From: platt@watson.ibm.com (Daniel E. Platt)
Subject: Re: Human Rights...
Date: Tue, 01 Sep 1992 16:55:27 GMT
Disclaimer: This posting represents the poster's views, not necessarily those of IBM
Organization: IBM T.J. Watson Research Center

In article <2101@usna.NAVY.MIL>, potter@silver.usna.navy.mil (Mr. Jeff Potter (CADIG  STAFF)) writes:
|> 
|>     Thomas O. Smith writes:
|> 
|> >Libertarians need to accept the fact that people possess certain
|> >basic human rights. An important purpose of government is to 
|> >insure that these rights are protected for all citizens regardless
|> >of social or economic status. To do this, ......[deleted].....
|> >And that is why governments have the moral right to impose
|> >taxes. ....[deleted].....
|> 
|> 
|>      You are correct, humans do have certain inaliable rights. These
|> being defined by the founders of our country to be life, and the
|> protection of private property. 

There seems to be a few missing... such as the right to free assembly, to
free speech, to worship without government intervention.  However, you've
already admitted that people have *some* rights.

|>                                 These rights are not based on race
|> sex, creed, or economic status. What you propose is that the 
|> `rights' of the poor are more viable than the rights of those that
|> are self sufficient! That is not to say that the poor should be
|> abandoned, but there are private charities to help them. Why should
|> the poor have the `right` to some of my paycheck when I payed my
|> way through college to earn a higher living? You seem to be
|> confusing `rights' and wants. NO ONE has a right to a better 
|> standard of living, a great job or a new home. They may well desire
|> these things very much but these are not rights and should be
|> earned by them.

No one is saying that people have a right to a better standard of
living.  However, if government is a participant in justice and
education, it is appropriate that government act responsibly in
its services.  In particular, it should not act in a way that
effectively denies people an opportunity to earn their way through
college.  If government is contracting with universities, and
this has a significant impact on the economy of the university,
its action may inadvertantly act to exclude opportunities.  Government
has the responsibility to respond to that situation.  There's a spectrum
of things the government may do.  1) Attach conditions to contracts.
2) Legislate (make it illegal to discriminate).  3) Subsidize.

|>     Government has no rights! Government is a loose collection of
|> individuals whos actions are guided by the constitution. Since
|> when does a loose collection of people have a right to your 
|> paycheck? If you choose to give it to them , fine. The government
|> was instituted to PROTECT the rights of individuals regarding life
|> and property. What you propose is to invert this to the point 
|> where the individual needs protection from government in order to
|> keep his property. Otherwise any `disadvantaged' group of 
|> individuals (everyone is disadvantaged in one form or another) gave
|> have free reign on my, yours, or your relatives paychecks.

You admit people have a right to the protection of their property.  It costs money
to try to enforce those rights.  This includes police and judicial services.
Of course, a society could employ private contractors for police and
judicial services, and provide for funds to protect the rights of
the poor through charity, but there would be no mechanism for impartial
defense of individual rights.  The rich would have better protection
of their rights than the poor.  Even in our current governments, that
is a real problem.  Primarily, this seems to be because poor people
cannot afford good lawyers.  They get public defenders who have such
large case loads that they really don't have time to do much more than
show up in court with their defendant. It could only be worse with 
private contractors filling the roles of police and judge with funding
that comes entirely from charity.

The other problem is that of how a judgement would become legally
binding.  Without some central standard, there would likely be no
way that a poor person's hired arbiter would be recognized by
a rich person.  Sure, a judgement could be made, but nobody would
have to pay attention to it.  In other words, in order for judgements
to have any power, there needs to be some central standard of enforcement.
The enforcement must be egalitarian.  It also should have teeth, or
it won't work.

|>     Please think about how much power you are giving another
|> institution and how much freedom you are losing when you allow
|> Government to claim that they have a `right' to rape your wallet.
|> 

Of all the institutions you deal with, such as the factory a few blocks
over, or the bank down the street, or the government, the only interest
that is likely to have any responsibility to your interests is the 
government.  Even if you buy stock in the bank or in the government,
it is more and more the case that upper management runs companies, and
as a buyer of equity, your rights are more and more restricted (many
large companies are petitioning the SEC to have requirements to respond
to stock-holder's querries restricted as these requests are costly and
only create a nuissance; from the investor's position, it means that
information they'd need to evaluate a purchase is limited -- caveat
emptor).  People can vote.  They can raise political stink (freedom of
speech and assembly).  Ideally, they should even be able to bear arms.
If the factory dumps crud in your yard, you would have no one you could
appeal to -- even if you held stock in that company -- without some body
with the rights and obligations to defend your rights.  

If you don't value the protection of your rights, perhaps you wouldn't
mind if I hit you on the head with a led pipe or shot you at 100 yards
with a rifle and took your wallet all by myself, secure in the knowlege 
that you don't really have rights, and nobody is going to come along 
to defend them.

Dan