Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Grants, Rights and Other Distinctions…
Many a time, I have gotten into discussions with my lefty friends about the Second Amendment. It usually goes something like this:
Friend: Are you for gun rights?
Me: Yes!
Friend: Would you be okay with machine guns?
The issue with the any such conversation is the context of the questioning. Is the Second Amendment a right or a grant?
When one “receives” a grant, then one can have the conversation about the extent of the grant, the specifics, etc. Is the grant for one gun or a hundred? Is the grant for one bullet or 15 or 100? Does the gun shoot one bullet per trigger pull or 10 or 50?
Is the ability to carry a gun openly more or less convenient for women and disabled people? Are guns better or worse for minorities?
While these are good questions, they still are questions that arise from the premise that gun ownership is a grant; that there is someone or something greater than us who is benevolent enough “allow” us to have guns. And hence we get to negotiate with this benevolent entity… but only after they are being nice by letting us have our guns.
We do this again and again in life. We think of agreed-upon rules and regulations as necessary, as if we have no right to our freedoms. Whether it be speed limits on highways or expiration dates on food products, we operate from the “grant” premise — and act as if we should be grateful for “someone looking after us” — by protecting us from ourselves.
Should there be a limit on speed on all roads in the country? Certainly not. Can a community set limits near, say school zones or residential communities? Not as a negation of our rights to drive at any speed, but by self-policing? Sure.
When we delegate our freedoms to government, we are letting our rights just go away. And as happened in Europe, the first step towards taking away rights is to start treating them as grants. Once you have people start talking about rights as if they were grant, then we are clearly on the path to relinquish our rights.
So the appropriate answer to “Are you in favor of speed limits?” is “Who has the right to enforce it upon me?” And to “How do you feel about machine guns?” is “Who has the right to take it away from me? By what authority? You and whose army?”
While we continue to operate from the premise of “grants,” we are just arguing over degrees of allowance. In order to secure true freedom, one has to get the distinction between rights and grants. If I am a free citizen, then I should not have to negotiate on the degrees of allowances.
This is the truth that is “common knowledge” to all libertarians but not always — I think — to conservatives.
If we are free, then we do not “seek” grants for guns, how fast we drive, who we marry, or any other matter. While laws exist, they only exist to ensure individual liberty. They do not exist to “grant” anything to the citizenry.
Published in General
The right to obtain property. The right to trade for goods produced by another. Is that not a God given right?
I only want to shut you up when your speech is causing harm sufficient to outweigh the value of allowing the speech. Go ahead and express your opinions, no matter how offensive, but don’t incite a riot.
I don’t want to keep you from carrying a weapon, unless there is a compelling reason to forbid you, such as you are criminally insane.
But the fact that rights have limits doesn’t mean they are mere grants, in the sense you have used. It is simply in the nature of rights to have limits. There is no right that is an exception to that rule. Where the limits lie is a choice that society has to make based on utilitarian grounds. When rights conflict with each other (your right to mow your lawn vs. my right to peace and quiet) the conflict must logically be resolved on utilitarian grounds.
Perhaps your God has given you those rights. But are you equally willing to recognize the rights that my God has given?
Does your God provide for the right of free exercise of religion, or does he threaten eternal damnation for those who believe wrongly?
I don’t follow… can you be more specific? By “God given,” I mean intrinsic rights of the universe. Free exercise of religion certainly falls within that purview.
I guess by “God given” I mean rights that have devolved from a religious tradition. That was the basis for my comment about different Gods providing different rights. But I see now what you mean, which is something much different.
Perhaps it’s fair to say that you are positing that rights are based on human nature and the way the world has to work. I agree that there is such a thing as human nature, and I also agree with the rights you mentioned, and I wouldn’t want to live in a society that didn’t recognize those rights (property and trade). But at the same time, human nature also suggests limitations on those rights.