A benefit of the doctrine that all rights are property rights is that it helps to eliminate conflicting rights. I cannot count the number of times I have heard people remark that rights conflict. For example, a year ago I took a local government course at Auburn University. The teacher was fond of saying that our rights conflict. I have a right to my money, but you have a right to food; a smoker has the right to smoke, but a nonsmoker has the right to not breathe that smoke; etc. In her view, the main role of political science is to best solve the conflicting rights. The government can decide which right gets respected, and which right gets ignored. In a sense, rights do not point the way for a just government. No matter what a government does, it will always violate rights. A just government is not one that does not violate rights. It is one that most justly settles the conflict of rights. (What is just? I never got her view in that class. Clearly, rights did not point the way, though.) Of course, many people differentiate between basic rights and other rights. So, the basic right should prevail whenever a conflict exists between a basic right and a non-basic right.
I cannot get motivated about many political “dilemmas”. It is not that I do not find them interesting, but it is rather that I do not see a dilemma. In many instances, dilemmas produced by conflicting rights do not interest me. The main reason is that I do not think that the right conflict.
All rights are property rights. By this I mean that all rights are derived from the right to self-ownership. All rights are derived from this right. Rights do not conflict. When trying to determine who has a right to something, we ask who owns the object. Rights do not conflict. The conflict over smoking bans shows why, if all rights are property rights, discussion of conflicting rights is eliminated. The arguments over smoking bans often feature two rights: the right of the smoker and the right of the nonsmoker to not breathe the smoke. Missing from the discussion is reference to the owner of the property on which the smoking is happening. A smoker does not have a right to smoke, and a nonsmoker does not have a right to not breathe smoke. Instead, an owner of a house, restaurant, etc. has the right to forbid people to smoke and to allow people to smoke. There is no conflict of rights. Smoking ban violates property rights, not the right of a person to smoke.
I want to distinguish between conflicting rights and uncertainty about who has the right. A situation often arises where we do not know who owns a piece of property. This is not a case of conflicting rights. Instead, we do not know who has the right to the property. We are not faced with a situation of conflicting rights. We are instead faced with a situation where we do not know whose owns the property. A large difference exists between the two situations.
November 28, 2007 at 11:27 am |
Right on! I agree completely. As such, the US has the right to make national trespassing laws, called immigration laws. We have decided that foreign nationals must receive permission to enter our country and our laws dictate that trespassers will be removed from the propety.
One can pull that “well, before 1492 this country was owned by…” all day long. By that logic Canada, Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, Peru, Brazil; all of North and South America and Australia are illegitimate.
We deal with our indigenous peoples in an equitable way. It is up to other countries to deal with their native peoples. Mexican illegal aliens are not indigenous to the US. Deport, deport, deport. As far as calling a person an illegal this is all word play. Case closed. Ron Paul for president.