The Genesis of Human Rights: Hands off by the Government
If we look at the history of human rights, the most significant documents (after the New Testament) are the Magna Carta (written in 1215) and the Declaration of Independence (written in 1776). The main point of these latter two documents is that the people are granted “negative rights”, which is the right of non-action by the government (ex., government shall not...). The effect of this is that the government powers should not extend to restricting (for example): speech, thought, religious practice, gun rights (in some nations), etc... In other words, the foundation of human rights is to not have an all-powerful government, as history has taught us of the tyrannical-nature of an almighty government.
Although the philosophy behind this concept has a sample of 100,000 years of human history that the lust for power by government/leadership has caused great harm to less powerful humans, there are many people today who still continue to desire to be almighty, so they wish to expand the powers and scope of government to legislate human activity and thoughts. They disguise this thirst for power by labeling it as the promotion of “positive rights”, which is to expand the powers of government to be very hands-on in creating and enforcing “human rights” (even if it is total bs). There are too many such examples to mention, so I will only mention some issues that are prime political issues globally today: “altruistic” human trafficking (which is really a nice way to say a population-swap), government benefits, “social just us” preference in employment hiring and University admissions, etc... The foundation of this ideology (besides increasing power and one’s own constituency) is to take from the deserving and/or those who earned it, and to give it to the undeserving and/or those who did not earn it. Stated differently, it allegedly seeks greater equality by “lowering the bar”.
For the purposes of this article, I will not go to deep in analyzing “positive rights”, so I will focus more on the necessity of “negative rights” in the betterment of the human species. Basically, in nature, the strong/smart/athletic/etc... survive, whilst the weak/dumb/unfit/etc... perish. It has been this way since the beginning of life on earth (with dinosaurs, Neanderthals, and humans [up until recent history]). So to strengthen and empower the weak/dumb/unfit requires an all-powerful government to: 1) suppress the strong/smart/athletic, and to 2) attempt to strengthen/smarten the unfit. To do this, it requires an expansive and violent government to take (steal) from the fit, and to give to the unfit. But the last 55+ years of the welfare State has shown us that giving to the unfit results in failure; in fact, it makes things worse due to the expectation of free everything, thus there is zero incentive to improve one’s self. So if we only had negative rights, then people would have to “swim or die” (in other words, become “fit for purpose” or perish). Those who become “fit for purpose” will survive (and possibly flourish).
Individual failure is a part of life history (for both dinosaurs and humans, and everything in between). The bleeding-hearts (and the power-hungry) will both argue that there is no benefit for only negative rights since it allows harm to be caused upon some people. They argue that human life is precious, and that every human has a purpose in life, so we must preserve it, and we cannot stand by and allow people to perish. And I do partially agree with that statement; every person in fact does have a purpose in life. And many times, a person’s sole purpose in life is to serve as warning to others for the making of bad choices (ex., drowning when sailing across the Mediterranean, or starving to death because of refusing to work). And if we remove the negative consequence for the making of bad decisions, then there will be zero incentive to make good decisions. How does that improve the human species?
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