The short answer is YES, and the reader can now walking away with a solid answer. Of course the reader may not be able to defend this position if it ever came up in discussion. This writing is inspired by David Starkey, an English historian and radio and television presenter, from the UK. Mr. Starkey added a layer to a long standing line of personal thought, this line of thinking says that a countries ‘Rights’ apply to every citizen equally and that it is only through legislation that ‘Rights’ are perverted; some countries provide a subset of what is granted to the citizenry to visitors.
The takeaway point Mr. Starkey made is that the concept of citizen rights has always been done for the purpose of justification, be it justifying a revolution, revenge, or a power grab. Around eight hundred ago, King John of England signed the Magna Carta Libertatum. Previous to the Magna Carta the King owned the entire country and divided parceled out land to the nobles, who sub-divided their holdings for knights and other tenants. This created a land based hierarchy Mafia style, where a tithing was always kicked up one level; this is why so many Royal families ended up so rich. England at that time, much like today, was a class based system based on how much land one managed and how many vassals were working that land. The people at large didn’t like this idea and so John of England signed the Magna Carta so he could remain King; while he died the follow year, he left a legacy of social change that would impact the political land the world over.
Obviously, there must have been some opportunistic bureaucrat waiting in the wings around that time who stepped up and said something along the lines of – Tax collection used to be handled by each landowner, but seeing as each individual person has to pay taxes now, there is going to have to be a system by which all of this is recorded and enforced on behalf of your Royal Majesty. The efforts of this tosser has been a stain on Western culture ever since.
NOTE: Taxation and the term Crown Land still exist even to this day; while Crown land is presented as publically owned, there are restrictions and so someone somewhere has control, and seeing as the ultimate authority within the Commonwealth is still ‘Your Majesty’ it might be safe to say at this time that people have pseudo property rights.
The American Bill of Rights followed in the footsteps of the Magna Carta when those in the colonies decided that they too should have ‘rights’. Those newly minted Americans carried the anti-royal revolutionary standard one step forward by bypassing the peasant-to-Royal-to-God conduit. This was made evident with the statement, ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness’ as laid out in the US Declaration of Independence.
Canada eventually followed with, ‘The Parliament of Canada, affirming that the Canadian Nation is founded upon principles that acknowledge the supremacy of God, the dignity and worth of the human person and the position of the family in a society of free men and free institutions’. All the while, a sliver of the Canadian tax dollar goes to the ‘Crown’, though while it is less than $2.00 per annum per person. Leaving this author to ask; how has Canada been doing on the God and family fronts as of late?
Post WWII saw the establishment and execution, pun intended, of the Nuremberg Trials, along with the formation of the United Nations (UN). The publically stated goal of the UN was to ensure that another world war would to never to arise again. Whilst the last seventy some odd years have not produced a world war it also has not produced world peace; leaving me to ask, has the UN become the literal poster child for ‘the road to hell is paved with good intentions’?
Post WWII, the world at large once again applied a justice to Germany in a way similar to the Treaty of Versailles, though this time it was much more personal for at least some people, the actual numbers of people executed varies depending on source. The double blow by the major world Governments meted out upon Germany for its double war aggression did little to curb any drive for dominance though. All that happened was a shift in tactics, for once the bullets and bombs were taken off the European table; money and money based debt became the new ammunition for the control of Europe. The derogatory term PIGS, which are Portugal, Italy, Greece, and Spain were financially decimated by adopting the Euro, which was pushed upon them by Germany and France. An alternative acronym, GIPSI, was also created to include Ireland.
The most recent pandemic has shown both the strengths and weaknesses that resulted from this post WWII world. The purported rights advocated to be upheld by the UN and many grand nations got tossed out faster then anyone could sneeze or sniffle. The people of the world were not consulted and even the leaders of the people of the world were not really consulted and if they were, they failed to question and only listen.
The words ‘human rights’ are defined by Oxford’s junior dictionary as ‘a right that is believed to belong justifiably to every person.’ In a search for clarity, the term ‘right’ was investigated and was explained as ‘a moral or legal entitlement to have or obtain something or to act in a certain way.’ One way of considering the definitions provided above, is that what we have been told our rights are simply ‘justifiable entitlements’. It is the opinion of this author that the words ‘human right’ need to be fortified or tossed in the trash for the sake of clarity and simplicity.
It used to be considered that one man’s rights ended at his fist or fingertips, personal property rights laws do provide an extension to that occasionally, especially if one lives in an area where stand your ground is one of those justifiable entitlement. Semantic arguments have a purpose because words do matter. It seems that many people believe that one’s ‘rights’ are immutable as they were endowed by God; begging the question, are those who infringe on these endowed rights for others through deceit, reserved a place in Hell next to those who talk in theaters?
No comments:
Post a Comment