|
|
|
The Meaning
of Rights
Constitution and Law Series #10 -
6/23/04
By Timothy B. Lewis of the Constitutional Freedom Foundation
As I explained in prior articles, there are certain words that
are so impressive to us that we tend to use them regularly in
arguments. However, the meaning of such terms is not static.
Through widespread misuse, a word’s meaning can change
radically. In the prior two articles I discussed the meaning of
the words “justice” and “equality.” The purpose of this article
is to consider another such word – “rights.”
Declaration of Independence
It used to be that rights were associated with status – for
example, the rights of a king, the rights of a Baron, the rights
of a peasant, etc. Our American Revolution moved the concept
along towards the notion of universal human rights. Our most
famous description of rights is found in the Declaration of
Independence. We discussed it in the prior article on equality,
let us now consider it for the purpose of understanding the true
meaning of the word “rights:”
"We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are
created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with
certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty
and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights
governments are instituted among men deriving their just powers
from the consent of the governed, that whenever any form of
government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of
the people to alter or abolish it...."
There are several different philosophic aspects worthy of
comment in that statement. First, fundamental rights are
God-given. Second, they equally apply to all people. Third, they
pre-date government and the fundamental purpose of government is
to protect them.
Fundamental Human Rights Are God-Given And Pre-Date Government
Let us quickly consider the first and third points together. We
have already discussed at length in a prior article the idea
that our liberties are a gift from God, which gift imposes
certain moral obligations as to how we are obligated to use
those liberties. Since all of our fundamental human rights,
including liberty, are a gift from God, they all predate
government. This is important to consider since many people
today seem to think that their rights emanate from their
government rather than God. Again, understanding the proper
ordering principle is important if our fundamental rights are to
be effectively maintained in perpetuity. Government didn’t come
first, but rather, second – and its purpose is to protect our
pre-existing human rights, not create them.
Confirming our founders’ views on this subject, Frederic Bastiat,
a French philosopher of the mid-1800's, observed:
“Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made
laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty and
property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the
first place.” [1]
For Something To Truly Be Considered A Right, It Must Apply To
Every Member Of Society Equally
It took us a while to fully recognize the second principle
(equality) specified in the Declaration of Independence. We were
on the right track conceptually, but it took the later passage
of the Constitution and a few Amendments thereto (i.e. 13th,
14th, 15th, 19th, and 24th) before we finally recognized equal
rights regardless of race or sex.
Balint Vazsonyi, introduced a prior article, congratulated the
drafters of the Magna Carta in 1215 for discovering the
following simple truth: “A person’s rights are best secured by
conceding the very same rights to every other person under the
same jurisdiction.” [2] He called these “reciprocal rights” and
commented that “Legal scholars of distinction [had] produced
writings to fill several libraries, yet this seemingly obvious
prescription for domestic tranquility [had] escaped them [prior
to this point in time.]” [3]
He reminds us that for something to legitimately be considered a
“right” it must apply to all people. In other words,
universality of application is required. Therefore, “group
rights” that provide benefits to only those within the
applicable group and not to those outside that group, are not
really “rights” at all but must be called something else. Said
he:
“Individual rights reflect our similarities; group rights
emphasize our differences. Individual rights permit every one of
us to be special; group rights create stereotypes. Individual
rights are unalienable, and are guaranteed by the Constitution;
group rights are born at activist rallies....
“Individual rights and group rights are mutually exclusive; we
cannot have it both ways.
“Individual rights provide a sense of security. The greater the
sense of security, the more of people’s creativity will be
converted to productivity. The higher the productivity, the
greater the sense of independence.
“Group rights instill fear. The greater the fear, the more the
limitation on human activity. The greater the limitations, the
more total the dependency on the wielders of regulatory power.
“Group rights – invented rights, that is – come, of course, with
an important financial dimension. The bearer is entitled to
unearned benefits – more directly put, to the fruits of other
people’s labor. Of greater significance, however, is the gradual
destruction of society by the fear that attends group rights.”
[4]
So it is a misnomer to call something a right unless everybody
equally enjoys it. I refer you to the section entitled “Equality
Under The Law” in the last article for further discussion
including quotes from Madison, Blackstone and Locke.
Trading The State Of Nature For Civil Society
If one were to live in a state of nature devoid of all human
society, then his natural fundamental rights to life, liberty,
and property would be at their highest level. However, as George
Washington noted, when man enters into civil society, he has to
give up some things in order to gain others. If his right to
life were absolute, he could never be punished with capital
punishment for murder. If his right to liberty were absolute, he
could never be incarcerated for committing a lesser crime
against somebody else’s rights. If his right to property were
absolute, he could never be forced to pay any taxes to support
the operations of government.
In the same way William Blackstone distinguished “natural
liberty” from “civil liberty” in prior articles, perhaps we can
distinguish “natural rights” (i.e. the God-given, fundamental
universal rights) from “civil rights.” To borrow Blackstone’s
earlier language, perhaps we could exchange the word “rights”
for “liberties” and say that civil rights are natural rights,
“so far restrained by human laws (and no farther) as is
necessary and expedient for the general advantages of the
public....In this definition of civil [rights] it ought to be
understood, or rather expressed, that the restraints introduced
by the law should be equal to all, or as much so as the nature
of things will admit.”
From this perspective, the rights delineated in the Bill of
Rights to the Constitution seem to be more in the nature of
civil rights than natural rights. In other words, it is obvious
from the language of those Amendments, that under certain
circumstances the government can take away our life, liberty or
property, but those Amendments set the ground rules for doing
so. For example, due process of law has to be observed before
that can happen. The federal government must get a warrant
before searching and seizing evidence on private property; it
must use a jury of peers to convict; it must allow the accused
the opportunity to be represented by legal counsel and the
ability to cross examine the witnesses arrayed against him, etc.
In other words, the Bill of Rights are civilly imposed handcuffs
on government action against us consistent with the compact
theory of government. In order to gain other desirable benefits
from forming society at the federal level, we agree to
potentially give up some of our natural rights to life, liberty
and property, but only under certain circumstances and the rules
of engagement set forth in the Bill of Rights.
In both the case of natural rights and civil rights,
universality of enjoyment and equality of application must
accompany them to properly qualify under the term “rights.”
What Are Minority Rights?
In the true meaning of rights where they are universally and
equally enjoyed by all, there is no such thing as “minority
rights.” Today we seem to think that if the majority makes a law
that prohibits certain conduct, and if a minority of the
population does not like the restriction, then somehow we have
violated some sort of minority rights. Were that the case, then
absent unanimous consent, all democratically created laws would
violate somebody’s minority rights, and thus, appear to be
invalid since most people seem to think that “rights” should
always trump everything else. This is nonsense for by that
thinking, we could have no laws whatsoever.
Group Rights Breed Disrespect For The Law, And Disrespect Breeds
Disobedience
When we create “rights” that only apply to certain groups of
people but not to others, we violate a basic rule of law that
everybody intuitively senses to be a good and just principle –
equal protection and equal application of the law.
When the law treats people differently, the natural by-product
is disrespect for the law. Anybody who has ever been subjected
to the harsher side of a double standard has sensed the inherent
injustice of that treatment. In a free society such as ours, we
depend upon widespread voluntary compliance with the law without
any need for the application of external force. However, it is
unreasonable to expect people to act this way when they see
unequal application of the law. More likely, they will develop a
scofflaw attitude rather than a compliant one. Thus we risk the
long-term health of the legal system when we create “group
rights” which, as was discussed earlier, are not really rights
at all, but rather some form of selective entitlement bestowed
upon one group at the expense of all others.
As the law expands inappropriately and/or out of proportion and
consequently, my respect for it generally diminishes, I find
myself becoming more aggressive in liberally interpreting
particular laws in my favor -- even when I understand and agree
with the purposes behind those laws. My attitude tends to become
more of : “What do I want and how can I manipulate the law to
get my way?” (i.e. a scofflaw attitude) rather than “What does
the law require of me? Like everybody else, I need to comply as
a good citizen.” Consider the following personal experience.
Some states have agricultural inspection stations posted at
their borders to try to stop the inward migration of various
pests and diseases that might threaten those states’
agricultural crops. Arizona has such an inspection station.
While living in Phoenix many years ago, my family and I drove to
Utah to attend a college football game one fall. While driving
around town, I passed a farmer’s house that had stacks of bushel
boxes of apples out front for sale. Loving apples, I bought a
box before heading back to Phoenix.
When I got to the inspection station in Arizona, the man asked
me if I had any fresh produce. I said that I did. He then asked:
“Did you buy it in a store?” Before answering him, the following
thoughts quickly raced through my mind: “If I say ‘no’ to that
question, I will probably lose my box of apples. I don’t want
that to happen so how can I honestly say ‘yes’ to that question
and keep my apples?” In my mind I then waxed philosophic and
asked myself: “What -- is a ‘store?’ “Well,” I answered to
myself, “a store is a physical location where a seller sells and
a buyer buys goods. Certainly my purchase of apples fits within
that liberal conceptualization of the word ‘store.’” After going
through that mental exercise of rationalization in a split
second’s time, I answered “yes” to his question. He said: “Very
well sir, have a good day.”
As I drove on down the road, the atmosphere in our car
thickened. After about ten miles of very loud silence from my
wife, she turned to me and said: “I can’t believe you did that!”
I responded: “You know what? Neither can I!” I was obviously in
the midst of a moral slide in behavior regarding my willingness
to voluntarily comply with the law. I maintain that when people
lose their respect for the law, they tend to rationalize like I
did there, and get very aggressive in their interpretation of
the law as it applies to them personally.
What type of attitude towards the law should people have?
Consider the following story I once heard. It seems that back in
the old days, a stage coach company was advertising to hire a
new stage coach driver. Three applicants had been selected for
interviews. Each was asked the same question: “How close
to the edge of a cliff can you drive and still be safe?” The
first man said: “I am such a good driver that I can drive within
one inch of the edge and still be safe.” Not to be outdone, the
second man answered: “I am such a good driver that I can drive
with half the wheel over the edge and the other half of the
wheel on the ground and still be safe.” The third man’s answer
differed radically from the other two. He simply said: “I don’t
know how close I can safely drive near the edge of a cliff – I
always stay as far away from the edge as possible.” The third
man got the job.
As an unintended side effect spawned by perverse incentives,
when our law veers away from its original philosophic moorings,
we inadvertently encourage people to be reckless like the first
two drivers and not respect the legal lines drawn by society. In
order to get their selfish ways – like I with my apples – people
constantly probe and test the outer boundaries of the law rather
than staying a safe and respectable distance away from the edge
like the third driver. For us to maintain our freedoms, most
people have to think and act like the third driver but it is
unreasonable to expect them to do so when we give them cause to
disrespect the law.
As Bastiat warned: “No society can exist unless the laws are
respected to a certain degree. The safest way to make laws
respected is to make them respectable.” [5] Double standards
creating legal privileges enjoyed unequally throughout society,
naturally tend to breed disrespect for the law.
Perversion of language: “Freedom” and “Rights”
Freidrich A. Hayek observed that the meaning ascribed to the
word “freedom” has been changed in order to sell the greater
public on the supposed need for more confiscation and
redistribution of wealth:
“[T]he majority of people still believe that socialism and
freedom can be combined. [6] ... [They do not realize] that
democratic socialism, the great utopia of the last few
generations, is not only unachievable but that to strive for it
produces something utterly different [7] – the very destruction
of freedom itself [8] ....The most effective way of making
people accept the validity of the values they are to serve is to
persuade them that they are really the same as those they have
always held, but which were not properly understood or
recognized before....And the most efficient technique to this
end is to use the old words but change their meaning. Few traits
of totalitarian regimes are at the same time so confusing to the
superficial observer and yet so characteristic of the whole
intellectual climate as this complete perversion of language.
[9] ...to the great apostles of political freedom, the word
[“freedom”] meant freedom from coercion, freedom from the
arbitrary power of other men, release from the ties which left
the individual no choice but obedience to the orders of a
superior to whom he was attached. The new freedom promised [by
socialists], however, was to be freedom from necessity, release
from the compulsion of the circumstances which inevitably limit
the range of choice of all of us....Freedom in this sense is, of
course, merely another name for power or wealth....The demand
for the new freedom was thus only another name for the old
demand for an equal distribution of wealth. But the new name
gave the socialists another word in common with the liberals,
and they exploited it to the full. [10] ...the promise of
greater freedom has become one of the most effective weapons of
socialist propaganda...” [11] (emphasis added)
What Hayek says about the word “freedom” would also apply to the
word “rights.” When people only have a loose definition of words
like “rights,” “liberty,” “freedom,” “equality,” “justice,”
etc., it becomes relatively easy for a smooth talker to say
something like: “You believe in rights don’t you?” After
agreeing, he says: “Then you believe in such and such....” and
he is able to say anything he wants that is vaguely close to
your notion of that word. Then you think to yourself: “Well, I
believe in rights so I guess I believe in what he just told me.”
But this is sloppy thinking. Rather than fall for such a tactic,
you should give some serious consideration to what the word
really means.
In 1850 the French philosopher Bastiat criticized the socialists
of his day for using the word "rights" to describe what, in
short, amounted to mere political demands. [12] Bastiat would
quickly accuse us of suffering from the same propensity today.
People use words like “rights” to end all debate. When someone
says “I have a right to such and such....” it is hard to contest
the matter unless you can see that what he is talking about is
really just a political demand that does not meet the true
meaning of the word rights as discussed above.
Rights To, Versus Rights From Something
Sowell said:
"To say that someone has a 'right' to any kind of housing is to
say that others have an obligation to expend [resources and]
efforts on his behalf, without his being reciprocally obligated
to compensate them for it. Rights from government
interference...may be free, but rights to anything mean that
someone else has been yoked to your service involuntarily, with
no corresponding responsibility on your part to provide for
yourself, to compensate others, or even to behave decently or
responsibly. Here the language of equal rights is conscripted
for service in defense of differential privileges....Rights have
been aptly characterized as 'trumps' which override other
considerations, including other people's interests." [13]
Entitlements Are Not “Rights”
Wray Herbert commented:
"The perversion of rights is a controlling thesis of many of the
new cultural critiques. According to Elshtain (Jean Bethke
Elshtain, Democracy on Trial), rights were once defined as
immunities against harm. Today, she contends, rights have come
to mean Entitlements, often in the form of state-sanctioned
favors for groups of self-proclaimed victims. A 'politics of
displacement,' Elshtain says, hopelessly confused private and
public life, so that private identities -- 'me and my fleeting
angers, resentments, sentiments and impulses' -- become the
stuff of public policy and lawmaking. This argument has been
elaborated by attorney Mary Ann Glendon, in Rights Talk, in
which she argues that America's obsession with legalism and
individual Entitlements leaves little room for discourse about
the right ordering of citizens' lives. The result is a cavernous
silence with respect to personal and civic responsibilities.
"When citizens define themselves primarily as victims, then the
institutions of state and society tend to move away from their
traditional functions and to substitute various forms of
therapy. Indeed, according to Glendon, rights talk has converged
with the language of psychotherapy in contemporary American
society, encouraging the unfortunate human tendency to situate
the self at the center of the moral universe, which creates ill
effects in every corner of society.
"Schools, for example, have become social-service agencies and
self-esteem clinics and are so overburdened with therapeutic
tasks that they cannot perform their primary function --
teaching -- very well. Nowhere is this preoccupation with rights
and feelings more clearly seen than in the teaching of American
history, which is increasingly guided by multi-culturalism,
political correctness, and the desire to assuage the feelings of
groups who would prefer that their history be different than it
in fact was.
"Similarly, the institutions of government spend less time
governing and more time attending to the bruised feelings of
various classes of victims...." [14]
As Group Rights Expand, The Government’s Ability To Govern
Diminish
Because we have created a plethora of what Balint Vazsonyi
called “group rights,”discussed earlier, we have inadvertently
moved away from representative democracy towards minority rule.
Government has lost the effective power to govern – it has ceded
its powers to individual and special interest groups who are
turned loose to stop or force anything they want through the
invocation of their so-called “rights.”
We have created what Professor Robert Kagan calls “adversarial
legalism” which, as Phillip K. Howard observed:
“has made it nearly impossible for government to act....You
can’t fight process, at least not with any confidence. It’s too
vague, and has no natural closure. Somebody can always complain
that the process isn’t fair to him....Environmental review
procedures were instituted with the intent of ensuring
responsible decision making. Instead, they have transferred
power...to private groups...who can stall anything on procedural
nit-picking....The process ends up empowering a lot of people.
They don’t have to win. No burden of proof at all. All they need
is a point. And they hold on to it for eighteen months and the
project is dead. Government doesn’t seem to mind that process
has taken away its authority.” [15]
For example, consider the issue of nuclear power. Now you may
personally despise this idea, but who should determine whether
or not our country uses nuclear power? Shouldn’t it be by
democratic majority rule? After all, isn’t energy
self-sufficiency a matter of national security? By allowing
special interest groups to bring seemingly endless litigation
over environmental concerns, we have effectively priced nuclear
power out of the market place. I believe that the Palo Verde
Nuclear Power Plant in Arizona was the last one to be
constructed – and that took place about twenty years ago. Back
then, I recall reading a news article stating that through
various environmental groups bringing seemingly endless law
suits, they effectively added about a billion dollars to the
cost of constructing that plant. Consequently, utility companies
stopped planning to build any more nuclear power plants
expecting the same perpetual and very costly legal hassles if
they were to ever try. In this context, the notion of legal
rights trumped democracy.
Another example here in Utah is the Legacy Highway designed to
relieve the bottleneck of traffic leading into Salt Lake City
from the north. Through the power of law suits, a small minority
has effectively halted construction of that project. Perhaps
someday that project will be finished but if and when it is, it
will cost the taxpayers a lot more money and their enjoyment of
it will be long delayed. We have effectively given minority
factions the power to influence and, in some cases even control,
major areas of public policy that should be determined by
majority rule.
The Contemporary Meaning Of Rights: Subsidies Paid For By Others
Howard continues:
“Rights are considered as American as apple pie....Rights were
synonymous with freedom, protection against being ordered around
by government or others. Rights have taken on a new role in
America. Whenever there is a perceived injustice, new rights are
created to help victims. These rights are different: While the
rights-bearers may see them as ‘protection,’ they don’t protect
so much as provide. These rights are intended as a new, and
often invisible, form of subsidy. They are provided at everyone
else’s expense, but the amount of the check is left blank.” [16]
Modern Rights Create A Type Of Inverted Feudalism Accented With
An Air Of Moral Superiority–Who Can Argue Against A “Right?”
Regarding the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
Howard said:
“The law passed with virtually no opposition. After all, rights
cost little or nothing out of the budget. It’s only a matter of
being fair. Or so we think. Rights, however, leave no room for
balance, or for looking at it from everybody’s point of view as
well. Rights, as the legal philosopher Ronald Dworkin has noted,
are a trump card. Rights give open-ended power to one group, and
it comes out of everybody else’s hide....Rights cede control to
those least likely to use them wisely....This abdication has led
to an inverted feudalism in which the rights-bearer, by
assertion of legal and moral superiority, lords it over
everybody else. Rights-bearers do warfare independent of the
constraints of democracy: GIVE US OUR RIGHTS. We cringe, lacking
even a vocabulary to respond.” [17]
“The Americans with Disabilities Act supposedly protects 43
million Americans. The overwhelming preponderance of the ADA
regulations, however, and virtually all cost and conflict,
relate to wheelchair users....not 2 percent of the disabled are
in wheelchairs, and many of those are confined to nursing homes.
Billions are being spent to make every nook and cranny of every
facility in America wheelchair accessible....when children die
of malnutrition and finish almost dead last in math. Zealots, we
learn time and again, always push their ‘right’ to its absolute
limit and beyond. They go as fast as they can, and the rest of
us be damned. ‘The law is the law’ [they say]....Their mission
becomes an obsession, their appetite never quelled. Faster and
faster. It’s their right. But we all live here together. Society
needs red lights as well as green lights. Government...must
continually perform the role of letting one group go so far and
then allowing others to go. Rights provide a perpetual green
light. That means everyone else is getting run over as those
with rights try to get to where they want. The injuries are
mounting, and Americans are building up a reservoir of hatred.”
[18]
The ADA has become nothing more than a sophisticated shake-down
racket to some people. Consider the following letter circulated
by an attorney to various handicapped people:
“I am the attorney (age 48) who for the past three years has had
the privilege to represent a small action group of six wonderful
individuals who use wheelchairs age 37 to 66....Their shopping
at inaccessible stores in San Francisco and then filing lawsuits
as clients of mine against those inaccessible stores nets them
each an income which makes them financially independent. For
each of them, the lack of funds which used to limit them to
life’s bare necessities and which plagues so many disabled
individuals today has become only an unpleasant memory from the
past. As a reward for implementing the law and making stores
more accessible for other disabled shoppers, group members now
use their stream of income to eat out at good restaurants when
they want to, buy new clothes and computers and televisions and
gifts for family members, travel and take vacations wherever and
whenever they want to go, and live a lifestyle they could only
imagine prior to joining the group....The group has room for a
small number of additional members. Once that small number of
additional members has been selected, the group will again close
to new members.” [19]
Modern Rights Weaken Lines Of Authority
Under the new concept of “rights” where they have become a form
of entitlements rather than protections from unwarranted
intrusions on our freedoms Howard observes:
“Rights have a beneficent ring, as if they ensure justice
without cost. But the cost becomes quickly apparent as rights
are asserted.....“Like termites eating their way through a home,
‘rights’ began weakening the lines of authority of our society.”
[20]
Rights Tend To Be Viewed As Absolutes That Can Never Be
Compromised
Howard said:
“The virtue of rights, at least to the advocates, is that they
are absolute. What’s a little inefficiency when there is
complete justice for me? Absolutes sound good, but generally
leave behind a landscape of paradoxes and bruised victims.
Rights for the disabled are particularly paradoxical, because
what benefits a person with one disability may harm someone with
another disability” [21]
“Anyone who wants something looks around to see if it fits
within the orbit of some right.” [22]
Traditional Notion Of Rights: Rights Against Law–They Were A
Shield, Not A Sword
Howard continues:
“The rights that are the foundation of this country are rights
against law....Curbing power in the hands of special
interests...was another important goal of the republic....Rights
sound so righteous. But the new rights aren’t rights at all:
They are blunt powers masquerading under the name of rights.
They have nothing to do with rights. The rights our forefathers
died for are a shield – government can’t tell me what to do or
say – to preserve our freedom from others ordering us around.
The new rights are a sword. They are hailed under the flag of
freedom. But no one doing the saluting is looking at how these
rights impinge on what others consider to be their own freedoms.
The coinage of the new rights regime has a flip side; it is
called coercion....Rights are not...an instant method for
reform. They are the perfect formula for tearing society apart.”
[23]
Perhaps We Need To Build A “Statue Of Responsibility” In Order
To Keep Some Perspective
Another downside to the proliferation of “rights” is the
diminution of our sense of public duty. No society can long last
where the people are more concerned about their individual
rights, entitlements, and privileges than their individual
duties. As one person put it: “We have the Statue of Liberty on
the east coast. Maybe to gain the proper perspective we should
build a Statue of Responsibility on the west coast.”
We seem to have lost sight of one of President John F. Kennedy’s
most famous phrases: “Ask not what your country can do for you –
ask what you can do for your country.” [24] While the words we
have been discussing in this and prior articles – liberty,
justice, equality, and rights – are used quite regularly, they
seem to mask a troubling character trait of the affluent –
selfishness. We tend to think that we are entitled to all sorts
of things. No matter how much we have, no matter how much better
off we are over prior generations, when somebody has more than
we, our natural response seems to be that such “inequality” is
“unjust” and consequently, we have a “right” to expect more. It
sounds so righteous and proper when expressed in such terms, but
aren’t those words many times just euphemisms for selfishness,
envy and greed? We are out of balance when it comes to duty,
honor, responsibility, generosity, and sacrifice. We are a
spoiled generation.
Over a hundred years ago, Alexander Tytler, a Scottish
historian, observed:
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It
can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote
themselves money from the Public Treasury. From that moment on
the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most
benefits from the Public Treasury with a result that a democracy
always collapses over loose fiscal policy always followed by
dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest
civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed
through the following sequence:
From Bondage to Spiritual Faith
From Spiritual Faith to Great Courage
From Courage to Liberty
From Liberty to Abundance
From Abundance to Selfishness
From Selfishness to Complacency
From Complacency to Apathy
From Apathy to Dependency
From Dependency back into Bondage" [25]
Where are we in that cycle? Doesn’t our expanded notion of word
rights tend to encourage dependency? According to the Tax
Foundation, the most recent statistics from the IRS indicate
that the bottom half of all taxpayers pay less that four percent
of all the income tax revenues received by the federal
government. [26] So how far away from Tytler’s tipping point are
we? Is it possible to reverse course?
It is always difficult to sense danger amidst affluence and
abundance. But we must remember that such affluence and
abundance gradually grew out of principles put in place long
before those fruits were manifested. Similarly, as we depart
from those principles, our prosperity will probably not
evaporate over night but rather, gradually over a period of
time. At least we can hope that any such decline would just be
gradual rather than some sort of cataclysmic event like a major
stock market crash or a Great Depression, but only time will
tell. In our philosophically and morally weakened state, one can
only wonder what successful major terrorist operations against
us in the future might cause.
Conclusion
In their purest sense, “natural rights” are God-given, predate
government, and are universally and equally enjoyed by all. As
we enter society, we have to give up a portion of our natural
rights in order to gain other benefits. The extent of that
sacrifice should be minimal and driven by the dictates of
necessity. What remains after that trade are known as “civil
rights,” but these too must be universally and equally enjoyed
by all members of society if the word “rights” is to be properly
applied. Anything less than that should be called by other
names, not rights. “Minority rights” and “group rights” are
misnomers and should be called something else lest the true
meaning of the word rights be sullied and diminished.
As we move away from these basic principles, we breed disrespect
for the law and encourage self-serving legal interpretation
rather than a strong sense of civic duty which demands
individual compliance with the law for the greater good of all
even when compliance goes contrary to our immediate
self-interests. Consequently, we imperil our ability to
perpetuate our liberties long-term for we cannot be free unless
we are all good self-governors.
As we hear highly respected words used in political debate, we
should ponder more deeply their true meanings before we are sold
a bill of goods through their invocation. Rights from outside
interference may be cost-free to others, but supposed rights to
things are usually very costly to other members of society who
have to foot the bill. That’s not liberty in the traditional
sense, but robbery and bondage instead.
As group rights expand, the ability of government to govern
effectively diminishes. The ability to sue under such “rights”
allows minority factions to effectively control significant
issues of public policy which should be determined
democratically by majority rule. True rights are defensive
shields against external abuse and force, not offensive weapons
to be used for personal advantage against others.
Our infatuation with our greatly expanded notions of liberty,
justice, equality and rights have tended to make us selfish and
spoiled – or perhaps the causal connection runs the other
direction. In any event, we are currently out of balance
regarding the proper relationship between civil rights and civic
duties. If we are not careful and cannot reverse course, we too
might follow the unhappy fates of previous civilizations
throughout history which allowed their basic founding principles
and definitions to become adulterated and debauched.
_______________________________________
[1] . Frederic Bastiat, The Law, (1850), p.6. Reproduced at:
http://www.lexrex.com/informed/otherdocuments/thelaw/main.htm
[2] . Balint Vazsonyi, America’s 30 Years War – Who is Winning
(1998), p. 29.
[3] . Id.
[4] . Id. p. 79.
[5] . Frederic Bastiat, The Law (1850), p.12.
[6] . Freidrich A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom,(1944), p.35.
[7] . Id. p.36.
[8] . Id. p.35.
[9] . Id. pp.172-73.
[10] . Id. pp.29-30.
[11] . Id. p.31.
[12] . Frederic Bastiat, The Law (1850), p. 64 under “The Cause
of the French Revolution.”
[13] . Thomas Sowell, The Vision of the Anointed, pp.99-100.
[14] .Wray Herbert,"Our Identity Crisis", U.S. News and World
Report, March 6, 1995, pp.83-4.
[15] . Phillip K. Howard, The Death of Common Sense, Random
House, (1994), p. 101.
[16] . Id. pp. 116-117.
[17] . Id. pp. 117-118.
[18] . Id. pp. 153-54.
[19] . Walter K. Olson, “The ADA Shakedown Racket,” published in
The City Journal, Winter 2004 accessible over the web through
manhattan-institute.org.
[20] . Phillip K. Howard, The Death of Common Sense, Random
House, (1994), pp.123 & 125.
[21] . Id. p.151.
[22] . Id. p.152.
[23] . Id. pp.166-168.
[24] . John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address, Jan. 20, 1961.
[25] . Alexander Tytler, The Cycle of Democracy, (1778),
reproduced at: http://members.optushome.com.au/jimball/Tyler.htm
[26] . http://www.taxfoundation.org/prtopincometable.html
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
About the Author:
Professor Lewis graduated from the J. Reuben Clark School of Law
at BYU and currently teaches Business Law at Southern Utah
University.
|
|
|
