United States News
See other United States News Articles
Title: Our Right to Ourselves
Source:
Eric Peters Autos
URL Source: http://ericpetersautos.com/2016/12/07/our-right-to-ourselves/
Published: Dec 7, 2016
Author: Eric
Post Date: 2016-12-08 10:12:38 by Deckard
Keywords: None
Views: 1415
Comments: 18
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 allow even fractional ownership of ourselves by another person is to allow a degree of slavery – which is defined by physical ownership of another person; which is defined by having the power to control that person’s body, or the products of that person’s body. By having the power to direct (or constrain) his acts. By having the power to make him work for your benefit, contrary to his will. To take from him that which was created by his body or produced by his mind. When we speak of rights, then, we are really speaking of being able to use our property – that is, ourselves. And to not be forced to use our property for the material benefit of other people. Thus, I have the right to use my body to do physical work – such as build a structure. Or use my mind to produce the wealth necessary to pay others to do that work for me using their bodies. No one’s rights have been violated – no slavery is involved – because each person is freely using (or bartering the use of) their own property – their bodies, their minds – toward an object each wishes to see realized. Nothing has been taken from anyone. Along comes the aggrieved “transgendered.” Rather than use his (her?) body/mind and resources to erect a structure in which there is a bathroom open to all, regardless of sexual equipment or “identity,” he/she demands that a structure be provided by others, who must use their bodies and minds and the resources that flow from these things, to provide it for him/her. That is slavery. Someone’s else’s property has been hijacked. Their rights have been abused. The transgendered person’s feelings may have been hurt when he/she is told that the Men’s room is the Men’s room and the Ladies’ room is the Ladies’ room. But his/her rights have not been violated. The same goes for the “differently abled” person who cannot easily access a hot dog stand because there is no ramp or lift. The hot dog stand is the property of another person and unless the “differently abled” person acquires (freely) an ownership stake in the hot dog stand, his rights are limited to expressing to the owner that it would be really nice if there were a ramp or a lift. His impairment does not impose an obligation on the owner to accommodate the “differently abled” person’s disability, which means – accept the yoke of slavery, to whatever degree, to provide a material benefit against his will to another person (“differently abled” or not). We each have a right to speak and to write, to express our views – whatever those views may be. This is another manifestation of property rights. Our minds – each one uniquely ours – produce thought, which finds tangible expression in the spoken and written word, or through the art and so on we each create. No other person creates these things and so no other person can lay claim to these things. This includes suppressing these things. That is a variant of the “transgendered” person asserting the “right” to force another person to provide him/her with a bathroom and to lay down the terms and conditions of its use. If another person can tell you what you may (or may not) say or write, they asserting control over your mind (and your pen), which is to say, over your property. Again, slavery. The antithesis of rights. Like Occam’s Razor, this can be applied to almost any question, to separate a right from a demand. Is there a “right” to health care? Only if you take the position that you have the “right” to compel other people to provide it for you. In other words, to enslave them. Do you have the right to possess a firearm? Of course, provided you’ve used your own resources – the wealth created by your body/mind – to purchase the firearm. You certainly have the right to defend your self. To resist being denied the use of your body – or to ward off a physical threat to your body. To your property. Once again, to claim otherwise is to argue, openly or not, that you do not have a right to yourself; that others have an ownership stake in your person. In your literal corpus delicti. Which brings us right back to slavery – the anti-matter opposite of rights. Being sympathetic toward another person who is less fortunate is laudable; choosing to help others using your own time and resources (that is, your own property) is commendable. Electing to do business with other people or accommodate their needs to the degree you wish – all within you right to do so. Forcing other people to “help,” or to do business with you – or to accommodate you on their nickel – is a violation of their rights. It’s simple economics. And while God (if he exists) may approve, his approval isn’t necessary to make the case. We either each own ourselves – or other people have joint stock interest in ourselves. Have somehow acquired a piece of us, without our ever having agreed to the deal or even being presented with a contract to sign. We are enslaved – to whatever degree – merely because these other people say so. Maybe it’s time we said something different.
Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
#1. To: Deckard (#0)
Nothing has been taken from anyone. Nothing wrong with that. But that isn't just libertarians that believe that. It is the stupid things that libertarians believe that is the problem Like legalizing heroin. It is their amorality. Both Satan and libertarians say do what thou wilt.
Right...because the War on Drugs has been sooooo successful at stemming the use of drugs in the United States. Maybe it's time we tried a different approach. Portugal decriminalised drugs 14 years ago – and now hardly anyone dies from overdosing Well, we're living in land that is not ours. And we're subject, therefore, to the rules of the owner of that land, just as anybody in our house is subject to our rules of the house. That is why the government can indeed legitimately impose laws on us: the government gained this land for us. We did not. Individuals did not take and hold this land. Not any of it. It was all captured in war or purchased in peace by the United States government. And therefore, the United States government is the ultimately, primary, sovereign owner. It has permitted it to be subdivided, and a right of occupancy, always subject to its prior superior claim, has been granted to you through a land sale. You bought a right of occupancy of the sovereign's land. He did not sell you his sovereign rule over that land, however, and he still retains it. You are free to do as you please, completely, but you are subject to the rules of the landowner. And the government is the ultimate sovereign landowner of all of the land in this nation, because the government won it. You didn't. The government sold it, but it only sold PARTIAL rights in it. It did not sell you the sovereignty, and so you do not have the sovereignty over what is ultimately the government's land. The government CAN take back the land, through eminent domain, and the government can always set ITS rules over ALL of its land, including in your house. That is why you cannot kill somebody in your basement for fun without the government sending its soldiers in to get you. You are a privileged landholder, but you are NOT the sovereign over that land - the government is - and the government has set a rule that nobody can kill anybody else for fun anywhere on any of its land. Because you don't own the sovereign right over the land, you can't do on that land what the owner of the sovereign right has not sold you the right to. You have to follow the landowner's rules, and the landowner of America is the government. You are not a slave. You are free to leave this "plantation" if you don't like the landowner's rules, and go live on somebody else's land. Antarctica belongs to NO sovereign by international convention, so you can go live there unbound by a sovereign's superior claim to regulate you because you are on his land. But if you stay here, you are not free to do whatever you want, because you are in somebody else's house, and in somebody else's house you have to follow the house rules. That's why the government can legitimately rule over you. You're not a slave, because you're free to leave. If you choose to stay, you're in somebody else's land, and you have to follow the rules of that land. Your personal liberty does not mean you get to set the rules over somebody else's land. You don't. The owner of all of the land here has decided that everybody in the land has to chip in for poverty relief, to "help". You don't like that. It is not a violation of your rights. You do not have the right to be in this land. You are permitted to be here because the sovereign of the land recognizes you as somebody who is permitted to be here. That means you have to follow his rules if you want to stay. And he says that a price of staying here is that all of the tenants have to contribute to the basic well being of all. If you don't like that, your rights are not being violated. You simply don't like the house rules. So move to another house. You have no right to live in somebody else's house but disregard the house rules. You did not win America, you did not buy America. The government did. The government, as ultimate owner, has the legitimate right to set the house rules. You don't have the right to live in the house and disregard the house rules. It's not YOUR land. It's not YOUR house. You have been granted a fief in the sovereign's land. You are not the sovereign, and he didn't sell you the sovereignty over the land. You're claiming a sovereignty you never won by conquest nor bought with money. You're trying to claim a right to steal what doesn't belong to you: sovereignty in this land. You can't - you are not strong enough to conquer it, and you're not rich enough to buy it, and you're not powerful enough to have sovereign immunity in it. Which means that you're wrong: you DO have the moral duty to pay for welfare, because you have chosen to remain on THIS sovereign's land, and THIS sovereign has set that as a rule for his land. You don't like it, but your complaint is that of the tenant who doesn't want to respect his lease, not the claim of a freeholder whose rights are being violated. You do not have the right to live in America without paying for welfare - that's a condition of the lease. Don't like it? Leave this land and take up residency in one that doesn't have welfare. The sovereign here does not claim the right to prevent you from leaving. He merely claims the right to establish rules over this land. When you're in his house, you follow his rules.
Maybe it's time we tried a different approach. There will always be drug users. That doesn't mean we should give those people up do a desperate life of addiction. There are laws against theft. It isn't working people still steal. There is a law against murder in Chicago. Maybe Chicago should give up the war against murder, and just make it legal. Look I believe in God. He said don't do drugs.
If you do not like this landlord's rules for his house, move to another landlord. Like Portugal.
Come on dude. Individuals did it.
So since Hitler was the landlord the Jews were shit out of luck and they should have transported themselves to the gas chambers. Got ya.
I guess you were trying to make a point. I think what you said is nuts for the most part.
No they did not. The Virginia Company and the Puritans all came over with Royal Charter. The King PERMITTED them to settle land HE claimed. The British colonies were Crown lands, not individual land. People settled there, and were regularized, and the Crown permitted them to establish farms, but subject to law. The King did not voluntarily surrender his ownership of America. And individuals did not take this land. We had to fight the British, and we did that as an ARMY, under the command of a government officer, George Washington. Individuals sniping did not drive the British from this land - far from it. It was the surrender of two British armies to two United States armies that ended the war. The United States then took over the sovereignty of the land. Individuals did NOT liberate the United States. Armies did - armies of men under the command of the government. A government was required to field armies and arm them, and the government's armies won the colonies from the British crown. Individuals did not win this land. Florida and the Midwest were PURCHASED from Spain and France, respectively, by the United States government. That was US Territory with the government SOLD to individuals. Individuals did not take that land. The government took it and opened it to settlement. The Southwest was taken by the government, in war with Mexico, and then purchased in two pieces. Individuals did not take the Southwest. The government conquered it and bought it, and then sold pieces to individuals. Individuals did not defeat the Indians, the Federal cavalry did. The government purchased Russia from Alaska. The government occupied Hawaii. The United States was obtained by the action of the United States government, which then either sold the land to individuals in territories, or left some of them in possession of the land after the British were driven out by the government's armies. However, Tories, British loyalists, were driven from the land and their land was seized. The land of the United States was obtained by government, and the government is the legitimate sovereign, by conquest and purchase, of every scrap of it. Individuals hold title which is recognized by the government, but individuals did not claim this land and form a government. The land was first secured by the government - if not the US government, then the British, Spanish, French and Russian governments before. And where the Indians did not agree, it was the US government that defeated them. When individuals fought the Indian tribes, the individuals were massacred. It took the US government to defeat the tribes. America's land was first obtained by a government, and then by the US government. And the people hold that land in fee from the government, not as original sovereigns. That's the truth.
Nope. Because governments hold their land in fief from God, and God has set limits on what any men, including kings, can do. God prohibits men from killing other men, except as justice for bloodshed. The Jews did not shed German blood. Therefore, the German government had no right to kill and enslave and oppress them. By doing so, they broke God's law. And God has ordained that he who sheds man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed. Hitler led the Germans to shed men's blood, not as punishment for shedding blood but out of hatred and the desire to dominate. And so divine justice was meted out on the Germans by the Americans and the British, the French and the Dutch and the Belgians and the Russians, and Serbs and Greeks and Poles and all of the other people who fought them and eventually drove them back, with much slaughter. God did not give sovereigns the authority to to kill people at will. They may execute killers and practice armed defense, nothing more.
Well said. So few understand that.
Well said. So few understand that. And sovereigns are themselves limited by God's law, the key part of which is that men - including sovereigns - are forbidden to shed men's blood except in adjudicated punishment for the shedding of blood by those men. So, sovereigns can kill killers, either individually through the courts, or by armed resistance and punishment to aggressors (it would be legitimate for nations to overthrow Kim Jong Un's government, because they purposely starve millions of our fellow men to death), but beyond that, sovereigns cannot kill. That's why Kim can be legitimately overthrown by other sovereigns: he kills people, in large numbers, who are not guilty of killing and who are not invading anybody. Sovereigns do not have the right to kill people to suppress ideas. Muslim rulers have the right to proclaim Islam only in their countries - it's an abuse of sovereignty, but it is not a death penalty offense that authorizes other sovereigns to make war upon them - but they don't have the right to execute Christians for proselytization, no matter how many times they offend. They can expel the Christians, but they cannot shed their blood. God's law is very limitative of sovereigns. It means that they cannot kill their own people in order to enforce their laws, only as punishment for killing people. Of course, if people don't understand that we hold the land in fee from the government, governments and people REALLY don't understand how limited they are by God's law from using violence to enforce human law. A simple traffic stop in America can turn into a murder by the police for "non-compliance". Sovereigns do not have the right to kill people for disobeying the law. Most don't know that.
In a free society, social and economic interactions occur only on the basis of mutual agreement between participating parties.
But that's not what's happening. Tenants are being forced to contribute to the well being of some.
Thank you for staying on topic. I agree American lost its mind when it took the locks off the mental health hospitals that also served the severe alcoholic, and drug addicted. If a society is to decriminalize, then impose civil treatment, there MUST be a way to incarcerate on a judgement of societal and personal need. If I had my preferences, all welfare, medical, food stamps, and Federal assistance would be eliminated. That would lead to the States doing the same, or shouldering the burden alone. People must be allowed to rise/fall, succeed/fail,and live or die on their own efforts. Decriminalization depends totally on freedom to fail. If an addict can support his life without harming others, he should be left alone. If an addict resorts to stealing or dealing drugs to others to support his life, he must be jailed for significant periods of time. I would think 10+ years, with some sort of sentence abeyance if treatment is successful for a period of years. A clean record for clean living after 2 years of once a week tests without failure. Once a month tests monthly after that for a year. Failure results in prison with no hope of early release. Exercising rights is only radical to two people, Tyrants and Slaves. Which are YOU? Our ignorance has driven us into slavery and we do not recognize it.
Reagan shut those hospitals to save money.
Reagan complied with a law requiring the release of the patients, that is a big difference.
Exercising rights is only radical to two people, Tyrants and Slaves. Which are YOU? Our ignorance has driven us into slavery and we do not recognize it.
Thus, I have the right to use my body to do physical work – such as build a structure. Or use my mind to produce the wealth necessary to pay others to do that work for me using their bodies. No one’s rights have been violated – no slavery is involved – because each person is freely using (or bartering the use of) their own property – their bodies, their minds – toward an object each wishes to see realized.
#2. To: A K A Stone (#1)
Like legalizing heroin.
“Truth is treason in the empire of lies.” - Ron Paul
"America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards."
#3. To: Deckard (#0)
Forcing other people to “help,” or to do business with you – or to accommodate you on their nickel – is a violation of their rights.
#4. To: Deckard (#2)
Like legalizing heroin. Right...because the War on Drugs has been sooooo successful at stemming the use of drugs in the United States.
#5. To: Deckard (#2)
#6. To: Vicomte13 (#3)
he government gained this land for us. We did not.
#7. To: Vicomte13 (#3)
but you are subject to the rules of the landowner. And the government is the ultimate sovereign landowner
#8. To: Vicomte13 (#3)
#9. To: A K A Stone (#6)
(Edited)
Come on dude. Individuals did it.
#10. To: A K A Stone (#7)
So since Hitler was the landlord the Jews were shit out of luck and they should have transported themselves to the gas chambers. Got ya.
#11. To: Vicomte13 (#9)
And the people hold that land in fee from the government, not as original sovereigns.
#12. To: Roscoe (#11)
And the people hold that land in fee from the government, not as original sovereigns.
#13. To: Deckard (#0)
#14. To: Vicomte13 (#3)
"And he says that a price of staying here is that all of the tenants have to contribute to the basic well being of all."
#15. To: rlk (#13)
In a free society, social and economic interactions occur only on the basis of mutual agreement between participating parties.
“Truth is treason in the empire of lies.” - Ron Paul
"America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards."
#16. To: Deckard (#2)
#17. To: jeremiad (#16)
#18. To: Vicomte13 (#17)
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest
[Home] [Headlines] [Latest Articles] [Latest Comments] [Post] [Mail] [Sign-in] [Setup] [Help] [Register]