Thursday, June 7, 2012

Collectives cannot grant additional "rights"

IF each individual has 'X' set of rights, which might include anything resembling a "right" to the possession of their own body, the labor of their body and the products of that labor AND no individual has the right to initiate force/violence against another individual, NOR does any individual have the right to coerce/threaten any other person with force/violence to get them to obey their will, NOR does any individual have the right to steal from any other individual, THEN no set of individuals, with the set of all their "rights" brought together into one collective, could have a "right" to initiate force/violence, coerce/threaten with the initiation of force/violence or steal/fraudulently-acquire-property of any individual not belonging to that collective.

If the initiation of force is not a tenable ethic for the individual, then the gathering/collection of individuals all together, cannot give to that collective, any *additional* "rights" that those individuals do not have individually.  The sum of the rights of the collective, can not have the right to extort "taxation" from individuals, if no individual of the collective has the right to extort "taxation" in their individual capacity.

The "right" of the collective therefore, to extort "taxation" from individuals, is not a "right" at all, but merely the "ethic" of "Might makes right".  The "right" of the collective is a denial of the individual's "right" to their own body; it is an ethic which, if it wishes to remain logically consistent, cannot avoid condoning a collective of four men, to rape a woman.  If the woman has no right to her own body, then she is at the mercy of any powerful collective of person's.

It is only an ethic which places some recognition of "right" to the individual that can preserve an ethic which denies the "right" of individuals forming together, from violating the human-dignity of the individual.

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