Judge Andrew Napolitano
“If all humanity except one out of an opinion,
And only one person was of the opposite opinion,
Humanity would no longer be justified
By silencing that person,
That he, if he had the power,
It would be justified to silence humanity. “
-John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)
The world is full of obvious truths, gruities, that philosophers, lawyers and judges do not know that they do not need to be proven. The sun rises in the east and is placed in the west. Two plus two is equal to four. A cup of hot coffee on a table in a room, whose temperature is 70 degrees Fahrenheit, will eventually cool.
These examples, of which there is legion, are not true because we believe they are true. They are certain essentially and substantially. They are true if we accept their veracity or not. Of course, recognizing a universal truth recognizes the existence of an order of things higher than human laws, certainly higher than the government.
The generation of Americans who fought against the war of secession against England, according to Professor Murray Rothbard, the last moral war that Americans fought, understood the existence of truths and recognized their origin in nature.
The most famous of these awards was the iconic line of Thomas Jefferson in the declaration of independence that the obvious truths do not come from people but from “The laws of nature and the god of nature.” Thus, “All men are created the same and are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, which among these are life, freedom and the search for happiness.” It is a truth.
The neighbor and colleague of Jefferson, James Madison, also understood this when he wrote the declaration of rights to reflect that human rights do not come from the government. They come from our individual humanity.
Therefore, your right to be alive, to think as you want, say what you think, publish what you say, wors There are humans. and for the exercise of which all rational people yearn.
This is the understanding of the natural rights of the Jefferson Declaration and the Declaration of Rights of Madison, for the latter of which all in the government have loyalty and sworn deference.
A right is not a privilege. A right is a personal claim insecure against everyone. It does not require a government permit receipt. It does not require previous conditions, except the ability to reason. It does not require the approval of the family or neighbors.
A privilege is something that the government adapts to itself or calm to the masses. The government gives those who fulfill their qualifications the privilege of voting so that it can claim a form of Jeffersonian legitimacy. Jefferson argued in the statement that no government is morally lawful without the consent of the governed.
No one alive today has consented to the government, but most accept it. Is it the consent of acceptance? Of course not, no more than walking on a government sidewalk is the consent of the lies, theft and murder of the government. Surely, the Germans who voted against the Nazis and could not escape their understanding as soon as they consented to that horrible form of government. Resignation is not moral acceptance.
We need to distinguish between the privileges that the government extends and the rights that we have by virtue of our humanity, such human and natural rights that exist in all people even in the absence of government.
Are our rights the same? Some are equal to each other, but one is greater than all, since none of the rights cataloged briefly can be exercised without it. That is, of course, the right to live. This is the most challenging for governments that have enslaved masses and have glimated in the fight against morally illicit wars that kill and, therefore, destroy the right to live.
But if a right is a claim against everyone, how can a government, whether popular or totalitarian or both, extinguish it for death or slavery? The short answer is that there are no governments, despite the public oaths that their officials take when assuming the position, they accept the natural origins of the rights. For the government, rights are privileges.
Said differently, governments do not take the rights seriously.
Governments hate and fear the exercise of natural rights. Ludwig von Mises is correctly called the government “The denial of freedom.” Freedom is the predetermined position. We are born free, naturally free.
The government is an artificial creation based on a monopoly of force in a geographical area that could not exist if it did not deny our freedoms. The government denies our rights by punishing their exercise and by stealing the property.
Rights are not just claims against the government. They are claims against everyone. This was better encapsulated by Rothbard’s principle of non -aggression, which teaches that starting all real and threatened aggression, either due to violence, coercion or deception, is morally illicit. That applies to both their neighbors and the police.
Of course, in the world of Rothbard, there would be no government police unless all people consent; And I wouldn’t have done it.
Mises wrote, channeling Jefferson, who in the long march of history, men and women have renounced essential freedom for the illusion of happiness. “They choose every step towards more government interference as progress towards a more perfect world.” They are sure, he wrote “That governments will transform the earth into a paradise.” What reason it was. How mistaken are the people who think they can be happy without freedom.
———
For more information about Judge Andrew Napolitano, he goes to
