Tuesday, February 02, 2021

Privileges-- loaned-out rights


I've heard some people argue there are no such things as rights; only privileges. But if rights don't exist, neither can privileges.

A right is something you can do just because no one else has the right to prevent you from doing it. Something you can do because you were born human. (Which is everything that doesn't violate the equal and identical rights of anyone else.)

A privilege is when someone else lets you use their right in some limited way. Basically, they let you appear to "violate" their right-- with their permission-- for a set time, often in exchange for something they want, like money or information.

If they didn't have a right, they couldn't loan it to you.

Since rights can only be individual, not collective, and government can therefore have no rights, government can't even grant privileges. And they certainly don't have the "right" to ration or otherwise violate the rights of human beings in any way.

Even every argument against rights only destroys the justification for political government even harder.


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