On Human Rights
I formulated this idea almost a year ago, and I have been hesitating to put it onto paper all these tumultuous days, as I always do with topics of utmost importance.
Now, as we are living through the last months of our dying civilization, it seems progressively more inopportune to settle the millennia old philosophic debates.
So it is better be done sooner than later.
Have you noticed that all discussions on the origins of rights invariably devolve into "might make right"?
No matter the political persuasions of the participants.
It does not even require a political belief to see that whatever rights you fancy, they always require some physical implementation.
And the political differences only manifest in determination who and how should implement the stuff.
Skipping all the logical steps already known to you (e.g. you don't have a right if you can not defend it, but if you can defend it you don't need it!),
we end up in two indistinguishably absurd places:
either a govt grants you rights as privileges, or you take them by force as loot -- either way they are no longer RIGHTS!
When you entered the debate you meant something else by "rights", something certainly distinct from violence.
The very existence of rights seem to be boiled down to one's ability to execute these rights.
And, God be my witness, specifically in the days of corona-madness your government proves this point with tremendous ferocity on daily basis!
But If I claim my right to transfer your goods from your backpack to mine, and I can defend this right, do you honestly call this "a right"?
It appears in the course of each such debate we lost (we are continuously losing it as we keep repeating our debates) something very important,
we end up with a self-contradictory "definition" that by any stretch of imagination fails to define the category of "rights".
I offer you a couple illustrations that reveal this lost characteristic property of rights.
The robbery example shows you that the rights we colloquially call "rights" is a FEELING in your brain.
It should not make you dismiss the idea of rights as many, altrighters tend to do (after all those unthinkable violations by governments),
on the contrary, it should make you take the idea of rights very seriously, FEELINGS ARE REAL, they had not evolved for no reason!
Imagine it again, I robbed you, you FEEL it is not right, this is what a healthy man should feel.
And then you feel a right to take revenge, and this is also perfectly healthy.
You return to your family, tell them what happened, what do they do? They first recognize your right to kill me.
A very important regulatory feedback loop is born, and it is founded on a feeling of human rights that is shared by people.
Rights are not hanging in vacuum of philosophy they physically govern behaviour of real people.
I have bought a house in a village. The previous owner of the property introduced me to the neighbours and named me the new owner.
When a stranger asks: "whose are these fields", anyone in the neighbourhood knows the right answer.
And they know the answer not from a govt issued certificate, or govt run registry -- they never ever bothered to take a look.
A word from a previously known man was enough for every other man to make me the legal owner.
Do you see it? THEY MADE ME THE OWNER, THE PEOPLE.
And quite physically they did! Once I came home unexpectedly after informing them that I was leaving for the city,
they saw lights in my house and came to check whether It was I -- they came to confront an invader!
They indeed implement my property right, even though in day to day life it is limited to simple recognition of the fact, thanks God.
Of course I have done all proper paperwork, but it turned out to be a very separate issue.
Do you see the radical difference between the perspective of these examples and the perspective of the customary rights debates?
It is not who gives the right TO YOU, it is TO WHOM do you give the rights.
RIGHTS ARE WHAT YOU GIVE.
The moment you claim them they disappear in logical contradiction, the moment you give them they materialize in real life.
You give your neighbours property rights, I give the local store the right to do business, I give work to a truck driver, and give him right to keep it between us.
We give each other the right to live!
Only by giving it away we made it available to all of us.
The act of taking would spell war otherwise.
Naturally, we reserve the right to limit our generosity as we see fit, and we made it our right by sharing this idea.
You can not define rights by taking them,
you are defining rights by giving them.
I rest my case.
Now, as we are living through the last months of our dying civilization, it seems progressively more inopportune to settle the millennia old philosophic debates.
So it is better be done sooner than later.
Have you noticed that all discussions on the origins of rights invariably devolve into "might make right"?
No matter the political persuasions of the participants.
It does not even require a political belief to see that whatever rights you fancy, they always require some physical implementation.
And the political differences only manifest in determination who and how should implement the stuff.
Skipping all the logical steps already known to you (e.g. you don't have a right if you can not defend it, but if you can defend it you don't need it!),
we end up in two indistinguishably absurd places:
either a govt grants you rights as privileges, or you take them by force as loot -- either way they are no longer RIGHTS!
When you entered the debate you meant something else by "rights", something certainly distinct from violence.
The very existence of rights seem to be boiled down to one's ability to execute these rights.
And, God be my witness, specifically in the days of corona-madness your government proves this point with tremendous ferocity on daily basis!
But If I claim my right to transfer your goods from your backpack to mine, and I can defend this right, do you honestly call this "a right"?
It appears in the course of each such debate we lost (we are continuously losing it as we keep repeating our debates) something very important,
we end up with a self-contradictory "definition" that by any stretch of imagination fails to define the category of "rights".
I offer you a couple illustrations that reveal this lost characteristic property of rights.
The robbery example shows you that the rights we colloquially call "rights" is a FEELING in your brain.
It should not make you dismiss the idea of rights as many, altrighters tend to do (after all those unthinkable violations by governments),
on the contrary, it should make you take the idea of rights very seriously, FEELINGS ARE REAL, they had not evolved for no reason!
Imagine it again, I robbed you, you FEEL it is not right, this is what a healthy man should feel.
And then you feel a right to take revenge, and this is also perfectly healthy.
You return to your family, tell them what happened, what do they do? They first recognize your right to kill me.
A very important regulatory feedback loop is born, and it is founded on a feeling of human rights that is shared by people.
Rights are not hanging in vacuum of philosophy they physically govern behaviour of real people.
I have bought a house in a village. The previous owner of the property introduced me to the neighbours and named me the new owner.
When a stranger asks: "whose are these fields", anyone in the neighbourhood knows the right answer.
And they know the answer not from a govt issued certificate, or govt run registry -- they never ever bothered to take a look.
A word from a previously known man was enough for every other man to make me the legal owner.
Do you see it? THEY MADE ME THE OWNER, THE PEOPLE.
And quite physically they did! Once I came home unexpectedly after informing them that I was leaving for the city,
they saw lights in my house and came to check whether It was I -- they came to confront an invader!
They indeed implement my property right, even though in day to day life it is limited to simple recognition of the fact, thanks God.
Of course I have done all proper paperwork, but it turned out to be a very separate issue.
Do you see the radical difference between the perspective of these examples and the perspective of the customary rights debates?
It is not who gives the right TO YOU, it is TO WHOM do you give the rights.
RIGHTS ARE WHAT YOU GIVE.
The moment you claim them they disappear in logical contradiction, the moment you give them they materialize in real life.
You give your neighbours property rights, I give the local store the right to do business, I give work to a truck driver, and give him right to keep it between us.
We give each other the right to live!
Only by giving it away we made it available to all of us.
The act of taking would spell war otherwise.
Naturally, we reserve the right to limit our generosity as we see fit, and we made it our right by sharing this idea.
You can not define rights by taking them,
you are defining rights by giving them.
I rest my case.