Rights – Times-Dispatch of Vichy Earth

CXXXIX – Rights or Sovereignty

Either man has rights, or the people is sovereign. The simultaneous assertion of two mutually exclusive theses is what people have called liberalism.
Don Colacho

This probably seems somewhat irrelevant now, in the aftermath of Coronavirus. As Bonald so clearly put it, we’re fighting a dead beast, and uncontroversially so. Nevertheless, the timeless wisdom of Don Colacho is not to be ignored, so lets explore this idea a little bit.

Left is Right and Right is Wrong

We’ve talked about Rights before so lets recap. In the United States, the public treat Rights as something we have and which the government cannot take away. “I have rights!” is the refrain. What they are saying is “I have the ability to speak freely!” or “I have the ability to own a gun!” and the government is disobliged–metaphysically incapable–from mitigating those rights in any way. This is also what people mean when they talk about things that aren’t explicitly enumerated rights: “Healthcare is a human right” or “We need to give so-and-so full rights”.

There are obvious exceptions to this claim. “I have the ability to speak freely!” except when what you say is “fire” and where you say it is a crowded theater. “I have the ability to own a gun!” except if it’s fully automatic. I am sure none would find those limits controversial. We agree that shouting “fire” in a crowded theater would be disastrous; that restricting ownership of automatic firearms is sensible. So when we are talking about rights we are really talking about operating within a fence the government has made for us. “I have rights!” translates to “I have the ability to speak freely!” which now means “I agree to abide by restrictions on my ability to speak as long as they appear sensible!” which doesn’t make a great rallying cry. We could push this just a little bit further to say that the government disagrees that shouting “fire” in a crowded theater is a good thing to do; therefore when I say “I agree to abide by restrictions on my ability to speak as long as they appear sensible,” what I really mean is “I agree to only say things the government approves.”

How rapidly “I have the right to free speech” becomes “I agree to government sanctioned speech”. The word “Rights” is charged with the value of natural law. A true right, in the sense that we intend it when we usually talk about rights, is something which God has given us and which is inseparable from our being. This is why the Declaration of Independence went with “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness,” and why the constitution went with “Life, Liberty, and Property.” Our Government holds no claim over our lives, they are ours, given to us by God. We have Free Will, something inherent to us as people. Our Free will cannot be restricted except by our own complicity. These illustrate best what we think we are saying when we declare that we have rights.

A Royal Cup of Sovereign Tea

I’ve spent a little bit of time exploring the idea of sovereignty, though not quite as thoroughly as rights. We know enough to be able to frame it as a paradox. We can use the old parable of Themistocles, who said “My infant child rules my wife, my wife rules me, and I rule all of Greece. Therefore, my infant child rules all of Greece.”

Themistocles is the sovereign of all of Greece, but he answers to his wife, who in turn answers to his infant child. By “answers to“, I mean two things: He is surely mindful of the needs of his wife, seeking to please her and keep her happy. But he also obeys her prerogatives. So the Ruler of Greece is the person whose prerogatives are ultimately obeyed, and of whose needs others must be mindful; yet who owes no reciprocal obligation.

So here’s the paradox: The President of the United States would typically be considered sovereign, because he is our head of state. Yet he is mindful of the needs of the people. He obeys the prerogatives of the Legislature to the extent they are able to enforce them. The legislature are also mindful of the needs of the people, and more directly must obey the popular prerogatives. The people are not obliged to be mindful of the needs of the legislature or the executive, but they must obey their prerogatives too. So the people, the Executive, and the Legislature all impose prerogatives of each other, but only the Executive and Legislature need to mind anyone’s needs.

So who is sovereign?

The Crown’s Virus

American political theory asserts that the public have rights and that the people are sovereign. In the first section, I demonstrate that rights just means that the people are obliged to obey the prerogatives of the elected officials. In the second section, I demonstrate that the elected officials are obliged to obey the prerogatives of the people. The people cannot both have rights and be sovereign. This is especially clear in our Governments reaction to Coronavirus.

The First amendment includes the freedom of assembly, which as I’ve explained means we agree to assemble in a manner in which the government approves. The first response of the Government was to restrict our freedom of assembly. This is seen clearly in the infamous picture from North Carolina where the police are informing protesters that protesting is a non-essential activity. As a consequence, our government is less and less obliged to obey our prerogatives, nor to mind our needs.

That’s part of what makes this so unnerving. Society is, in part, held together by the comfortable lie that the people have both rights and sovereignty. The pretense has been done away with: We obey the government, it’s for our own good.

There’s a part of me that likes it this way. The pretense made it hard to discern what was good or bad about our government. If they begin to rule by decree, well, it becomes much plainer. It doesn’t matter if they have a mandate from the electorate or not, it only matters what they are doing at the time they are doing it. I can judge a man’s actions if I see them, but it’s more difficult if he says he was obeying a mandate from the electorate.

All illusion is gone now. I just wonder how long we’ll pretend things haven’t changed.

AMDG

CX – Excursus on Censorship

Inspired by a series of posts by fellow blogger, Wood, who is a must-follow for pithy insights into Catholic and political life. See Here, Here, and Here

Censorship has the common understanding as “suppression of speech”. Here in the United States, speech is considered a right, which I have argued is a fallacious analogy to Natural Law. Perfect Free Speech is the idea that anyone can say anything; Perfect Censorship is the idea that no one can say anything. These are opposite ends of a continuum.

Free Speech is certainly not perfect in American society. While the Overton window of permissible speech is growing daily, it doesn’t include everything. You can’t shout bomb threats in an airport, or shout “fire!” in a crowded theater. These things are speech, but disallowed speech because they cause panic, and thus harm. It’s this small nugget that has drawn the fascination of modern leftists, that harmful speech is disallowed. A right-thinking conservative might say that there is a difference, and banning things that leftists consider ‘hate speech’ is actually censorship. Leftists would rebut that shouting “fire!” in a crowded theater is not censorship because of the harmful nature of the speech, therefore the harmful nature of other speech is validly prohibited.

So what about censorship? Censorship is the suppression of speech, specifically in modern usage it’s the suppression of speech which ought to be allowed. This is why leftists and rightists view it differently: when people agree on suppressing speech, it’s legal prudence. When people disagree, one will always argue it is censorship. So in the example above, when the rightist argues that the leftist is engaging in censorship, he’s really saying “they are prohibiting speech which should be allowed”, or to simplify even further, “they are banning speech which I like.”

Moral Speech

We cannot agree on either Free Speech or Censorship, so let us turn to what moral speech might look like. Moral speech is virtuous and glorifies God. At worst it is neutral, because we must speak to conduct our daily business. There are examples of Immoral speech which we might review during examinations of conscience in preparation for the sacrament of reconciliation. Profane speech, taking the Lord’s name in vain, irreverence in Holy places or about Holy things. This speech amounts variously to venial or mortal sins. In a perfectly formed society like Edeny, this kind of speech is absolutely prohibited. No one argues that it is censorship because everyone agrees that it should be prohibited, but the residents of Anakay, in contrast, would argue that Edeny lives in an oppressive society with rampant censorship.

All Aboard the Censorship

So what does all this tell us about Censorship or Speech? Really, that it is commonplace. Every regime must require Censorship because some speech is counterproductive to a stable and effective society. Can a society persist where people are allowed to profane the very society they live in? Can we have reverence for God if we are allowed to invoke his name in profane or irreverent ways? Nothing can be sacred if we do not first treat it as sacred. Likewise, the virtues we value as a society ought to be rewarded, and their corresponding social vices ought to be discouraged. Censorship is a means to that end.

The question ultimately is: What is important enough to us as a society that speaking against it ought to be suppressed? Think about what it should be. Now consider what it currently is.

AMDG

LXX – Tonlieu

Kristor wrote another excellent article over at Orthosphere which I have been stewing on for some time. Rather than write another essay in the comments, I’ll keep my remarks here. Read it first, before reading this!

It’s a Privilege To Be Here

On it’s face, I like the premise of Tonlieux. It is coherent with my past expressions regarding rights and authority. In short: That Authority is derived from God via the Sovereign^[1], and rights are a logical fallacy and not helpful in determining who is owed what duties by a government. A wayfaring stranger crossing the border from another country has no claims on the hospitality of his newfound host. A sovereign owes to that stranger no obligations; the stranger has no privileges in this land. That same stranger, crossing at a legal point of entry, presenting valid identification does have a claim on the host, the minimum claim of hospitality in exchange for an agreement to abide by the laws and customs of the host.

The present immigration system is designed to work like that, provided our subordinate authorities actually enforce the rules. The basic framework is complicated by questions of human rights, which don’t exist: Are we treating wayfaring strangers well when they wander into our land? There is a puzzling question of Justice: Are we allowing them due process? We technically do not owe them this, non-citizens aren’t bound by the constitution in the same way, but as far as I can tell this is extended as a courtesy to all those within our borders.

Tonlieu works to put a monetary value on access. Kristor explains his suggestion for an Optimal Tonlieu. I cannot dispute the economics of his proposal. I do, however, see a problem: Enforcement.

An Invisible Wall Made of Money

Our border is such that there are millions of illegal immigrants – that is to say, Sovereign citizens of a nation other than ours – who presently reside in and lay claim to the accidents of citizenship without any of the essences. Furthermore, there is such a volume of incoming foreign citizens that the mind boggles. A tonlieu is effective for travel that is limited by some mechanism, but when I can walk from A to B, how does it prevent our present situation? How can it help resolve it?

It seems Kristors primary suggestion is deterrence. Not being bound by law, the foreign citizen is thus in danger of disappearing into the abyss of human evil. One challenge is that I am not sure how our present system, even without tonlieu, isn’t also designed this way. Does the Constitution protect foreign citizens? I don’t believe it does^[2], or if it does only in passing. So fundamental to this proposal of tonlieu is a society which behaves somewhat differently than it does today.

Second, if foreign citizens arrive en masse, and begins perpetrating human evil against it’s host, what can a tonlieu do against it? Certainly there is more money to be made in illegally and repeatedly crossing a border, perhaps smuggling goods, than in abiding by the law. Nothing short of an organized and concerted effort by the host sovereign can reclaim any land physically held by the group of foreign citizens–some might refer to that process as “repelling an invading force”.

A Solution

It seems to me that tonlieu, while an effective solution for people the world over who already abide by the law, is deficient in the practical reality only insofar as it doesn’t address or prevent the problems that exist right now, and adds assumptions which aren’t supported by experience.

One solution, with or without tonlieu, is to enforce the laws as written, and expurgate the foreign citizens residing illegally. This presents the same deterrent force proposed in Kristor’s Optimal Tonlieu. Another solution is to reduce the size and scope of government to minimum constitutionally enshrined services. Fully private healthcare may produce enough of a profit to charitably fund certain needs of illegal immigrants prior to their swift deportation. Never let it be said that America treats it’s visitors, welcome or unwelcome, without dignity. Charity can also pick up much of the slack in service of the needy, without the need for government as arbitrator. In fact, the 10th Amendment may be a justification for 100% of the proceeds of Tonlieu to go towards the state a person enters. This would provide a profit motive for State’s to maximize collected proceeds by Tonlieu.

“But Scoot, why does that profit motive not exist when managed federally?”

The Federal government is in such deep debt, the money would be immediately leveraged or appropriated. I have no confidence in our administrators to effectively manage the money. Further still, subsidiarity would dictate that the enforcement of the tonlieu and thus the benefit thereof go to the closest possible unit of society.

We can enforce immigration if we enforce our laws. The number one problem is not how our structure is designed, but in how it is being administered.

^{[1] – I am still puzzling over how the Chain of Authority, i.e. legitimacy, functions in a democratic society, expect writings on this in the future.}

^{[2] – The 14th Amendment includes language “nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law”–the language of “person” vs. Citizen is at issue here, and this is why Illegal Immigrants enjoy such comfortable lifestyles. So, in my article, I am wrong, but begrudgingly so.}

LIII – Two Rights Don’t Make a Law

Following the recent conversation at Orthosphere, I’ve decided I need to clarify one of the fundamental elements of my political philosophy. I wrote about it early on and haven’t really returned to it except in passing. Here we will do a new examination, with the wisdom of experience and a more refined thesis.

THESIS: Rights are the post-enlightenment imitation of natural law. Rights are privileges granted by government. Rights are not guaranteed by God except where they also describe natural law.

What Even Are We Talking About?

We need a firm understanding of natural law, first. Natural Law is that which is given to us by God. As such, it is objective and universal, and exists separate from the human intellect. In other words: The human intellect can discover Natural Law, not create it. Natural Law describes moral behavior. The temptation here is to get into the specific ‘laws’ or rules that make up Natural Law, but that would be to miss the point. The principle is just this: Natural Law cannot be changed. If you are changing something, either you are wrong or it’s not natural law.

Rights, then, were an early attempt to codify Natural Law in Human Law. The enlightenment gave us the famed ‘Rights of Man’ by Thomas Paine, which summarizes neatly the previous work by enlightenment philosophers. It is important to note why I am harping on Rights as a post enlightenment concept. Before the enlightenment, Rights and Natural Law were considered synonymous, which is why we have so much confusion right now. You’ll find Rights discussed in many encyclicals and other theologians discussing rights. I think Thomas Aquinas himself dedicated a section of his Summa Theologica to Rights, which he understood to mean Natural Law. The Enlightenment fundamentally the coronation of Man as supreme ruler of his nature, not God. The pithy axiom cogito ergo sum is the pinnacle of post enlightenment pride: “I think, therefore I am”–where, then, is room for our creator? Deus est ergo sum, “God is therefore I am” is less catchy for sure. So the enlightenment, in removing God from his rightful place as ruler of our hearts and minds, now began to tinker with rights. An even neater summary can be found in our Declaration of Independence, and further still in our Constitution in the form of the “Bill of Rights”. The former enshrines “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” as God given rights to which all men are entitled.

Rights Are Not Law

We can look at Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness as a case study in Rights and Laws. God does indeed grant us our lives, which does indeed imply that all men are entitled to their lives. This opening assertion lends credence to the subsequent pair, because it is correctly describing the Natural Law of Life as a Right as well.

Liberty, then: does God grant us liberty? Perfect freedom would imply a complete absence of legal system. One objection might be, well, perfect freedom isn’t achievable! Very well, let us concede that perfect freedom is an unrealistic standard. The Right to Liberty simply means we have the right to be more free than…well, what, exactly? Than others? Don’t they also have the right to liberty? To our past state? So we should be marching inexorably towards perfect freedom? Compared to the Tyranny of King George III? Is ‘Tyranny of King George III” the benchmark for all tyranny and liberty, which God handed down? You see now that Liberty is not a fixed point, not the way Life is. All men have the right to life, full stop. Are you going to take a mans life? Don’t do it, it is always contrary to Natural Law. But you can see, rather than hold “Liberty” to the objective standard of “Life”, instead “Life” got pulled down to the subjective standard of “Liberty”. Life, as a right, became negotiable for post-revolutionary American History, as demonstrated by our dealings with Native Americans and the Slave Trade.[1]

The Pursuit of Happiness. What exactly does this mean? Pursuit of happiness for the individual or for the family? society? If my happiness involves having your possessions, can I claim a divine mandate because God granted me the right to your stuff? This point is absurd on it’s face. The Pursuit of Happiness stands to neither the standard of Liberty, which is measurable if subjective, or Life which is perfectly objective. The Pursuit of Happiness is totally un-measurable, because it introduces the element of feelings. Feelings are not objective and so cannot be Law, but here we are declaring that, because we are unhappy, King George III is illegitimate.

Because “Liberty” and “Happiness” are relative states, which change based on who we are comparing them to, it tells us that these things are not Natural Law.

Right Privilege

Rights, rather, describe Privileges, or things which Government promises to let us do and on their honor they won’t go back on that promise. The Bill of Rights is exactly this. God does not guarantee the ability to speak freely. Laws don’t even let people speak freely; one cannot, for example, shout “Fire” in a crowded theatre. So Government is asserting it’s decision, unilaterally, to allow it’s people to speak with a wide latitude as long as it is within certain parameters. Different governments may disagree on what those parameters are. It is a privilege to be allowed to speak. It is a privilege to be able to bear arms. The Government is allowing us these things. Rights, then, wear the clothes of natural law, and appear inalienable, when in fact they are simply regular laws and are in fact quite alienable.

A great example of this is the recent discussion around the right to privacy. We do not, in fact, have a right to privacy. The government can decide to allow us the privilege of privacy, or they can allow us no privacy. Government gets to decided how much latitude they allow us, and within what parameters. As far as the internet is concerned, it remains an open question. God certainly does not guarantee the right to privacy, so it is not an inalienable right. Any protestations take the position of “You owe us this” when the practical function is “We would like this please.”

So You Want To Be A Monarchist

So now that we acknowledge that there is no such thing as rights outside of natural law, what now? This understanding subverts most political tropes, and you can use this as a reality filter for analyzing big political news. It is useful also theologically: discerning between that which is given to us by God and that which is given to us by Caesar helps distinguish what is most important and what issues are worth our outrage.

The concept of Rights will not go away. But when Natural Law gets infringed upon by a poorly disguised persecution which masquerades as an inalienable right: Then we have a problem.

[1] I understand there is some historical nuance, but none defend them as proud moments in American history, and none can argue that those periods of history would not have been improved by perfectly embracing the Right to Life.

(f) – Might Makes Bill of Rights

I thought this was an important enough clarification to merit reposting here.

Scoot: “Rights” are the great lie of the last thousand years.

Commenter: If there are no “rights” then there is no Right. Is this what you are really insisting?

Scoot: No. “Rights” are the classically liberal imitation of Natural Law. Natural Law is Truth, and Truth points to what is right and what is wrong.

The Bill of Rights in USA, for example. The government is saying God gives these rights and cannot take them away: The right to speech, the right to bear arms, etc, and the government is positioning themselves as the protectors of those God given rights. But the way the law works, is that you have the right to speech but it is illegal to, for example, shout ‘FIRE!’ in a crowded theatre. So you have the right to speech, but not ALL speech. You have the right to bear arms, but not ALL arms.

What the government calls ‘rights’ are actually privileges which the government allows us to exercise. Natural Law remains True regardless of whether the government acts to protect or detract it. The right to Life is granted by God, not by the government. It will always be right to defend and preserve human life. It will not always be guaranteed by government.

Source

XXXIII – Demos Man

A Cult shares it’s root with Culture and Cultivate: to raise up from a certain place. Cultivate in the sense of raising agriculture of a quality suitable to consume; Culture in the sense of raising a people of a like kind as yourself. Cult has the modern connotation of raising people but typically has a more sinister idea of something forbidden. It’s common usage was rather mundane, as it was used to describe devotion to a certain of the ancient pantheon of classical gods. Those with particular reverence to Zeus followed a certain form prescribed by the cult of Zeus; likewise with Apollo, Athena, et al.

Human nature remains unchanged since Adam and Eve shared bites of a certain fruit. The names we give our fixations have changed. Our society has many cults, much veneration for things other than man’s proper focus of God. One such cult is the cult of our government I like to refer to as the Cult of Demos; Demos being the root of Democracy, meaning “of the common people”.

The sacred text of this Cult is the Constitution, their precepts are ‘Rights’. Their fixation utterly distracted from the mortal peril of their souls.

The consequences of this distracted fixation is abject demolition of man. In evidence: The open and unashamed promotion of infanticide. The recent ruling that women should be drafted. The ongoing horrors of abortion. Hoax hate crimes. I can go on. Not even in Edeny and Anakay is such destruction possible. Edeny values the sanctity of life. Anakay, as a perfectly anarchic society, would certainly look out for the individual. It is only when society is collectively looking elsewhere that the evil one can execute the great swindle, the sleight of hand, and steal from us the things that make us human.

The devil arrived at the gate, and found it unguarded. We sip absentmindedly from the well which he poisoned while we weren’t looking.

God help us.

AMDG

XXIV – A Prelude to a Bigger Discussion

Kristor Says, in response to a question of mine on a backdated article:

“Can a government that separates church and state be said to have ever had the mandate of heaven?”

Only by accident. By analogy, we can do the will of God, and enact his Providential plan for the created order, even when we sin; for, our deluded clouded desires can happen to congrue with the divine will.

“How do we reconcile a secular society with our spiritual obligations?”

Render unto Caesar.

“Can a government which does not uphold a responsibility to promote virtue be considered a Tyranny?”

I don’t think so. In practice, every government upholds some vision of the good. This is so even of tyrannical governments. It is true also of governments that profess amorality. In practice, there is no such thing as amorality, except among dead bodies. For, some means of parsing moral decisions – which is to say, simply, decisions per se – is needed in order to proceed with the conduct of life, ergo of government.

“What is our obligation to address [an “amoral” government]?”

Render unto Caesar.

T. Morris Says, in response to an article of mine, here:

Now ask yourself this question: “What proportion or percentage of today’s electorate is well versed in classical literature?” and let that be your answer as to how insane the whole concept of “one man, one vote” universal suffrage is.
Meanwhile (and this is getting into some of the finer points), when a man or woman votes in our elections (or even when (s)he registers to vote in our elections), (s)he is lending a sense of legitimacy to an illegitimate process that is rigged to produce a certain kind of result from the gitgo. Meanwhile as well, (s)he is participating in evil, but (s)he usually doesn’t know (s)he is participating in evil, so to that extent the sin is not chargeable to him/her. But to those who are aware that the system is rigged, that it is illegitimate and therefore evil, participation therein – lending such a system credibility – is sin. So just keep that in mind if ever you are told that it is somehow your “Christian duty” to vote in our elections. Nonsense! The truth of the matter is that it is highly highly probable, due to reasons aforesaid and others I can’t get into at this moment, that your Christian duty as far as voting in our elections goes, is to not participate. Hence the post title.
Were the franchise limited in a way or ways that makes sense, I might consider participating in our elections again, if in fact I were deemed qualified. Democracy is clearly an illegitimate form of government, to my mind, because it is nothing short of mob rule, and mob rule can only serve the common good by mere chance or happenstance. Our system *might have been* more legitimate when it actually incorporated the federal principle and subsidiarity, but that all ended with Northern victory in the Civil War, albeit it took some time (decades) to eliminate the federal principle *in actual practice*. Nevertheless, that was always the goal (to eliminate the federal principle altogether); what we modern Americans refer to as the “federal government” is a national government, there is nothing federal about it; and a purely national government is in fact a tyranny in a country like the United States because the various States (and the peoples who inhabit them) can in no way govern themselves unless given permission from on high, which is to say from the national government. Hence, we *must* accept the wholesale murder of the unborn as some sort of fundamentally inviolable human right; we *must* accept homosexuality and other forms of freakish anti-social behavior as yet another inviolable human right. And so on and so forth. No State or local government may declare any of this as the self-destructive insanity that it is and refuse to participate in it, and your participation or my participation (or anyone else’s participation, for that matter) is never going to change that.

He continues:

At VFR the subject of limiting the franchise was discussed on numerous occasions, and the consensus view amongst that learned group, in my recollection, was that the franchise should be limited to net taxpayers. Which is to say persons who pay more in real taxes than they derive in government benefits. This would exclude retired military men since, as with any other government profession, professional soldiers generally receive a great deal more in “compensation” over the course of their lifetimes than they contribute in actual taxes. So there is a very real and ever-present conflict of interests within that community. But I think the consensus view was even more specific, or limiting, than net taxpayers, in that it also stipulated that only married men who are also net taxpayers should be given the ‘sacred franchise.’
The issue of whether or not one is a net taxpayer is sort of complex in a sense, and people have a very hard time understanding it in my experience. But it is fairly obvious, at least to my mind, that he who is employed in public sector work, from whence he derives all of, or at least the great bulk of, his income and related benefits, cannot possibly be a net taxpayer, quite the contrary.
So you see that limiting the franchise to married men who are in fact net taxpayers would, at least in theory and to a great extent, eliminate the conflict of interests problem that is pervasive under the current “one man, one vote” ideology.

Quick Thoughts In Response:

One of the fundamental assumptions of the Tyranny Problem is that an immoral government is Tyranny. Kristor questions the assumption in my reasoning.
T. Morris suggests one solution is limiting suffrage in some way
T. Morris adds additional information to the idea I originally discovered at Zippy Catholic, that voting is a sin.

Questions I mean to answer:

What is the root of authority for a Democracy, following the rubrick of the chain of authority described here?
What is the responsibility of a citizen in a nation which is, at worst, a tyranny; at best, immoral?
Can we envision a perfect solution, using our hypothetical states of Edeny and Anakay?
Having answered these, does it fit the Catholic Sociological ideas of Distributism? Where are the discrepancies?

These ideas are nebulous and I need to precipitate them. Big thank you to Kristor and T. Morris for adding kindling to my philosophical fire.

AMDG

(b) – I’ve Discovered a Contradiction

From Article V:

“I have rights, you can’t do this” does not carry as much weight as “You can’t do this because it is unjust”. The former is confounded by the additional fact that no one can agree what exactly our rights are; whereas the latter can be much more objective by working within the framework of existing law. Liberalism, however, intentionally hamstrings Government and prevents it from acting in the interests of society, because Liberalism is structured as if all government was tyranny.

From Article VII:

The main innovation here is viewing Government as a moral authority: not to define what is right, but instead to preserve and promote what is right. As a Christian and a Catholic, I believe what is right is an objective standard, I believe in Natural Law. So a government which does not abide or promote Virtue, Natural Law, etc, is, in fact, Tyranny

I don’t know the consequences of it yet. But i see that this might be self contradictory. Or maybe not. I need to explore this.

VI – Human Rights, and other Bedtime Stories

You Really Don’t Have the Right

Since we’ve established that Rights are a way of disguising Liberalism as Natural Law, we need to figure out what we actually mean when we talk about Rights; and also how to talk about them accurately.

The first thing to do is to expunge from your mind the idea that you have any rights, in fact, at all. Let’s look at this with a classic example of rights:

You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to have an attorney. If you cannot afford one, one will be appointed to you by the court. With these rights in mind, are you still willing to talk with me about the charges against you?

Rights are things the Government is willing to let you do. Replace “You have the Right” to “The Government will allow you” and you get the real meaning of Rights. In fact, lets re-examine the Miranda Rights with this modification.

The government will allow you to remain silent. Anything you say will be used against you in a court of law. The government will allow you to have an attorney. If you cannot afford one, one will be appointed to you by the court. With this in mind, are you still willing to talk with me about the charges against you?

The government can just as easily not allow you any of these rights. But the government has voluntarily limited itself with these rules.

So in essence, we are talking about two things when we are talking about Rights.

Natural Law, those things granted to us by God and not authorized or permitted by anyone except God, the infringement of which is an offense not just against Man, but against God.
Those things that the Government voluntarily allows it’s citizens as a method of limiting itself and granting deference to the populace.

And these ideas should not be commingled. So I am going to refer to Natural Law as Natural Law since there is already a word for that and it makes sense. I’m going to refer to the second definition as “privileges”, because that more accurately captures the idea that this is something the Government doesn’t have to allow, but does.

Exploding a perfectly good idea

Now let’s take this idea of privileges and put it in the context of so-called human rights. When people talk about human rights, they are trying to talk about privileges tolerated by government and disguise them as Natural Law. The Natural Law is indeed endowed by God and granted to all people regardless of belief, nationality, etc. All humans, after all, have a certain dignity. But the privileges can only be granted by government. Human Rights are often discussed in international contexts as a way of condemning a certain authority. Like Saudi Arabia, or Israel. the UN in particular likes to complain that those two countries are violators of Human Rights for various reasons. They are saying one of two things:

You do not grant your citizens the same privileges that we grant our citizens, and therefore you should be condemned.
You do not grant your citizens those privileges we as a governing body insist you grant your citizens, and therefore you should be condemned.

You see the problem, now. If they are speaking from the first perspective, they do not have the authority to compel nations to comply with their conception of citizen privileges. Nor does this international body act as an overriding authority for a particular sovereign nation.

Rights then, are the insidious way of attempting to compel other nations (in this context) to limit itself. One nation cannot compel another to limit itself but through conflict, which is all forms of conflict up to and including war.

Rights are a good bedtime story, a feel good thing that makes citizens feel warm and fuzzy and powerful. Citizens would not be so at ease if they spoke about them accurately.

AMDG

	Canto XIV – Ti… on (d) – Anticipating the…
	Canto XIV – Ti… on Canto X (Purgatorio)
	Canto XIV – Ti… on Canto XXXIV, Exeunt Infer…
	Canto X (Purgatorio)… on Canto XXXIV, Exeunt Infer…
	DLXXXII – Virg… on DLXXXI – Walter Miller J…