Freedom is not based on the ballot box. Democracy it not an end in itself. Rights are! The question is, what are rights?
William R. Thomas explains the nature of rights.
Thursday July 4 we ran a commentary entitled Why Democracy and Equality Are Evil. Well, they aren't evil per se; but these concepts are being used in an inappropriate way. The piece explained why the regime of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt following the Arab Spring was not an outburst of democratic freedom as the Western media and the bien-pensant elites made it out to be.
Freedom is not based on the ballot box. Democracy is not an end in itself. Rights are! The Muslim Brotherhood rode roughshod over the people's rights. That alone makes a government illegitimate by definition. We shall see why.
The question is, what are rights?
Above video explains the nature of rights.
There are three notes attached to watching the video:
1. It omits to mention the origin of rights. They are inherent in man and are therefore inalienable, meaning, no one can take them from you and have a leg to stand on (like the Muslim Brotherhood, or any other type of governance that doesn't respect man's inherent rights).
If you believe in God, it isn't hard to see rights as gifts from God. Others will have to make an extra effort to understand rights by philosophic means: rights come from the nature of man. Man needs the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of property (or happiness) because he must be free to act in accordance with his wits, in order to survive. More on the Ayn Rand Lexicon.
2. As is explained in the video, the initiation of force is evil. Self-defense on the other hand is not just 'allowed' as a right, it is an imperative! If the good (life, liberty and rights) are not defended, evil (force, tyranny and the destruction of rights) will prevail.
Hence the aphorism: those who are not prepared to defend their rights, lose them. It's a law of nature, it's an automatic!
3. A transcript of the spoken text is available on the site of The Atlas Society.
Related
Freedom is not based on the ballot box. Democracy is not an end in itself. Rights are! The Muslim Brotherhood rode roughshod over the people's rights. That alone makes a government illegitimate by definition. We shall see why.
The question is, what are rights?
Above video explains the nature of rights.
There are three notes attached to watching the video:
1. It omits to mention the origin of rights. They are inherent in man and are therefore inalienable, meaning, no one can take them from you and have a leg to stand on (like the Muslim Brotherhood, or any other type of governance that doesn't respect man's inherent rights).
If you believe in God, it isn't hard to see rights as gifts from God. Others will have to make an extra effort to understand rights by philosophic means: rights come from the nature of man. Man needs the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of property (or happiness) because he must be free to act in accordance with his wits, in order to survive. More on the Ayn Rand Lexicon.
2. As is explained in the video, the initiation of force is evil. Self-defense on the other hand is not just 'allowed' as a right, it is an imperative! If the good (life, liberty and rights) are not defended, evil (force, tyranny and the destruction of rights) will prevail.
Hence the aphorism: those who are not prepared to defend their rights, lose them. It's a law of nature, it's an automatic!
3. A transcript of the spoken text is available on the site of The Atlas Society.
Related
- Americans Are Born Free, Europeans Are Born Illegals
- Magna Carta: the Root of Liberty
- No Arab Spring, But the 2nd Islamic World War
- Egypt: On the Brink of Chaos
- Journalism Is a Crime When Colluding With the Enemy
- Why Democracy and Equality Are Evil