The Root of a “Right”

This post is essentially a second draft of an earlier post of mine entitled “Human Rights or Human Wrongs?” I decided to fix up the post because I immensely disliked the ending of the last one. I thought it ended too broadly and did not completely verbalize my thoughts on the issue. I am much more satisfied with this second draft. I hope you will be as well.

I believe that if there were a competition for the vaguest phrase in the English language, it would definitely be “human rights.” The term “human rights” has been used and abused infinitely throughout time that it is currently in the deepest state of ambiguity.

After all, what exactly are “human rights”? The definition of the term has continuously evolved over time. In the early 17th century, the British philosopher John Locke asserted that we have three human rights, the rights to “life, liberty, property.” A half a century later, Thomas Jefferson modified this definition by replacing “property” with “the pursuit of happiness” in the Declaration of Independence. Over two hundred years later, people hear and use the word “right” all the time. The government says we have the “right to freedom of expression” or the “right to bear arms” or the “right to remain silent” or “the right to an education.” Some even dare to claim that we have the “right” to food, or shelter, or transportation, or healthcare. Our society’s definition of a “right” is constantly inflating like a balloon.

I’d like to pop that balloon. I immensely dislike the word “right” because many people who speak it do not understand the implications of its use.  To say one has the “right” to a certain good or service is the equivalent of saying that someone else has the obligation to give the good or service. In other words, claiming that humans have the right to food or health care or education is also claiming that someone has the obligation to provide it. But who exactly is that “someone”? That is what these ignoramuses fail to address. The “other” must only either be a fellow man or an institution, like the government. Thus, claiming that one has the right to healthcare is also claiming that another has the responsibility to give it to the person through coercion.

Therefore, a “right” is equivalent to a shift of responsibility. It is an assertion that you are not responsible for certain protection, but rather someone else is. It is to say that your life is not entirely your’s, but that another person or institution has partial ownership over you, and thus has obligations. It is socialism at its very core.
Although having a right is indeed advocating the socialization of an institution, we must not look at “rights” entirely negatively. After all, many rights are good. It is absolutely the role of the state to socialize the police industry to give the populace the right of protection, and to socialize the judicial system for the right of justice. A functional society would be highly difficult if not impossible to achieve without these rights. However, beyond this realm of basic rights, it can get quite dangerous. Socialization of other industries is historically proven to lead to great inefficiency, if not failure.

So, the next time you hear a peer ranting about how we have the “right” to food, or transportation, or shelter, or health care, please gently remind them that the USSR included each of these rights in their lawbooks… and look how they turned out.