All These Rights

What are rights, anyway? The goose we squeeze to get our gilded eggs of gratification with the least restrictions and the least bother on our part? Or do rights have a basis we are overlooking? Most statements of rights, such as the United Nations’ “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” and the Helsinki Accords, assume rather than establish that certain conditions are desirable for mankind. It might help us, however, to understand what our rights are if we understand something of why they are.

History reveals at least two traditions, which merge and part like flocks of starlings, flowing into today’s practices. One of these perceives rights to mean human action free from restraint. This route has been marked by such names as Rousseau, Freud and Sartre, in conjunction with the Darwinian influence. Though doubtless not themselves endorsing all the current manifestations of rights, men like these opened the way to our culture of freethinking and freeliving. Contrary to, but often overlapping this tradition is another which has been marked by such torchbearers as Cicero, Locke and Jefferson. Paralleling our Christian heritage, it holds the light for Divinely endowed unalienable rights within a framework of natural law.

From this brief history, we can describe two general views held on rights today. In both cases, rights are considered to exist outside society and generally beyond its legitimate interference. In contrasting them, we are stressing their variance in certain moral areas more than their general similarity. Both, for instance, would acclaim our Bill of Rights, though they would disagree on exactly what other rights are “retained by the people” according to Article IX. Further, they both mistrust the machinations of highly centralized government. However, the areas of difference are great, as is the impact that leaning one way or the other can have on our society and government.

The former view claims that whatever a person does, short of physically harming another—his “own thing”—is okay, regardless of consequences. Rights constitute the de facto protector of his particular interests. The individual or group concerned is supreme. Existentialist free will is the guide. In fact, “freedom” is a more accurate word than “rights” to carry the idea, except that the two words are more or less interchanged in actual use. Freedom in this sense is not the lodestar we generally think of when we talk of our American liberties.

This view has permeated our culture, for both good and bad, everywhere we turn. Two prominent subcultures that bear its stamp are worth mentioning. One is the hippie way of life—no comment needed. Another concerns the welfare state and many of the rights claimed thereunder. If one has a right to whatever life style he desires, shouldn’t society have to support that life style if the individual can’t or won’t? The conclusion may not follow the premise in logic, but it seems to in modern social welfare.

The second view is superficially similar, yet deeply different. It looks on rights as man’s natural and proper defense against an aggressive person, society or government. The importance of the individual or group over the state is stressed, but the supreme, guiding position belongs to God or some concept of divine principles. A good sermon topic, no doubt, but the application ranges beyond pulpit and pew. So, without miring down in ethical philosophy or hanging up on perversions, such as slavery or exploitation, wrought in the name of this view, we ought to pursue it a bit. Later we can tie the two positions together.

If we study the subject, we probably will conclude that rights cannot stand alone or depend upon individual preference, else rights would be in constant conflict. And if rights can be in conflict, any discussion of them is about as conclusive as debating whether fried apple pie tastes better than marmalade on rye toast. Rights would mean either every man for himself or everyone subject to arbitrary government regulations. Seeming conflicts, such as ownership of private property versus the power of eminent domain, indicate that rights may not always cover as much as we think. Much of the history of civilization has been written by the “divine right of kings” as opposed to the rights of citizens. That divine right was really no right at all but either an assumption or resignation of power. If, on the other hand, we opt to talk of “greater and lesser” rights, we run into a similar logical impasse. A lesser right is no right at all, if it cannot be implemented. Sorry, but we must probe yet deeper.

The dictionary defines rights as “that which a person has a just claim to… by law, nature or tradition.” Good, but incomplete. We may expand this statement to say that rights concern the way each of us may expect to be treated by others and the way each of us must treat others.

Unfortunately, we often forget the how-we-treat-others aspect. Responsibility, that is. I have a right to work, surely. But not at any job, at any wage, on any terms. If my work habits are unacceptable to my boss or my life style downgrading to his reputation, my right to work cannot annul his right to set reasonable conditions of employment. My right to work at a particular job involves my recognition of the manager’s requirements. In turn, it is his responsibility to honor my right to market wages and humane treatment. Another responsibility we have—not to be confused with the welfare state—is toward those who are truly disadvantaged or disabled through no fault of their own. (This does not mean we are obliged to bail out those who will not accept responsibility for the results of their own ill-chosen actions.)

Thus, rights and responsibility go together. But that is not all. While there is no divine catalogue of rights and attendant responsibilities, there are—however much we pick and fuss over them—universal standards of moral conduct which encompass rights and responsibilities. In the West, these standards are generally derived from our Judeo-Christian heritage. Not nose-in-the-air superpiety, that is, but everyday respect for right living.

Does this correlation mean that every right is tied to a moral law? Not at all. Think of a riverboat steaming up the turbid Missouri between shoal and shore, guided past dangerous ground by marker buoys. Similarly, the channel of rights is indicated by the buoys of morality. In this second view, rights sweep from shoal to shore but cannot transgress moral precepts in either the individual concerned or those around him. In other words, no one has a divinely unalienable right to do what is morally wrong or to force another to accept a moral wrong.

Dear to us in the United States are those truly unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (or property, as formerly stated by Locke). These rights are not written in the sky or guaranteed by history. Rather, they are rights because they are morally justified of themselves, and the diminishing of them, whether by intruder, king or politician, is morally wrong.

Which view of rights, apart from their similarities, should guide American law and culture: freedom from restraint, or adherence to moral law? If we’re reasonable and honest, we’ll probably have to answer, albeit grudgingly, “Some of both.” Regardless of our own preference, we can hardly prevent people from committing offensive acts that do not involve others. Possibly we commit some on occasion ourselves.

Thus, in the first sense, a person has a right—that is, freedom—to do wrong; he may curse his Maker though it warp his soul, and the law cannot touch him; he may abuse his body or pervert his mind. But—and here is the fragile, all-important balance point—there is no right, by the second view, to force others into recurring or avoidable contact with or support of one’s personal vices, be those vices drug addiction, greed or laziness. The man on the street has freedom to smoke, as long as he is on the street. But he may not enter a private house puffing nicotine without the owner’s consent.

It might be well here to interject a related thought. A good deal of what we toss into the rights stew doesn’t concern rights directly but involves personal preference and choice. Many of the energy and ecology issues fit here. Some favor more conservation; others favor greater utilization. Neither side has an inherent right to have its way, just as neither has a right to exploit the situation at the unjust expense of others. But we all have the right to participate in the discussion and to enjoy the resulting benefits. In other words, we sometimes claim a right to a certain course of action or result when we would better claim a right to be in on the action.

The current uproar over homosexuality illustrates some of the pertinent rights issues. There are actually two efforts at stake in the demonstrations and political and religious activities of gays. The equal-rights effort is well-publicized. Related, but less mentioned, is a bid for public approval. Many heterosexuals would not only extend the rights but also the approval. Are they correct? Should we remove all legal barriers to full acceptance of homosexuality?

Two important philosophical and practical factors, neither of which has been clearly distinguished, are swirling in the gay-rights eddy. The first of these concerns the question: Whose rights are being violated, anyway? The second revolves around the larger question: How do we in our American society define and determine rights? Let’s look at them in turn.

The increasingly vocal homosexuals and various partisans have scored a critical point by noting an apparent inconsistency in the opposition’s stance. They claim that those of us who abhor homosexuality react by trampling on the rights of gays in unrelated areas, especially jobs and housing, as in the Miami voter repeal of an anti-discrimination ordinance. Is the point valid? If so, only because we have not blocked it as we should and can.

How do we block it? First, by recognizing that everyone has the same basic rights, else rights are meaningless. A murderer has the same rights as a choir girl, save as they pertain to punishment for the former’s crime (in which case he forfeits certain of his rights for having deprived his victim of the right of life).

The second block is more striking. A gay now has a right to any housing or job he wants, as long as those in charge accept him (or, to be sure, if they don’t know the situation). But if he has a right to whatever housing he desires, do not you and I, as potential sellers, landlords or neighbors, lose the right to control our property according to our own standards? His right would then clash with ours—an impossible situation. The same applies to jobs, as demonstrated in the sensitive area of education. A teacher is regarded as an exemplar as well as a communicator. If a declared gay is allowed to teach, he—and the school board—is, in effect, telling the students, as well as parents and others who support the school, that homosexuality is acceptable. A recent court decision in Washington state held that homosexuality is a legal basis for dismissal from a teaching position.

A recent Harris poll indicated a 54-28 percent majority of Americans oppose job discrimination against gays generally. However, a majority also would exclude them from certain positions, such as teaching, counseling and psychiatry. But the poll did not cover one fundamental point: Who can fairly decide when a gay can or cannot be hired, if not those responsible for the position?

One more item merits comment before we proceed to the second factor posed by this gay-rights discussion. Homosexuality, as both Scripture and tradition note, is an especially repulsive act. The above arguments regarding jobs and housing, however, apply not only to this act.

Drunkenness, drug abuse, wantonness, even slovenliness and indolence are among undesirable habits that should not be allowed, in the cloak of rights, to damage the actual right of employers, landlords, neighbors or the general public to control what is theirs. On the other hand, neither may the cloak of rights be donned to cover the prejudice or greed of the self-righteous.

Now, the second factor: who defines rights in a society? Though we be convinced that rights and morals are transcendent, laws and practices governing them are yet made by man through a constant kneading and pulling of both rights and freedoms. Sometimes the decisions are made by rulers, or interest groups, or mobs, or those with muscle enough to enforce their claims. But, in democratic America, citizens must choose the guidelines through legal processes. As long as the American Way yet works, what we decide individually is eventually reflected collectively in our laws and courts. This is true, be the result fair or ill.

However—score the point in red—the determination is not necessarily made by majority will, but by those who participate in the process. This fact is well illustrated by the vocal pro-and-con dispute over homosexuality; each side is making its influence felt. To be counted, one may yell and demonstrate his demands, or he may logically and respectfully vote and otherwise speak out. Both methods work, but the more we can do the latter, the more likely acceptable the results. Either way, as long as we are a democracy, we will be governed by the consent of the majority of those who take part. While this method does not guarantee either true rights or morals, it provides the world’s best working ground for them.

So far we have been scanning the flood tides of this rights turmoil. By now, perhaps, we are beginning to discern some flailing arms and distraught faces washing about. Who are these? Why, these are the people most deprived of their rights. These are the millions of perplexed Americans who prefer to support themselves, obey the laws, pay their taxes and lead moral lives. They are not the squeaky wheels or the squawky takers, for they are not always seeking special privileges or favors—and possibly not participating as they should. As a result, they are made to support those who will not support themselves: they are often bound by laws they consider unjust, while others flout justice; they are slapped in the face by misuse of tax money; they are forced to pay homage to those who care little for morality.

Chances are, this is the unhappy position in which we find ourselves. But before we sigh and tighten down our haloes, maybe each of us should ask himself a question: do I ever add to the problem of right and rights in any way? Do I ever:

·   lie about my kid’s age so he can get a free bus ride?

·   call in sick in order to get a day off?

·   go on unemployment although I could actually get work?

·   pay my workers less than they might otherwise earn in open competition?

·   sue a manufacturer when I’m hurt by my own negligent use of his product?

·   take advantage of my neighbor or ignore his need?

If I indulge these and other like acts, outwardly lawful, am I not betraying the 3 R’s of rights, right and responsibility? Legality and ethics do not always make the same track: laws may sometimes allow or encourage dubious behavior. Since Watergate, there has been a resurgence of moral indignation in America —lopsidedly centered on the affairs and behavior of public officials. Can’t we see that morals touch every aspect of all our lives, private as well as public, before God as well as man?

In a free society, peace, decency, diligence and independence are ever on the defensive. And those who would devour these noble traits are always on the prowl, like coyotes around a bleeding sheep. Because of their din, we often wonder if they’re right, and we’re too narrow-minded in honoring our convictions.

Not so! People cannot grow by commonly accepting or approving the baser acts of man. If we constantly alter our laws and social standards to accommodate every unseemly human activity, we are flinging ourselves onto an endless downhill mud slide. Self-control, whether in attempting something worthwhile or avoiding something downgrading, is an integral part of greatness. When laws and rights become independent of a definite and transcendent morality, greatness in America will have disappeared—paradoxically strangled by a perversion of the very forces that created this nation. Listen to the confident tones of the Virginia Bill of Rights, Section 15:

We should, surely, always demonstrate tolerance and understanding toward those of questionable behavior. If a holy God lovingly accepts penitents, we can scarcely do less than try to lift the fallen, always distinguishing between the doer and the deed. After all, we may once have been in the same ditch. But, by what surrender to decadence dare we muddy our proud flag by demeaning the very rights it flies to represent?

As Columbus determined to sail west, and opened a new world, we must set our own conscionable course so we may renew our world. This course requires an overall system of rights that corresponds to moral values while allowing freedom of personal choice. We may not agree on all the particulars, but we can agree on the direction.

Do we want to progress as a people, to advance culturally as well as technologically, to build a healthy and meaningful society? If so, we will engage our responsibilities willingly, basing them on a true union of right and rights.