but take it one step further: a right is an entitlement of an individual, and may be inalienable--that is to say, inherent to the individual and not subject to forfeiture, infringment, transfer, or removal--so a violation of a right is also a violation of an individual.
The classic inalienable rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Taking any of these from an individual is also a violation of the individual. Take a man's life, he dies--an obvious violation of the individual. Take his liberty, and he languishes, in prison or as a slave. This, too, is a fairly apparent infringement upon and denial of his individuality. Remove from him his desire to pursue happiness (if it is at all possible to do so), and he goes insane.
Further, it can be argued that even the slave or the prisoner is still free--free in his thoughts, if naught else. It can be argued that taking any of these inalienable rights while leaving a person is not actually possible. Take a life, and one is left with a corpse, not a human. Take freedom? Take our inate urge to find happiness? How, if one cannot chain thoughts?
This is not to say that a society cannot find ways to limit those inalienable rights in an individual--even to take them away and thus destroy the individual--but doing so is a violation of the individual, and, as tallastro points out, a violation of the core values of the society that claims to honor individual rights. Whether it is necessary and justified to do so can be a matter of law.
Beyond the inalienable rights, are the civil rights--those rights accorded to individuals by society and codified in the society's body of law. Civil rights only exist within the framework of society, for society is necessary to protect them. But, as with the inalienable rights, civil rights express the core values of the society, and so failure to honor them is a violation of the society's values, and, if it is to be justified, must be formally declared and done in accord with strict procedure of law.
If a right is a privelege--a "private law" as already described--then the society is inequitous; rights are to be conveyed equally to all sane and competent members of a just and equitable society (and, if an individual's sanity or competence is to be called into question, then, again, these limits must be codified and the revokation of the tacit assumption of an individual's competence to handle his own affairs must be done by formal procedure). The distinction between a right and a privelege is, that a privelege is only available to a select few members of a society, may be earned, may be revoked and is not an expression of a core value of the society. A license to drive, for example, is a privelege, not a right. A person wishing to obtain such a license must demonstrate that he possesses the knowledge and skills to handle an automobile in accord with traffic law and signs and signals designed to maintain the safe flow of traffic. The license can be revoked, if need be. And not everyone is automatically entitled to drive.
I'll take things two steps further, yet, and assert that, while inalienable rights are inherent and inborn to an individual, an individual's personal development can have a strong impact on how that individual is allowed to pursue those rights as well as his civil rights; a child may indeed be free and may be able to pursue his own happiness, but only under the guidance and responsibility of his parents--he is not yet ready to fend for himself. Similarly, since he is not yet ready to fend for himself, his competence at managing his own affairs is automatically in question, and so his civil rights, such as the ability to own property and to enter into contracts, may be significantly curtailed until he attains the age of majority or demonstrates his willingness and readiness to accept the responsibilities of adulthood.
Then there are the inalienable rights of animals. Wild animals are born with the same inalienable rights as humans, but with Nature impinging upon those rights. A rabbit is free to live, for example, but so is the hungry fox that catches said rabbit. Brutal existence cannot protect individuals' rights as well as societies can. Domestic animals, on the other hand, gain the benefits of protection and care from their human masters, but at the cost of their freedoms; they trade the inalienable right to their free brutal lives for sheltered lives in which their human masters choose for them. |
