Oops! Did I just mis-type the title of this article? What
I meant to call it was "More on Rights" because I write
about rights a lot—and I would never suggest that people who don't agree with
me about the subject are morons!
Okay, now that I've gotten that bit of sarcasm out of the
way I can write a very serious article about the definition of rights. It frequently
crosses my mind when I talk with liberals that what they understand rights to
be is drastically different than what I understand them to be. I guess for
future reference I could qualify their concept of rights with some descriptive
and colorful adjective to separate it from what I mean, just for the sake of
clarity. So I guess I'll call them...hmmm...okay, "moron rights."
That works well enough.
I don't mind paying taxes for things like the military,
police and even things such as roads as long as the money is used with expected
efficiency. I can use those things and benefit from them, as does the rest of
the society. The kinds of taxes I don't like paying is anything that comes from
me, because it is somehow their "right" to receive my money, and
spend it on something that benefits only them.
I was talking with one of my more respected liberal
friends the other day and have a bit of the conversation sticking in my mind.
She said she didn't mind paying taxes that go to the benefit of other people
for things like healthcare and welfare and the like.
Okay. Far be it from me to tell people what they should
or shouldn't mind. I've read enough about slavery in the American South to know
that some people didn't mind being slaves either. The point is, I think, that
whether you mind it or not, you still don't have a choice.
Anyway, their "right" to receive my money and
spend it on themselves for things like food, housing and healthcare, is a
leftist concept of rights which I will now separate into a different class. "Moron
rights." Now I have to be clear what I'm talking about here. Food, housing
and healthcare are rights, if subjected only to my choice and I pay for them myself. That's not what they are
talking about though. They are talking about using my money for their food,
housing and healthcare as being their
right. I suppose I could call them something more politically correct like,
"grossly misunderstood rights," but that doesn't exactly flow from
the tongue. It's not a very good pun either.
Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence said,
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that
among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure
these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers
from the consent of the governed, ...."
So why is there so much contention on the simple subject
of rights?
The problem for this country begins with how liberals have re-defined the words of
Thomas Jefferson.
