What Are Our Rights?

“Don’t like gay marriages? Don’t get one. Don’t like cigarettes? Don’t smoke them. Don’t like alcohol? Don’t drink it. Don’t like drugs? Don’t do them. Don’t like porn? Don’t watch it. Don’t like sex? Don’t have it. Don’t like abortions? Don’t get one. Don’t like your rights taken away? Don’t take away someone else’s.”

This recent facebook post sounds all very cavalier. However, in reality these social demands do affect others, including the laws that govern civil society, despite a careless allusion to the contrary. The last two sentences are little more than intellectual gibberish and belligerent at best. The author’s allusion to the idea of fundamental personal rights is deeply flawed, because no one lives in isolation and this statement attempts to elevate personal preference above the Law, and above the opinion of others. The tone of intolerance, toward those who disagree, raises the level of hypocrisy to a modern day scandal. The last two sentences illustrate this point, insomuch as the natural consequence of the authors statement suggests that the right to have an abortion is inherent with the idea of being human, and therefore above any law or opinion to the contrary. Using this same argument we could argue that the last two sentences also suggest the right to disagree is no less an inherent right? However, the ideology behind the statement is not really about abortion, drugs, or anything else, it’s about the last two sentences. It’s about a selfish disregard for the requirements of civil society.

It’s extraordinary that some think autonomous individual rights exist at all within a secular humanistic worldview, given the moral framework that's required to justify them. Quite frankly, what are ‘”rights” within this worldview, and where do they come from? In reality the claim has no objective foundation, so while we can hold an ideological view, the subjective reality suggests a personal claim to them has absolutely no authority. Therefore, “rights”, can only be a reflection of what the Law allows us to do, to say, or be? Any claim of unbridled autonomy is borrowed from a higher moral framework that intentionally raises the idea of personal autonomy to a spiritual level, and thus beyond the argument of common law. Thus it begs the question, what is this higher moral imperative? And what is the moral authority that the claim is hinged on?

It’s ironical that the “my rights” lobbyists appeal to this higher moral framework, but at the same time suggest it’s immoral to deny their right to decide, what is moral? The argument is like reading the Mack Sennett comic, a confusing mixture of the subjective and the objective. But secular humanism cannot have an objective view about morality, why, because it contradicts their own view of reality where everything is goo to the zoo, and absolutely relative? It’s an attractive argument for those who want to control the “rights” narrative, but sadly it’s like having your cake and eating it too.

The power behind this idealism is an attitude of entitlement, and coupled with violent emotional rhetoric, and any number of “isms”, it seeks to subdue and control those who disagree. Therein the argument is about controlling the rhetoric until civil society submits to the same view of reality. It’s about getting people to focus on themselves, rather than the greater requirements of a civil society, because you’re worth it! The hypocrisy is palpable especially when we consider that if secular humanism was intellectually honest about its own worldview, it would reject any moral absolute as little more than religious nonsense. But if for the sake of argument we engaged the idea that “personal rights”, was an inherent entitlement and acknowledged everyone’s choices, reality suggests it’s only truly possible if decided by “the laws of the jungle”, where power and dictatorial opinion, even about life itself; would be decided by whoever has the ultimate power to subdue every other opinion.

So why is the claim to “my rights” a popular fantasy? First and foremost the idea of personal rights is commonly supported with an absolute moral imperative (the source that makes it right) which doesn’t exist within a secular humanistic worldview. Secondly, the drive for absolute individual rights cannot be sustained within a stable civil society, and suggesting it can is always at the expense of others having the right to disagree.  Thus the narrative for personal rights is always objectivised, the rhetoric is violent, and society loses sight of the values that actually make a civil society.