From: elliott-bruce@CS.YALE.EDU (Bruce Elliott)
Subject: Re: Drug testing and welfare
Organization: Yale University Computer Science Dept., New Haven, CT 06520-2158
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 04:29:01 GMT

In article <6!nm2wh@lynx.unm.edu> baldwin@carina.unm.edu (Chris Baldwin) writes:
>
>	This is patently false, unless you are a fascist. Rights are 
>independent of the legality of an action. You can never have the right
>to unjustly kill someone(i.e. murder) regardless of murder's legal
>status. By the same token, the people under the Stalin's government still
>had the right to free speech, but it was denied them. Now, if you really 
>are a fascist and think that our rights are defined by the government and
>the state should be the final arbiter of what is right then none of this 
>applies. 
>

What?!?  You can't really believe this!  I don't know about you, but when I
was born I wasn't issued a certificate explaining all the rights to which
I was entitled, regardless of what the government says.  There is no such
thing as an "inalienable right", that was just propoganda to get colonists
to support the new American government rather than the UK.  Likewise, the
Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution to get those few crucial votes
needed to ratify.

Human beings are simply our chromosome's way of reproducing themselves.
There is no biological reason why we have a right to free speech, neither
is there a reason why we shouldn't kill other humans.  As indepented, self-
willed beings, we are free attempt to do anything we want, although we may
be prevented by others or by nature from achieving our goals.

We no more have the right to free speech or lack the right to kill others
than we have the right not to be struck by lightning.

Thomas Hobbes said that in a "state of nature" men simply attempt to fulfill
their own needs and desires.  The strongest person around will be able to 
dominate the others, but he may be overcome at any time if someone stronger
comes along.  Life is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."

So in order to make life somewhat more comfortable, people band together
into societies governed by traditions, religious doctrine, and/or     
governmental law.  They give up some of their freedoms in exchange for
protection from those that otherwise might be able to subjugate them.
If the people have decided that there is something they don't want to
be done to them, they will give up their freedom to do it to others so
that others will be punished (either by the government or by a deity)
if they do it to them.  It all boils down to the Golden Rule.
What you call "rights" are just those things that a particular society
has decided to protect.  They are entirely defined by the government
or religion or whatever.

Children, as it turns out, have no sense of right and wrong.  The only
reason they know not to do something is if they know that they will be
punished.  As they get older, they are taught that some actions are
immoral, but this is impressed on them by society.  None of these rights 
are at all intrinsic to humanity.  (See Nietzsche for more on the  
hierarchy of morality.)

Granted, the rules of the society don't always accurately reflect the
wishes of the population.  But a government that is out of synch badly
enough will eventually have to change or die.  Likewise with religions,
although they are somewhat more resistant.

In belonging to a society, you have formed what Hobbes calls a "contract"
with the government where you agree to follow the laws set up by the
government, in return for which the government will punish those who
break the laws.

If you take illegal drugs, you should expect to be punished if caught,
just as you should expect another person to be punished if they kill
your spouse.

In the absence of goverment, that other person has just as much right
to kill your spouse as you have a right to snort cocaine.  Actually, from
a biological viewpoint, the guy killing your spouse is doing better than you
snorting cocaine.  He is eliminating competition from the gene pool.  You
are making it less likely that your own genes will survive to the next
generation.

Alex Elliott
The Lemming.
elliott@minerva.cs.yale.edu