NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #3/NN_1993_3.iso/spool/ca/environm/1215

Text File | 1993-01-25 | 3.1 KB | 69 lines

Newsgroups: ca.environment
Path: sparky!uunet!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jato!quake!brian
From: [e-mail] (Brian K. Yoder)
Subject: Re: Plastic Recycling and little reality
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Organization: Quake Public Access
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 13:58:44 GMT
Lines: 58

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Michael Smith) writes:
>>In article <[e-mail]>
>> [e-mail] (Brian K. Yoder) writes:
>>>Why?  Because you don't believe that property rights are unalienable?  ...

>What are they teaching in high-school civics these days? It's precisely
>property, and one's rights in it, that *are* "alienable".

I should ask the same question.  The central idea behind the theory of
individual rights is that there are certain areas where individuals need to have
sovreignty over their own affairs without interference from government
or anyone else.  Individual rights are MORAL ideas which are prior to
evaluations of laws...they are the more fundamental idea on which proper
government is defined in the first place.

Governments can refuse to recognize rights, but they cannot eliminate them.
This is similar to saying that a government may kill someone, but that doesn╒t
make it morally acceptable.

> I don't know
>what scriptural text Brian is thinking of here,

I do not think that rights arise from ANY legal document, they arise
from the nature of human beings and the nature of their social
interactions.  My whole point here is that rights cannot be eliminated
merely by changing some law or ╥scripture╙ any more than a physical
law can be changed by passing a law.

>but of course the most
>famous context in which a list of inalienable (not, I believe,
>"unalienable") rights is enumerated is the Declaration of Independence,
>which has for Americans some moral authority though, of course, no legal
>force;

My point was not that the declaration of independence is the course of
individual rights (indeed, my complaint is that people treat rights as though
they are a product of legislation of some kind).  The declaration DOES
point out that these rights exist, but it is not their source any more than
a physics book is the source of the law of gravity.

>in that list property is conspicuous by its absence, and if
>Jefferson's testimony is to be believed, designedly so.

On the contrary, the terminology ╥pursuit of happiness╙ was originally
intended to be interpreted as the right to property and it╒s enjoyment.
If you look at the way the term was commonly used at the time, it╒s pretty
clear that this is the case (often the primary rights were listed as ╥Life,
liberty, and property╙).  Perhaps you ought to read the writings of the
time more carefully.

Even if nobody at the time believed in the right to own property (an
incredible assertion, no doubt) when the constitution was written,
that would not change the fact that property rights exist and must
be respected regardless of what kind of immoral laws a government
may pass.

--Brian