re: #136 buzzsawmonkey

I respect your difference of opinion, but I submit that since our civil rights were designed for the purpose of protecting us against the government—i.e., those “negative rights” about which our current President has spoken so dismissively—they leave all other human endeavor not impinged upon by a government of limited powers up to the individual.

The Constitution, in other words, assumes that people will be completely free—except where the government is permitted to deploy its limited powers. With that limitation, there is—or should be—no need to worry at all about “human rights”, because people are their own masters.

Human rights inevitably mandate that the government shall interfere in people’s lives, either to discover what they lack and provide it, or discover what they have and take it for the purpose of providing for others. Civil rights, which armor the citizen against the government, do not do this.

“Human rights” means:

Granting rights to some people by taking away rights from other people.

You are right that in a totally free society, there is no need for human rights, because we already reserve all rights for each person.

As soon as you hear the phrase “human rights,” you know that a governmental body is going to reward someone at the expense of someone else. Hence, it should be appropriately be called “Redistribution of rights.”