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"A comprehensive, collaborative elections resource."
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Know Your Rights
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| Contributor | None Entered |
| Last Edited | None Entered Jun 24, 2005 06:41am |
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| Category | Analysis |
| News Date | Thursday, May 13, 2004 06:00:00 AM UTC0:0 |
| Description | "Know your rights."
What American hasn't heard that imperative, repeated ad nauseam by government agencies and ambulance-chasing lawyers, both professing to protect individual citizens from evil businessmen?
On the other hand, what American knows what his rights really are? According to the federal and state governments, Americans have the right to food, clothing, health care, education, housing, telephone service, and even Internet access! Who can keep up with all of the new "rights" our elected officials invent for us every year?
Let's consider what a right really is. According to Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, a right is "something to which one has a just claim." Thomas Jefferson famously delineated man's "inalienable Rights" as "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." Jefferson 's formulation seems about right, for the "inalienable Rights" he listed also have the unique quality that they can be enjoyed by all simultaneously. That is, for me to exercise my right to life, no one else is required to die, although it is possible that someone might willingly give up his life to save mine. For me to be free, no one else must be in bondage. For me to engage in the pursuit of happiness, which might best be understood as making use of my person and property in such a way as to maximize my possibility of happiness (and which understanding seems appropriate given that Jefferson's enumeration of rights was based on that of John Locke, who wrote "property" rather than "the pursuit of Happiness"), no one else must forgo his own pursuit of happiness. In short, a right is something to which everyone has a just claim which he may exercise without denying the same just claim to others. |
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