From: bil@okcforum.osrhe.uoknor.edu (Bill Conner)
Subject: Re: Health Care Rights?
Organization: Okcforum Unix Users Group
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Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 04:37:49 GMT

   I think there's a problem here with your use of the term, right. In
every context prior to the American Revolution, a right was understood
to mean a grant of privilege and was codified as law. Law was the
arbiter of what was and was not a person's rights; your claims
measured against the standard of the Law.
   We have since misconstrued the meaning of rights to mean whatever
we think it [1mought[0m to mean without regard for whatever the law
might explicitly dictate. In a purely legal sense, a right is either
that which is specifically enumerated, or that not specifially
prohibited. Either way though, the law is the final resort. It has
become popular however to claim something as a right without the
sanction of law; the law merely ratifies our preferences.
   To argue that there are moral obligations binding on all has the
effect of obviating the law since if we were capable or even inclined
to behave morally, law would be superfluous. The law exsits exactly
becausse we are not moral nor even desire to be. Being non-moral, we
require law which we then use to define rights which in turn are used
to establish morality. One of the primary attributes of a moral person
is the observance of the law. Never mind the circularity of the
argument, it's true even so.
   The whole issue of rights, law, morality, obligation, and duty is
based on the fundamental certainty of our inability to fully
understand what we're talking about. We are not moral creatures,
without the restraints of the law, without the admonitions of
obligation and duty, there could be no human society at all. All this
lofty dialogue exists only to instill in us the hope that we can live
in peace, with honor, and it is entirely artficial.
   To argue that you have a particular right or even a whole suite of
rights is to miss the point entirely. The myth of rights exists to
sustain civilization. But if all rights are granted the effect is the
same as anarchy; some rights must be withheld if civilization is to
continue. Which rights are granted and which are withheld doesn't
really matter; it's entirely arbitrary. What counts is that rights not
be disbursed too generously.
   You do NOT have any right to life, you have instead the assurance
that the police power of the State will punish those who violate the
law - that the law is violated at your expense is beside the point. It
isn't you that's been offended but rather the Law. The Law is all
we've got to hold us together while our very nature seeks to tear us
apart. 
   Those who don't respect the law (at least in concept) are either
sociopaths, or are so naive that they believe that human nature is, by
nature, benign. The whole mechanism of law, rights, morality, etc.,
exists to both create and preserve the illusion of Man, The Crown of
Creation, while, at the same time, repressing the drive toward
self-destruction. These endless, tedious claims about rights are so
tiresome and dreary. Not only are they specious in their detail, they
completetly miss the whole point.
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