Sunday, November 18, 2018

The Implications Of Rights




Greetings and felicitations!

As we inch our ways into yet another holiday season, I find myself moved to address a fundamental truth about human Rights.  It can be expressed in two axioms that follow directly and apodictically from the fundamental premise of the "inherent rights" of each individual human being:


  1. A Right, regardless of its nature, directly implies the Right to exercise it.
  2. The Right to exercise directly implies the Right to validly obtain the means of exercise.

Were we to put this into a somewhat loose notation of symbolic logic, we would have this:

Definitions:
R = Right
Re = Right to exercise
Rm = Right to means of exercise
-> = "implies" or "leads to" 
∴ = "therefore"
QED = "thus it is demonstrated" 
Logic chain:
R -> Re
Re -> Rm 
∴ R -> Rm
 QED
This "proof" is not complete by any means, but I include it just for clarity's sake.  A proper formal proof would require additional steps not immediately relevant to the purposes of this work.

These axioms have, to my limited knowledge, never been addressed publicly by anyone in any fashion that might be credibly termed "common".  It is my purpose here to correct that most perilously egregious misstep on the part of humanity, to date.

Returning to essays past, specifically "What Are Rights?", we find the definition of a "right" includes:

Right, n.  ...

2.  That to which one has a just claim

We may perhaps then agree that each of us has a right to life, for example.  That is, we each claim our lives as our own; our "property", if you will.  I further believe we may also agree that those claims are indeed just and valid.  After all, what would it imply were we to say that our claims to life were invalid?  Nothing good, I suspect.

Let me once again use the Second Amendment of the American Bill of Rights (BoR) as an example.  If I hold the right to keep and bear arms, then by direct implication I hold the right to exercise the right.  After all, if I claim the right but disavow the right to exercise, have I not engaged in contradictory reasoning?  It makes no whit of sense to claim the right, yet to deny that I also possess the valid authority of exercise.  In the very best case, the denial of the latter reduces the former from Right to privilege, and here I am being very generous and optimistic.  The more likely case is that it would reduce it to nothing at all, beyond mere utterances.

Therefore, we can see clearly that a right, sans the right of exercise, is in fact no right at all, but an empty claim and nothing more.  Noises.

We have now established through the simplest sufficient means the chain of implication from the right to keep and bear arms to the inseparable and unavoidable corollary right to exercise one's right to keep and bear arms.  In the language of contracts and legislation, these are non-severable.  Remove one, the other disappears into the vapors.  Violating one perforce violates the other.

If one holds the right to keep and bear arms, directly leading to the right of exercise, then the final link in the logic chain that makes a Right precisely what it is, is the right to validly obtain the means of exercise.

I claim the right to keep and bear arms.  This means I also reserve the right to exercise the right.  In order for me to be able to exercise my right to keep and bear arms, I must be able to obtain armaments of whatever nature and quantities for which my morally valid means may provide.  To clarify that last bit, it means that I am entitled to obtain arms by whatever noncriminal means are available to me, such as through purchase, barter, or begging.

If a spear is for sale for $5 and I have at least that much cash in hand, I am entitled to purchase and take possession of that spear in exchange for the sum in question under conditions of mutual agreement between seller and buyer.  The same may be said in the case of barter.  The man at the flea market is free to trade his .50 caliber Barrett for my  3/4-ton pickup truck if we are each in agreement to the exchange.  Nobody outside of the immediacy of the circumstance of the agreement holds the least right to interfere in any way whatsoever with the transaction, all else equal.

What this does not imply, however, is any right to be provided with the means of exercise by others at no apparent cost to oneself.  Therefore, if I want that Winchester '97 shotgun for household defense, but have no money, I am not entitled to obtain the weapon by force of expropriation because that is what we normally call "theft" or worse, "robbery" when backed with threats of harm.  And so it is with all taxation, but I digress.

One holds the right to obtain instrumentality, but only by valid and noncriminal means.  The application of force or other means of coercion do not qualify as valid, but only as criminal.

And so it may be extrapolated to any right whatever.

One more basic example for completeness' sake, our esteemed First Amendment, free speech clause.

I claim the right to speak freely as my conscience may move me.  If I indeed hold that right, and it would be most monumental an endeavor for anyone in denial of it to prove otherwise, then it would appear quite intuitively and forcefully obvious that I also hold the right to exercise, which is to say, to speak my mind freely without fear of retribution or other danger, all else equal.  How, pray anyone tell, could I be said to reserve a right to free speech whilst being denied the right to exercise?  Once again, it is a senseless contradiction, the invalidity of which shouts at us in shrill timbre.

Having again established the link between the right in question and its derivative, the right to exercise, we move to the third: the right to obtain the means of exercise.  This example is in some cases slightly difference from that of keeping and bearing arms in that we are born with voices, which constitutes a means of expression.  Well, most of us are.  But what of those who have no anatomical ability to speak?  As the logic runs, they are by all means entitled to pursue, for example, medical remedies that would endow them with a speaking voice.  Would anyone deny that this is so; that a congenital mute has no right to pursue endowment with the power of vocal speech?  I surely hope not, as that would prove most disturbing.

In the absence of medical remedies, would such an individual not hold the right to pursue other avenues of speech, such as a laptop computer?  Pen and paper?  Learning sign language?  Is there anyone on the planet who could credibly deny that such people hold the right to endow themselves with such means?

The very same applies to the vocally intact, as well.  Spoken language is but one form of speech, the most direct form.  But there are more oblique forms as well.  There is written language, for one.  And what of "art"?  Is that not a form of expression?  Our courts seem to think so.

If I choose to exercise my right to free speech through paintings or sculpture, for example, have I not the right to obtain the materials by which to engage in these forms?  Would anyone deny my right to purchase pen and ink?  Paint, canvas, and brushes?  Marble, chisels, and mallet?

This may all seem very basic - perhaps even silly for its obvious evidence - yet I maintain that it is of supreme importance that every man consider it, understand it completely, and accept it as apodictic truth.  In addition, it behooves the intelligent man to develop the habit of thinking in these terms where rights are concerned and to raise the points any time a fellow human being suggests a course of action, whether personal or legislative for examples, that would in any way thwart, infringe, limit, disrespect, circumvent, or otherwise trespass upon the inherent and sovereign rights of any man, no matter the purport of the necessity or authority to do so.

When people come to a sufficient understanding of not only what defines a Right, but what is implied by the general concept, along with developing the proper habits of regard for them, as well as that of challenging any and all who would trespass, the world will become that quantum improved.  I will suggest that the quantum in question stands to be massive.

Along with your word as your bond of trust with your fellows, as well as your relationships therewith, your Rights are the remaining fundamental possessions that shape and hold the most basic effect in terms of Proper Human Relations.  Additionally, they are the only ones with which you were born, the others being learned, accumulated, and cultivated over the course of our lives.  They are part and parcel of who and what you are as a living being, in no way less than are your heart, hands, brain, etc.

Would you suffer another to cut away your hands?  Your liver?  Eyes?  Your soul?

If not, then why your Rights?

I would implore you take the time to think on this for as long as it takes for the twig of understanding to snap loudly in your thoughts, for it is of an importance so central to the condition of human existence, that it cannot be overstated.  Not only your existence, your life, but that of everyone around you including those for whom you care and love.

Spread this knowledge as broadly as you are able, for this is the deepest and most important of all human legacies, for they are the pillars of the very freedom that defines the creature that you are, more than any other.  Without your rights, you are as nothing more than a lump of flesh, rightly subject to the whims and arbitrary powers of other lumps of flesh, to do with you as those powers and whims might decree at any given moment.  Is that the status to which you wish to be relegated?  Your friends?  Your family?  Your children?

If you wish to be more than that, then change yourself and your ways of thinking about such things.  Change your habits and make of yourself a formidable force for goodness and rectitude; for freedom.  It is possible, requiring of you nothing more than the will do make it so and the belief that the goal is attainable and worth the effort.  Would I go a step too cheesy-far to implore you do it "for the children"?  Even I have to laugh at that bit, and yet there is a seed of serious truth in it.

The future, the very soul of humanity hangs in the balance.  It it that important.

Be well, and until next time, please accept my best wishes.

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