Eric Peters examines the concept of rights. From Peters on a guest post at theburningplatform.com:
This business of varying rights – based on what’s between your legs (or where you put what’s between your legs or what gets put into what’s between your legs) or the color of your skin or some other characteristic… it’s like exchanging Pesos for dollars – but vicious because it devalues human beings.
Gay rights, women’s rights.
Rights for people “of color” (the translucent ones had better shut up and sit down).
Rights for the “differently abled.”
Rights defined by the “community” – the collective – you’re (supposedly) a member of.
These aren’t rights. They are grievances. A demand – based on group identification – that a need must be serviced. For example, the “transgendered” asserting their “right” to access the bathroom of their choosing. Notice that this supposed “right” imposes an obligation on others to provide a material benefit. This is a clue that the “right” being asserted is in fact a wrong.
A good way to make sense of rights – real ones – is to view them from an economic perspective. As a species of property.
As a function of ownership.
We can start with a proposition that’s pretty self-evident: We each own ourselves exclusively. Our physical bodies are our property. Who else can lay claim to ourselves? (Possibly, God – if such a being exists. But whether he does – or does not – the point is that other people aren’t god. And other people don’t become gods by becoming government officials.)
To continue reading: Our Right to Ourselves
