The Origin of Rights

By Chris Van Buskirk

There never seems to be a shortage of news stories about some issue or another related to our "rights." This week's flavor revolves around a Supreme Court nominee and her stand on property "rights" and abortion "rights." Next week will bring a different flavor, but the arguments will be similar. Americans, it seems, are fanatical about their rights.

Eleanor Roosevelt stated in 1958, that human rights begin "…in small places, close to home… such are the places where every man, woman and child seek equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination."

These are lofty words, to be sure, and they speak to the core of the American identity. They are reminiscent of Jefferson immortal words, "… that all men are created equal." But Mrs. Roosevelt's misses the mark when she says that human rights begin in small places, close to home. Where do human rights begin?

The simple fact is that there are and can only be three ways that human rights are secured for the citizen.

First, they are the rational construction of human beings as they seek to order their society; how human beings can live together in peace and avoid the danger and fear of civil conflict. Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) posed stark alternatives which spoke to this idea: we should give our obedience to a government to avoid what awaits us in a 'state of nature.' The natural condition of man is a situation of universal insecurity or anarchy where all have reason to fear violent death and where rewarding human cooperation is all but impossible. In this argument "Every man is the wolf of his neighbor." We therefore construct human rights and empower our government to secure them for us. "Freedom" and "liberty" are merely protection from the guy down the street.

The problem with this rational argument is that some people can be excluded the protection of human rights because there exists some rational argument not to protect them. There were many rational arguments for denying basic sustenance for Terri Shiavo, and she died. There are many rational arguments to deny a fetus the right to life because it is not viable outside the womb. There were many rational arguments in the antebellum south to keep blacks as property. It should be pointed out that a majority of professors in Nazi Germany supported Hitler's extermination of the Jews on rational grounds.

The second possibility of the origin of human rights is that they are gifts from the state. They are like a driver's license to be accorded to all or some selected inhabitants of that state. Rights are a privilege, authored by a government which determines who may have the rights.

The problem with this argument is manifested in the reality of communism in recent history and around the world. Sure, it was supposed to be a worker's paradise, where all share equally in the benefits of the state. But the tragic record of communism is a history where the Politburo (or whomever) decided who had what rights. Over 100 million lives were lost in the history of the Soviet Union and Communist China in their attempts to bestow "rights." We must remember, what the government bestows, it can revoke.

The third possibility of the origin of human rights is best described by Alexander Hamilton. "The sacred rights of mankind," he said, "are not to be rummaged among old parchments or dusty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of divinity itself; and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power."

Our rights are not secured in the rational argument of human government, nor bestowed by the state, by endowed by God. Our founding fathers knew that, including both Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson. That's why the preamble to the Constitution reads, "…and secure the blessings of liberty." If liberty was a gift from the government it would read, "and provide the blessings..." The purpose of our government is to secure the liberties that have already been endowed by our creator, not develop or bestow them.

By the way, though the Declaration of Independence now reads, "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal." But Jefferson's original words were, "We hold these truths to be sacred…"

And indeed they are.

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