Opinion
American democracy under attack from electoral frauds
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Also by Jim Allard:
- 'Inclusive Excellence' a flawed idea (November 6, 2009)
- UW not acting in 'the public interest' (October 26, 2009)
- Ehrlich lecture an intellectual mess (October 8, 2009)
- Farmers correct on Pollan's blather, wrong on subsidies (October 1, 2009)
- 'In Defense of Food' merely psuedo-intellectual discourse (September 24, 2009)
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The day after choosing a new president seems like a good time to ponder another choice: What kind of society do you want to live in? Do you want to live in one that respects and protects individual rights or one that doesn’t? You may be surprised to hear that these are your only two choices.
Sure, there are an almost unlimited variety of social systems. There are monarchies, democracies, theocracies, socialism, communism, fascism and a variety of mixed systems. But all these systems are variations on a theme: All regard the individual as a serf. Each is based on the idea that individuals must serve some higher cause and should be sacrificed to that cause when and if society or its representatives deem it necessary. This is true regardless of whether the cause is the majority will, a god, the czar, the collective, the race or the nation.
Only the
Today we have all but lost
Most people think rights come from society — that we all get together and decide what rights people should have. But this cannot be true. Rights, by definition, are those actions one cannot take without permission — i.e., by right. The source of rights is not society, but the nature of man. A proper society recognizes rights; it does not create them.
A right is a principle recognizing and sanctioning an individual’s freedom of action. There is only one fundamental right, the right to one’s own life. All other rights, such as the right to property, freedom of speech and of the press are derivatives, or expressions, of the fundamental right to one’s life.
Rights require nothing of other people except in the negative sense — they require that others refrain from restricting an individual’s freedom of action. There is no such thing as a “right” to the goods of others, such as a “right to a job.”
Some people take issue with this concept of rights. Barack Obama, for instance, claims “health care is a right” and lamented that the Supreme Court “didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution.” What constraint is Obama uncomfortable with? In his words, that “the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. [It] says what the states can’t do to you … but it doesn’t say what … governments must do on your behalf.” As a consequence, “one of the tragedies of the civil rights movement,” he concludes, was that they were not able to bring about “redistributive change.”
But rights are in fact the opposite of wealth redistribution. The ability to act freely and keep one’s property is the opposite of having one’s property expropriated and redistributed. These two phenomena cannot be packaged under some woozy usage of “rights.” Obama, like most Americans, wants to have his rights and destroy them too. But this is impossible.
The principle of individual rights forms a basic alternative underlying all social systems. Either society adopts individual rights as its guiding principle or it drops the principle entirely. It’s not possible to protect rights sometimes. To claim an individual has a right to his life but that his earnings may be redistributed as society sees fit, is to repudiate his rights entirely. His ability to pursue his life and retain his earnings is henceforth conditional on other people’s willingness to allow him to do so. He no longer acts by right, but by permission.
Acting by permission is the basis of every oppressive social system throughout history. Whether a king decides to free some peasants or the majority allows Socrates to live, the principle is the same: The individual acts by permission, not by right.
In the coming months, as a new administration quarrels over who to tax, regulate, bailout and subsidize, consider the basic alternative: Should individuals pursue their life, liberty and property as a matter of right, like the Founders intended, or by permission as determined by the king, majority or Obama? This is the basic, unavoidable choice. Pretending the choice does not exist will achieve the usual results: no cake for anyone.
Jim Allard (jeallard@wisc.edu) is a graduate student studying biological sciences.
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What the hell are you talking about?
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Jim really has a good point here. This nation has really forgotten the difference between rights and “what’s good for us.” Instead of politicians basing legislation solely on what the majority wants, they need to consider what’s JUST (and the two are not the same).
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Why the herald still publishes articles by you is a mystery.
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First of all, this idiot’s article makes no sense, whatsoever. Second, lefties are the last people who should be even commenting on election fraud since they are the ones who are continually against presenting an ID card in order to vote. It isn’t because anyone is disenfranchised, as they commonly like to say, but is because they know that they will still have a chance to cheat their way to victory if an ID isn’t required.
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8:37, the reason us “lefties” are against presenting an ID card is because not every one has one. If a Vietnam vet has been homeless since 1974, what do you think the chances of him/her having a form of identification is? Or a senior in high school that doesn’t have a driver’s license? They have just as much a right to vote as you and me.
And yeah this is an awful article. You know there’s fabrication with one quote has 2 …’s in it.
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He’s not an idiot. You may not agree. But there’s a difference between that and total fabrication. What he is saying is that while health care/etc may be a “right” to many as far as the social/moral aspect is concerned…in this country the individual “rights” of everyone were to not have so-called rights/choices governed or made for them by a government. Unfortunately I think we are too far gone to really be able to look at what was INTENDED for this country anymore…thus this position needs revision…however…its premise…that this country’s idea of rights was exactly NOT having to have a collective/”whats best for everyone” type of society.
It’s just not possible anymore to live according to those terms…because this country is nothing like it was originally founded to be like and it is necessarry to adapt accordingly, whether good or bad, at this point to fit with THESE times.
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Wow! I just read two articles by you and I am blown away. You are Libertarian? Big “L.” btw I couldn’t agree more. Also, I am Anonymous because I don’t want to make an account. Is it so necessary? Editor? Seems everyone is “A.”
Nadrew