Saturday 3 July 2010

Right to "Stuff" Disproved

Recently the government of Finland has proudly announced that in their country access to the internet has become a right of every citizen, which will be satisfied and guarded by the government itself. This is just another scheme from the list of rights to "stuff" - material possessions guaranteed to everyone for no reason whatsoever. It follows on from the "right" to education, medical care, state pension, and such other things.
It is clear from my freedom position that wealth redistribution (and that is exactly what all these schemes are all about) is wrong and morally indefensible. However, there is also another aspect of the rights to material possessions which makes them totally illogical. Let's take a look at this inconsistency:
1. We know that human rights are universal - every human being has exactly the same rights. We are all born with them and when they are taken away a moral wrong is committed.
2. If human rights are universal, then they must pertain to each individual human being or group of human beings. If they are applicable to a million people, then they must also be applicable to a thousand people, or a hundred, or ten, or just a single person.
3. And here is where the "right to stuff" breaks down. If only a single person exists and he cannot provide himself with medical care or access to the internet, does this mean he has breached his own human rights? Or does it mean that a single person has no human rights at all? In that case, is it enough to just cart someone off into the middle of uninhabited Siberia in order to take away that person's rights? Maybe the Gulag was ethical after all!
Now that we know this is a truly absurd notion, we can actually see what human rights really are; they are attributes that are applicable in all conditions of human existence. A single person isolated from society still possesses them as much as he would if he was living in the middle of a bustling metropolis. There are no special rights that people gain by belonging to society - this would mean that the society (or more precisely, the government which orders the society around) somehow bestows rights on individuals. In the primitive ages of the past, when slavery and such were allowed by both government and public opinion, human rights were still being broken. Opinion does not form them, they are part of natural law - the law of God.

2 comments:

  1. I normally either agree with most of your articles or at least follow your logic (and disagree with the premises), but here you've lost me.

    What exactly are you trying to prove? I don't really understand the premises, would you care to clarify?

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  2. I disprove the notion that people have any right to any thing that they have not produced themselves or acquired by voluntary agreement. Simple truth. This needs to be disproved in order to create a truly free society.
    PS. Sorry for the late reply, as you see I have been away from internet and civilization for nigh on two months!

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