, you have to follow their rules on what you can say.
The rest of your article was pretty good, though it was more of a survey of ideas. My suggestion is to lengthen those sections and post them as articles. As you said at the end, it is a snapshot, but I think you could write a “Part 2” expanding on these sections.
If you haven’t already, I suggest reading http://mises.org/rothbard/ethics/ethics.asp
My critique goes along with gotlucky’s recommendation on clarification of Negative Right’s from the onset. As well as Self-Ownership, and his clarification on private property right’s. I say the Private Property Right’s for the purpose of pointing out that if this right is denied to anyone, then slavery is surely to follow.
I would add that your usage of Morality is off base. See my thread here : Ethics versus Morals
I say this on Morality, as Natural Right’s are a set of Principled Ethic’s that are inherited at the moment of conception. Morality is the singling out of a certain position and is definitive of justifiable Right and Wrong, which doesn’t exist outside the individual human’s perception. Justifiable action’s lead to further greivances conducted by the action’s of the state, and I don’t see anyone Individual being able to hold their responsibility when they are acting on the basis of Justification.
I would recommend you clarify this so called social contract, and point out more of the fallacy with that idea as well. I like the part on the whole idea of a “Living Contract”. That’s been a point of contention of mine since I heard that idea in High School at the same time I was learning about binding contract theory on my own. The whole idea seemed prone to failure, and now I see it as a scapegoat for further justification (there’s that word again) of state action’s.
Of course it’s your article, and you have the right to alter it as you see fit.
gotlucky and NidStyles, many thanks for your responses. I’ve already made one edit (clarifying that our rights can be restricted when we are on the property of others).
I’m still thinking over your other suggestions. Not sure how I will incorporate them in the article yet, but I plan to make more changes.
Well thank you for the kind partial praise. I am always willing to help when it’s within my mean’s.
I dig it. I’ll be linking people I get to jump aboard the free market wagon to this.
Matthew,
I highly recommend that you check out this article by Anthony de Jasay. It voices my viewpoint of rights better than I ever could, and at the very least should give you some things to think about.
Did you notice his argument made the passage of right’s to come from action and allowance through law? That a very dangerous argument to support, as the law can be perceived by any advocate of Communism to remove Personal Property Right’s from the Individual, and place it into the hand’s of the state. This is the folly that would make those pro-Democracy people salivate, as they like the weigh the right’s of the collective over the right’s of the Individual.
The inherent flaw in this is that there is no such thing as a collective, just individual’s that go along to coerce the rest through the threat of force.
Also, it’s worth noting that your right to speech presupposes a property from which to speak. Owning your vocal chords gives you control of them. But this doesn’t give you the right to use them.
[ DELETED - watch the name calling please. William]
Yes, and I agree with him.
This is not a sufficient reason to reject an argument.
Look, when I say something like “The United States Government has a right to levy an income tax against its citizens,” I am talking about an actual, existing right that it really does have and exercises. I am not saying that it ought to, that I support it, or that it is granted that right by nature or god. When you say something like “[you] have the right not to be taxed,” I have to ask you to point to that right. Where does that right exist in reality? You can present all sorts of arguments why that ought be the case, but you can never prove that you have that right.
Also, check out more stuff from Jasay before dismissing him. He has added some really fresh ideas to libertarianism in the last 20 years.
That is by far the dumbest thing I have read on here.
I assume this is meant toward my post?
If so, ask yourself if a child may be born as a trespasser? May someone give birth to a child without first having proper authority to reside in the place they are about to give birth? You must have access either through permission or implicit permission to a geographical space before you can begin to pontificate what rights are deemed to you. I can imagine no more of an inconsistency of rights than to weigh one property right over another. A right to your life, or your speech, cannot trump my right to property. If someone wishes your silence within their property, you no longer have access to your right to speech.
I think I see what your point is Jeremiah, it was just awkwardly worded.
I’ll just quote something from my article which seems to be making your point:
It is important to note that when you are on other’s property (e.g., a theater), that property is under control of the theater owner. Hence, he can regulate or prohibit you from exercising your natural right to speak, for instance; since you have voluntarily agreed to enter his property, you must abide by his rules. This solves that “crying fire in a theater” problem. Yes, you do have the absolute natural right to speak, but only on your property can you be unhampered exercising your rights.
Say’s whom? You? You would advocate giving your right’s of self-ownership over to another person so willingly?
You do support it, your statement gave tacit approval for that Government that was built on top of the state to participate in theft from the Individual’s without consent from those Individual’s through coercion and Inflationary measures. Taxes are Inflationary. Whether you agree with this or not does not matter, because it’s a tangible fact.
You also just argued against Private Property Right’s and one’s ownership to their labor and good’s produced from it. I don’t have to prove anything here to you, because any person that’s read anything about economic theory whether it be Mainstream Keynesian, Keynesian Supply-Side, or even Austrain School could slap that argument down. You basically advocated Communism/Socialism by saying that the state has authority of the right’s of the Individual’s Personal Property.
You sound like a Chomsky bot with a Hegel twist.
Jasay may call himself a Libertarian all he want’s, that doesn’t mean I would give him two sticks to rub together. I certainly will not waste my time on such an ignorant and obvious Socialist.
I will say this however, I am not a Libertarian, I am not a Socialist, I am an Individual. I will not ascribe to the conclusion’s of any other human being on this planet, but I will form my own opinion based on their output. As of right not, my opinion of Libertarian’s of that sort is very low.
Yes it was. I was referring more so to the way you stated it. My apologies for the lack of explanation. I was slightly intoxicated.
I agree that a person through implicit agreement can speak their mind if you invite them into your home or on your property. You always have the ability to tell them to leave as well. It’s sort of non-verbal agreement in my mind.
NidStyles,
I’m not sure if you just don’t understand what I’m saying, or if you are really opposed to the ideas I’m trying to express. Either way, you are starting to spew nonsense.
Say’s the rules of logic which determine whether a statement is valid. You rejected the argument because you didn’t like the consequences which followed. Just because nuclear physics can lead to atom bombs doesn’t mean their science is wrong.
I don’t know how to defend myself here. As I’ve said, just because a right exists doesn’t mean I support it, advocate it, think its moral, or think it will lead to positive outcomes. I am only pointing to a right which is codified and acted upon and not passing judgement upon it. For the record, I am against taxation for numerous reasons but I don’t delude myself into believing that by my very nature as a human being I have an inherent legal right not to be taxed.
You are correct that whether I agree or not doesn’t matter. You are wrong that taxes are inflationary since they don’t increase the supply of money.
I kind of did, in that individuals are not granted rights to property or ownership of labor by natural law–it is a matter of long standing social conventions that this is true. But I am very much in favor of private property.
I’m not making economic arguments.
You are denying reality to say otherwise. If aliens were to land in America and ask what organization has the authority to levy taxes you would say that there is none? And when the aliens see everyone paying their taxes they are to expect that you and everyone else are doing so voluntarily? Of course not!
You look foolish saying these things. It would be like me calling Mises an interventionist.
If your argument had any logical and rational ground’s, you would be able to argue it on those ground’s rather than posting this nonsense that is borderline Ad-Hom with a hint of Logical Fallacy. Prove your point if you have one. Otherwise keep your emotional bantering of being some sort of Intellectual Giant to yourself. You have not posted anything of genuine intellectual thought here, and if anything have proposed that very same collectivist ideal that I am in direct opposition to.
Where is this Logic at then? Just because you can claim something doesn’t make it so without the rational line being laid out to prove how you came to this said conclusion. How you came to me not liking something is pure conjecture at best. You have no idea of my reasoning, because it’s evident you have never read Mises or Rothbard. Had you read the writing’s of these two, which would be something that would impress those of us that are Individual’s here, you would know better than to bring up this emotional diatribe with a touch of Moral Relativism.
It wouldn’t matter if you could muster a defense, because you are already advocating slavery. By stating that there is a right there in the first place is advocating it tacitly.
You say you consider this as a right of the Government, and that it’s moral. Yet, you said in the next sentence that you are not passing judgement on it. You are aware that Morality is a system of judgement with absolutes in right and wrong. You can’t even support your own collectivist argument without being just as inconsistent as those collectivist ideals.
There is no such thing, as a legal right. There are only Postive and Negative Right’s. The law has no right’s other than what you give it. Law is based purely on the idea of justification on moral grounds, and thusly is irrational and inconsistent at best. The very idea that a coded set of morality could provide a civil society is spurious and insane at best. Civil society comes from willingness to be civil, not from a codified set of morals.
Taxes are collected to pay for the loan after the fact, and rarely are used to cover the principle in the first place. They are also used as a measure for the Treasury to expand the Money Supply. Thus they are indirectly Inflationary.
Natural Law was an evolution of this social convention as it used to be done through the rules of Religion before Government’s were established in perpetuity separately from the religious instituation’s of those said countries. You are in favor pf Private Property, yet your posting here suggests otherwise. So does your support of law over right’s.
Now, you either simply are not understanding the consequences or the implications of the rest of your argument, or you really don’t understand this topic very well. You were directly refering to property right’s, and the right of law over the right of the Individual. You were also speaking on taxes. This all has everything to do with economics. Economics is not a singular and closed system, and this is part of the problem with people that they can’t seem to understand this simple concept. Economics are effected by, and effects everything they interact with. See the root word, “Eco”, for clarification.
The state is a figment of your imagination. It’s nothing more that the adovcation to the declination of responsibility of Individual’s in the name of the fictional organization of the state. Taxes are done involuntarily through coercion. If all of the people stopped paying, the Federal Government would have no recourse to force them to. This is why your argument is ficticious at best. The fact that you had to bring up such an absurd example is poignant to the weakness of your stance.
I don’t care what you think either. When are you going to learn that your word’s have no bearing over me, and your judgement has no weight over my own self-worth? I learned long ago how to judge my own self-worth, and it wasn’t by any other human’s morality.
You speaking on Mises is humorous. You have yet to show any sense that you grasped what he was stating. Just like the people saying Nietzsche was a NAZI when he was Jewish.
Another pseudo-intellectual that can barely grasp the concept of their own existence. That’s my opinion of you. So do you have any other childish remark’s or weak handed jab’s at my rationality here?
A little more than slightly tonight, I hope. This is a mess.
Let’s try to make sure this thread doesn’t get too out of hand please.
I am tempted to, but I have a whole week of hearing about this Osama debacle, and see a lot of me commenting on how convenient that they captured his corpse, and have DNA evidence of a man that has been on the run for nearly 30 years. (Nice run on sentence there) I guess I could comment on the great timing with the birth certificate debacle, and start of someone’s re-election campaign. Gotta keep my mind clear to deal with this absurdity.
I have long ago stopped believing in coincidences as nothing more than a fairy tale, that just also happened to coincide with human interaction. Now that is a statement that I’m sure will confuse someone. I’m sure if I was in such a position with so much of that human ingenuity and inefficient ability at my command, I could make a lot of coincidences happen as well. I do not believe in conspiracy, when the truth is, that they exist without my believing in them.
I guess what I’m trying to say, is that this week should prove to be more interesting than the last, and that I keep seeing these great announcement’s being made on Sundays.