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THE FIVE RIGHTS OF THE INDIVIDUAL

iUniverse, Inc.

Contents

1. The Source of Rights The Five Rights defined; their origin in the human pursuit of happiness....................................................................................................................................................................12. Constitutional Guarantees Government's powers, commerce clause, Bill of Rights, Fourteenth Amendment............................................................................................................................................................163. Metamorphosis Great Depression, New Deal........................................................................................................................................................................................................................294. Despotic Democracy Majority rule unlimited by constitutional principles.........................................................................................................................................................................................445. Leviathan Boom in legislation during second half of twentieth century...........................................................................................................................................................................................516. The Right to Life Spontaneous order, common law, military draft, misuse of police power.........................................................................................................................................................................577. The Right to Liberty Rules of organization, privacy, freedom of association, searches, abortion, right to die, right to genetic privacy, CCTV, drug testing, monitoring of employees, flag burning, free speech at work, right to bear arms.....................758. The Right to Property Origins, takings, forfeitures, commerce in human organs, seat belt laws, importance of property...........................................................................................................................................1309. The Right to Pursue Happiness Directives of policy, Prohibition, drug prohibition, effects of drug laws, beneficiaries, how drug laws violate rights, legalization, directives and happiness....................................................................15810. The Right to Equality before the Law Racial equality, rights of women, gay rights, progressive taxation........................................................................................................................................................19211. Liberty's Two Opponents On capitalism, the anticapitalist, the dominator.......................................................................................................................................................................................20612. Bogus Rights False rights, brief review of the Five Rights.....................................................................................................................................................................................................227

Chapter One

Nature gave us life and, through our ability to choose and act, liberty, but nature cannot give a right to life or liberty because a right requires the compliance of others. It has meaning only if people are obliged to honor it. If there is to be a right to life, then each person must be obliged not to kill. If there is to be a right to liberty, then no one can enslave or command anyone else. Nature cannot imbue us with self-interest and guarantee that each of us will honor others' rights. It determines how things are, not how they ought to be. What is natural is not necessarily moral. Male aggression, for example, is natural, but that doesn't mean it's morally right.

The supreme law of morality is that all of our actions must be derived from universal principles. In other words, how would it be if everyone did it? Would it square with all others' rights and be workable within the order? What if someone did it to you? If an action cannot be supported by a universal principle, it's not proper conduct. Kant's categorical imperative is, act only according to a maxim that you would like to see made into a general law. If you cannot reasonably will this, you must refrain, because the action violates objective morality. When enraged, you might be tempted to burn someone's house down, but that couldn't be willed as a generally accepted practice. Throwing garbage out of your car window does not directly violate anyone's rights, but what if everyone did it? Since that's not a viable alternative, it's better if no one does it, including you. This is how morality works: recognizing the need to act in certain manners because acting otherwise is unworkable or undesirable on a large scale. Take the example of charity. Say you choose not to give at all. A society could exist without any charitable actions, but it would not be possible to wish for it because you or your family could find yourselves in need of aid. Since you can't reasonably will a world in which no one helps anyone else, charity is moral.

It's impossible to will a world of universal license, one in which thievery, assault, and murder are commonplace. It's impossible to will a world in which individuals don't have a just claim to a minimal level of consideration from others. Since this is the definition of a right, it's impossible to will a world in which individuals don't have rights. Thus, rights are moral.

The Five Rights

1. The Right to Life

Life is thrust on us unannounced. By the time we realize we are alive, we are alive. We did not choose it, but life is self-sustaining and self-replicating. If we did not choose to live but are driven to continue living, then we are motivated by circumstances not of our making. Who would choose to trade their energy, sexuality, and teeth for anxiety, pain, and eventual death? Yet this is the choice life is, and something tells us to take the trade. Perhaps life is precious because we are born so late in the day. Goethe was wrong when he said that life is the childhood of our immortality. The opposite is true. Life is the tail end of a very long existence: the last one fifty-millionth of it (the last eighty years of matter that has been replicating for four billion years). When we die, we are not leaving home, but going home, and when we get there, requirements end. Death needs nothing to continue. Life has needs, making things matter. Since things have no meaning on their own, yet they have importance, it must stem from our desire for them. So if anything at all matters, we must matter, since we are the absolute giver of value to other things. If anything is worth protecting, the individual is.

Human beings, realizing this, established a right to life. What is its basis? If a chimpanzee does not have a right to life and a human being does, what gives us one? Does it have to do with the complexity of our brains? Does any organism that can represent its long-term duty to itself and its species and choose it over immediate wants have a right to life? Does knowledge of our mortality make us more worthy of existence than lesser-understanding animals? These claims are insufficient. Nature gave us life and the capacities to sustain it, but nature offers no right to life—any of us can die at any time. The right to...