Apparently, Billy, and Rich We need to be going over the basics again.
The bottom line here is you’re trying to sacrifice the society on the altar of militant individualism. TRrouble is our culural values, our society is in fact the best hope for the rights you seek. In short, you’re attempting self-destruction.
Here it is; Rights are a cultural construct, and meaningless outside that construct. As I said in the article linked above: Rights are not universal.
When Jefferson wrote that “WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS TO BE SELF-EVIDENT” he was not speaking a universal truth at all. The operative word in that phrase is “WE”.
Rather than talking about a universal point of view, a universal truth, if you will, he was instead talking about the point of view of WE the new American culture. With this angle, many of the long-held myths about rights tend to disappear.
Consider; if it was in fact a universal truth that all men were created equal, it wouldn’t have been such a radical idea, for the time, much less then to now. Last I checked, it is quite true that a vast majority still do not consider these as any kind of truth, universal or otherwise; they consider them to be anything BUT self-evident. Royalty still exists, as do class structures, and slavery, as well.
Again, I say…Jefferson was speaking of the point of view of OUR culture, not that of others.
The fact of the matter is that RIGHTS ARE A CULTURAL CONCEPT, and are nigh on meaningless outside that construct.
Once the culture is allowed to fall either to the law, (or, in the case of anarchy, the lawless) ….even in an attempt to impose rights where they do not exist, what happens to real rights, which are a cultural concept?
They fail.
Forgive me, but I don’t see that as a particularly desirable outcome.
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