Government: You No Longer Have a Right to Breathe
A quick dip in the pool of natural law for #MemeMonday
Today’s a one-meme day.
You’re not supposed to have to explain memes. That’s part of their power. Memes that aren’t sufficiently cogent or pithy just don’t work.
So, please let me know—did you get this one? Without having to think about it too much?
For those who didn’t, here’s the rub:
Some people believe that rights are not natural. They believe that preexistent, inalienable rights do not exist, and that the only source of “rights” is some sort of government grant—that you only have a right if a government says you do.
Usually, this belief is the province of statists and moral relativists. Unfortunately, some in the freedom movement also hold this view, or some variant thereof. The reasons vary…
Some don’t like their abstractness. A right cannot be framed, put on a shelf, or measured with a ruler.
Some are convinced by Hume’s argument that you cannot derive an OUGHT from an IS.
Some presume that for a right to exist, it must behave like a magic force field. Rights do not repel violations like the Enterprise’s shields fending off photon torpedos; therefore, all we have in this life is force and counterforce. Your ‘right’ is only as good as the force you can muster in its defense.
There is truth in all of these.
Rights are abstract concepts.
But then, why are we okay with the reality of other abstract concepts—love, for example—but not rights?
The gap from IS to OUGHT is a hard one to bridge logically.
But then, where do we derive our oughts from, if not from what IS? From what ISN’T? Perhaps the real problem here is in what the word “natural” really means.
If another person chooses not to respect your rights, then you will need to use force in response.
This is correct. Of course, holding this view alone kinda puts you in the Voldemort camp: “There is no good and evil—only power, and those too weak to seek it.”
There are a lot of ways to justify why rights are natural, preexistent, and (morally) inalienable. Indeed, I spend about 30,000 words, across three chapters, doing so in my book of the same title as this Substack. Indeed, those very installments are coming out now.
But for now, I just want to focus on a pro-natural-rights argument made by a wise commenter. (I won’t mention his name because he generally avoids the limelight.)
He said,
I find it odd to think that perfect natural rights (the kind mentioned in the Declaration of Independence), which are principles of justice discernible by reason, don't exist, but that the votes of a majority of the members of a legislative body can create rights (not merely laws) out of thin air. That strikes me as magical thinking.
That’s really good. Opponents of natural rights theory often accuse us of “magical thinking.” But what is the real magical thinking?
Observing nature, inducing principles, and reasoning to logical moral conclusions using those principles?
Or…
Saying that that is impossible, but that government agents can create rights out of thin air.
This commenter further reinforced the idea with this:
Anyone who claims all rights come only from government must concede that he or she has no right not granted by government, such as the right to breathe.
As far as I am concerned, that is the mic drop right there.
If rights come from government and government repeals the right to breathe, then you no longer have the right to breathe.
Is that really where you want to hang your hat?
Consider this fictional but illustrative moment in an episode of the television program Highlander…
Immortal Duncan MacLeod washes up on the shore of late eighteenth-century Japan and is saved by a samurai. The Shogun has decreed the death of all gaijin, however, so for saving MacLeod, the samurai is condemned to death. Stoically, he says, “If my lord chooses to have me die, that is his right.”
If that is how you want to roll, feel free.
Just don’t try to get me to live under the same system as you. My rights inhere to me as an ineluctable fact of my very existence. Yes, I have to defend them. But that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
I have a right to breathe, no matter what anyone says.
And so do you.
This isn't hyperbole. Carbon credits. What corporations trade with one another for the "right" to produce carbon above a specified allotment. If some corporations produce more they must "offset" their carbon footprint by purchasing carbon credits from another corporation that doesn't use all of its allotment. Even large agriculture operations are subject to carbon credits. And methane has been identified as a greenhouse gas that should be regulated. Cow "farts." So this concept applies to living entities, not just machine carbon footprints. Europe is slaughtering herds and reducing food supplies because of the carbon footprint the operations produce. Even crops are being destroyed.
And some have proposed that large carbon producers, like those with multiple mansions, cars, jets, yachts, etc would have to purchase carbon credits to offset their production.
This sets the framework for regulating the production of carbon by humans. It's not a stretch to move to regulate the production of carbon on the individual level, not just for the wealthy with larger carbon footprints than average.
Of course the wealthy can afford to purchase, trade carbon credits. Those who make choices in life pursuits who aren't especially wealthy may become targets for "excessive carbon production." Either pay up or make different choices that diminish the quality of life and enjoyment of the individual.
Fifteen-minute cities are an attempt at this via other means. Sets the predicate to tax/fine carbon producers. And once a threshold is established and accepted it becomes easy to adjust that threshold down. The ratchet effect. Until the very act of breathing becomes subject to taxation, fines. Of course, the wealthy could pay that. The poor and middle classes become contained in a virtual prison. Breathing the very minimum to live. A privilege granted by the state, not a Natural right.
One day we could see this reduction in quality of life exploited by the transhuman/digital avatar version of "life" proponents. "You want to live large, all your dreams, eat steak, travel on a budget because you can't afford to pay for the carbon tax/fines that involves? Try downloading your consciousness into a digital avatar." Live as large a life as you wish via virtual existence. Matrix-like. And like the character Cypher, many will choose the easiest option of virtual life because their real lives are so miserable they can't bear it anymore.
Because the natural right to breathe becomes a regulated privilege, not a right. At least not above a bare minimum amount that allows for no enjoyment of life above government-approved privileges.
This is not hyperbole. This is the trajectory of technology and what the anti-human depopulation "elite" want for us. To save the planet, of course. A greater good than your Natural right to breathe.
Breathers: You aren't a government, you don't derive your powers from the consent of the governed.
Tyrants: Stop breathing!