A Right is a Responsibility One is born with rights as one is born with hands and feet. Not a single one them can be separated from us, or we the cripple the whole. But if we look very closely of what a right is, in action, after it leaves the surface of parchments, is what kind of action we choose from that right. A choice we make. So isnt it surprising then, that being born with a right is a circumstance over which you have no control, which exposes us to an uncomfortable (rhetorical) paradox. Does our possession or ownership of that right, like our hands and feet, obtained without our consent, then nullify the validity and authority of that right? And if thats true then by what right do we nullify that which we technically do not possess? While we ponder a way to resolve the paradox, lets look at responsibility. Does having a right, assuming you have one, also mean that you have the right to choose precisely what youre going to be responsible for, and to whom, and under what terms? Im going to argue yes. Because the flip side, is that someone else chooses for you. And we all know that central planners, totalitarians, statists -whatever you want to call them - proceed from the idea, that they forge into a warrant, to serve you with the claim that your rights do not exist, and neither does your capacity to freely exercise them. To be responsible. Does this help illustrate that rights are responsibilities? No? Lets look at the form of the Bill of Rights. Isnt it really saying that the People, individually, are going to be exclusively responsible for actually speaking, when? where? about what? and to whom? or whether alone or assembled? (among many other rights) By restraining the government from infringing upon them? By preventing them from being both the censor and the only speaker? If you read the Bill of Rights, I suggest that were really reading a list that says, because our powers are delegated to you, we restrain you from infringing on the following, because we reserve the responsibility for living only our own version of our lives and not your version of it. The Bill of Rights tells us who reserves responsibility (the People), and who is denied responsibility (government), for carrying out the human work, all of the decisions and choices, that makes up the fabric of the society living upon those separations and foundations so established. And so how do we resolve the rhetorical paradox of not having given permission to receive the rights that were born with, that we then insist on exercising to make decisions and choices on our own without interference? By exercising them, since rights are not abstractions. They are verbs. You see rights, like the limbs your born with, are part of your inheritance from the original inalienable endowment referred to in the Declaration. In the case of limbs, without them you couldnt walk. In the case of rights, without them, youd be livestock. Just read Frederick Douglas letter to his former master for some insights on that. And to believe that all things require your permission is to presume that all things are smaller than you, when in fact the most important ones loom quite large and transcendent, even long before your heart begins to beat in the womb. Rights are the kind of thing that are rooted in the brain, the mind, the soul... the heart. Along with your limbs, and your mind and that heart, they have to be categorized gifts without which, the one would be crippled, along with the whole. Further, ones parents holds these rights in trust for you. Which makes you wonder why more are not more mindful and thankful for both rights and parents. So then, through the eyes of us all, as beneficiaries, the Bill of Rights is a trust that says to our government youre not allowed to do this to us. And what that means is that when you inherit that from the us, that says theyre not allowed to do it, then you have the responsibility to it yourself, as you would do it, and not them. And what an outstanding privilege it is to have both responsibilities - of living free through them, and then passing them on.
Posted on: Wed, 19 Mar 2014 21:09:30 +0000
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