This’ll proceed more or less in the vein of On Freedom, comparing original definitions to the current ones, analyzing whether they’re contradictory or not, and then showing why the modern definition, rather than expanding our rights, instead serves to chain us to the rocky morasse of government (I’ve never seen a rocky morasse, but rocks are useful to chain things to, so this metaphorical morasse has rocks in it.)

The Original and Revisionist Definitions of Rights
The original definition:

Every man has a certain sphere of discretion which he has a right to expect shall not be infringed by his neighbours. This right flows from the very nature of man.
–William Godwin (mentor of the Romantic Poets and father of Mary Shelley)

And even more starkly presented:

The right to be let alone is the underlying principle of the Constitution’s Bill of Rights.
–Erwin Griswold

It’s pretty clear from the above that rights can only be taken away under the old understanding. To exist with rights intact is the default state of Man.

The revisionist definition:

“’Freedom from fear’ could be said to sum up the whole philosophy of human rights.”
–Dag Hammarskjold, Former UN General Secretary

I’d encourage you only to visit the following link if you haven’t eaten in a while and dry-retching doesn’t bother you.

More UN Idiocy

Finally, for a good list of what are considered Universal Human Rights by modern standards, look below. In addition to the earlier warning about possible involuntary regurgitation, I must urge liberty-lovers who are pregnant, have heart conditions, suspected aneurysms, or are predisposed to hemorrhagic stroke not to click on this link to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

What can be seen from the revisionist definition is that, rather than being qualities of a passive nature, rights are dependent upon the active participation of government and other men. Leftists cling to the belief that–as in their stance on positive and negative liberty–actively granted privilege and passively extant rights go hand in hand, seeing no inherent contradiction. However, this contention should immediately strike one as contradictory; the granting of ‘modern’ rights requiring the coercion of others through artificial limitations on behavior, control and redistribution of the individual’s material wealth, and otherwise delineating and circumscribing how one may act beyond such actions that would infringe upon another’s sphere of autonomy.

The Nature of Universal Human Rights
The key to understanding the true nature of human rights is in the word universal. For a definition of human rights to fit that descriptor, they must be omnipresent; they must exist equally no matter where a person finds himself. Whether falling to his death or luxuriating in the tender touch of a tempurpedic matress, man must necessarily retain all of the same rights. Whether there is one dollar in his bank account or one million, the story cannot change. The presence of human rights, then, has nothing to do with the state of one’s physical surroundings or possessions.

Throughout the ages, men have had occasion to find themselves alone, whether intentional as in the case of Henry David Thoreau’s fabled 2 year 2 month 2 day sabbatical on the edge of Walden Pond, or accidental as Robinson Crusoe’s own separation from humanity was. Others choose to live in cities such as Tokyo, with over 5000 people per square kilometer. Thus, if human rights are universal, the hermit alone in his cave must enjoy the same rights as a man walking the streets of New York during rush hour.

The essential point here is that, by their very universality, human rights are context-independent whether from a social or material perspective.

A Critical Analysis of Modern Rights
A look at the modern political climate reveals that the term ‘right’ is applied profligately to what would otherwise be termed privileges. ‘A right to do/have [blank]‘ is applied without justification. It seems enough to imply that no one should not be able to have/do [blank], without explaining how said ‘right’ can be guaranteed without infringing upon the rights of others. ‘Immigrant rights’, right to life, right to choose, right to death, right to maternity leave, right to education. Such terms are bandied about as if simply being born entitles one to all of the basic needs and (especially childishly) wants of life. As quoted above, ‘freedom from fear’–and, as FDR would include–’freedom from want’ adequately sums up the purpose of modern rights.

It is thus interesting that the term ‘universal’ as appended to human rights was first instated by those with a decidedly revisionist outlook, in place of the original ‘inalienable’ as in the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution. It is their very choice of the term ‘Universal’ that directly invalidates the essential ‘right-hood’ of modern rights, showing them instead to be dependent on either social or material context, and thus not universal.

A traverse through the Universal Declaration of Human Rights reveals a startling–but ultimately unsurprising–amount of contradiction and lack of justification. In order to make any headway on the issue whatsoever, one must ignore the a priori assumptions and glaring logical gaps of many of the statements contained within the document and look at each independently (although the above is worthy of study in its own right and will be explored in detail in Part Two of this essay). Of the 30 articles in the document, many, if not most, are found to rely, at a minimum, on the economic contribution of other individuals. Others require restriction in behavior beyond that which directly and negatively affects others (for instance, a ‘right not to feel threatened’ appears in the document). Thus many of the so-called human rights contained therein directly abrogate a man’s original right to be left alone so long as he does no harm to others.

Revisionist rights cannot even exist at the level of the individual; lacking a community to provide such social and material protections, a hermit would lack these so-called ‘rights’. Which thus precludes their omnipresence. Revisionist rights also cannot be maintained without the coercion of others. Because coercion is anathema to liberty–and thus by extension rights–one is left with the conclusion that ‘modern rights’ are neither universal nor properly conceived of as rights. As has been mentioned earlier, they are better thought of as privileges. Privileges are those things society accords individuals which–rather than being ways one can be limited–are means by which an individual’s state of being is enhanced by the deeds and economic contribution of others. Guaranteed privileges (which are what revisionist rights in actuality are) require the enforced participation of other members of society. Therefore, societally-protected privileges by their very nature restrict the right of every member of said community to do as one so chooses.

This concept, that ‘modern rights’ end up constraining the individual rather than enabling him, will be explored in more detail in Part Two.

I’ll leave with a quote from Thomas Jefferson that beautifully encapsulates the fundamental discord between the revisionist and original views:

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.