From: Frank Caherty <caherty@wizard.nrl.navy.mil>
Subject: Re: Tipper / Free Speech / Rights (LONG)
Reply-To: caherty@wizard.nrl.navy.mil
Organization: The Internet
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1992 22:34:42 GMT

Mr Jordan Schwartz wrote:
| as far as free speech goes: We all agree it is not an absolute right.

In the same posting, he later writes:
|
| From whence come "rights"? A piece of paper written by aristocrats of the
| eighteenth century? That piece of paper says they come from God. Well, I
| haven't heard from Her/Him lately, so I think that my rights better come
| from somewhere else. Rights come from us. I have the right to do something
| because I do it. A right is earned, not given. If you abuse it, it can
| be revoked.

He never defines what an absolute right is, and from reading the second
set of statements, I have no idea what his definition of a right is.  
Well, if we don't define our terms, we can never know what we are talking
about, can we? (Thoreau, I think.)   So... Here goes...

The concept of a `right' is a moral concept.  This concept allows the
logical move from the principles guiding a persons actions to the
principles guiding his interactions with others (society).  This
is the link between ethics and politics (no laughter, please).
A right is a principle that defines a persons freedom of action 
in a social context.  

An individual must have as a basic right, the right to his or her 
life.  That is, an individual must be free to act in his or her 
best interest in order to survive.  (Since I've gone into the
business of making definitions, let me state that when I say 
survive I don't mean merely physical survival.  I don't mean 
the monentary, physical survival of the mindless brute.  I mean
the survival of man as man.  I mean the terms, methods and goals 
required for the survival of a rational being over his lifetime.)
Therefore the right to his own life _is_ an absolute right, 
a concept that is necessary for a persons existence as a person.
Life is self-sustaining, self-generated action.  The right to ones 
own life means the right to engage in those self generated, 
self sustaining processes required for the support, continuance, 
and enjoyment of life.  This is the `right to life, liberty, and 
the pursuit of happiness'.

There are a couple of corollary rights to the right to ones life.

In order to fully exercise ones abilities, one must be able to 
communicate ideas to another person.  This allows two or more to
cooperate in endeavours, and to point out problems with situations.
Without the right to free speech, the neccessary ability to communicate
ideas is lost.  

Another is the right to defend ones own life.  The promise of the 
right to ones life is meaningless without the right to defend 
it against the initiation of the use of force.  The initiation 
of the use of force, or the threat of the use of force is coer-
cion; to force someone to act (or not act) in a certain way re-
moves his ability to use his primary tool of survival, the mind.

Another right that stems from the right to ones own life is 
that of the right to private property.  A person works or earns
money through mutual trade, or exchange of value for value.  This
money is used to acquire food, clothing, or other property.  To
deprive a person of the right to property is to deprive him of 
the means to sustain his life.  The person who produces value
while others dispose of what he produces is a slave.  Since 
material goods are produced by the efforts of individuals, and
are needed to sustain their lives, if the producer does not
own the result of his effort, he does not own his life.

These rights are rights to take action to secure ones life
and property, not the right to a _specific_ object or objects.  
They don't guarantee that a person will attain happiness, or 
property, only that he may keep it if he earns it.

The Declaration of Independence says " to secure these
rights, governments are instituted among men."  This is the
only valid justification for a government, and it defines its
only purpose: to protect man's rights.  The Constitution was
then written to protect men from the Government, granting the
government very strictly limited powers, and, in the Bill of
Rights, declaring that individual rights supercede any public 
or governmental powers.

More to come.

Regards,
Frank.
Newsgroups: rec.music.gdead