Say “Individual Rights”, Not “Human Rights”

When people say “human rights”, they’re talking group rights. But there are no group rights apart from the individuals who possess them.

If you say there’s a “human right to health care” or a “human right to basic income”, then you’re elevating the rights of some humans above others. You’re saying that some humans have a right to receive income or health care from others, while others are obliged, under the law, to provide these good and services.

Why the unequal rights?

If you talk individual rights, then you’re talking about the equal right of everyone to pursue an income, or to pursue health care, and to be sovereign over his or her own life. You own what you create. You own what’s yours. You can give it all away if you like. But nobody may take it from you — least of all, the government.

People who support “human rights” are actually talking about welfare, socialism and even Communism. They’re talking about the sovereignty of the government over the individual. That’s why they don’t want you to say, “individual rights”. Individual rights refer to liberty and the right to pursue happiness and survival — not to have those things handed to you by the government.

The difference between “human rights” and individual rights is the difference between Communism/fascism and the American Constitution and Bill of Rights.

If you maintain that there’s a “right” to even a “bare minimum” required for survival, then it falls on you to identify precisely where that line ends. And it also falls on you to identify why some people have the right to receive benefits or goods provided by others, while others are obliged to provide those good and services. Isn’t being forced to provide goods and services by the government the definition of slavery, after all?

Human rights means slavery and collectivism. Individual rights means liberty. It’s liberty we’ve got to fight for.

 

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