I grew up in the age of folksy sayings; there was a catchy aphorism for just about anything a child could think of. A couple of my mother’s favorites were “Pretty is as pretty does” and “God helps those who help themselves.” Obviously, expressing universal truths in pithy sayings was effective, because I remember many of them–along with the lessons they taught me–now that I am many years past childhood.
One such saying which is replaying in my head repeatedly these days is “Your right to swing your arm ends where my nose begins.” Swinging one’s arm is a common act, for a variety of reasons; and it’s one in which the government and our fellow citizens would typically have no say. However, if the arc of my swing intersects with part of another person’s body, that person’s right not to be assaulted must be given equal weight with my right to swing my arm, and that person’s right will limit my right. Seems logical.
If there were a word counter that could calculate the number of times a particular word is spoken in our country, I’d bet “rights” would be thousands ahead of the next most common. But what’s sad about that thought is that most of the time when an American is talking about rights, it’s about their own personal rights and those of their “tribe”; equal weight is not given to those outside their sphere.
There’s a very large, very loud contingent of Americans who adamantly claim their right to own firearms–any number and any type they choose–because Second Amendment (Don’t get me started!). Not only does that claim ignore the language and limits stated and implied in the amendment itself, but it callously ignores the “noses” of others whose rights should be given equal consideration. My grandchildren have the right to feel secure in their schools; they have the right to go to school each day without having to fear that they may leave in a body bag; they have the right for active shooter drills not to be part of their required curriculum. Limiting a few of the gun lovers’ rights would help to insure our children’s rights, but many are too self-centered to see it that way.
Did early settlers in the American South have the right to build large farms to support their families and make strong communities? Of course they did. Did they have the right to travel across the ocean and kidnap fellow human beings and force them to do the hard work of the plantation with no share in the profits? Well, no. Did early European settlers have the right to come to this continent and establish communities in harmony with the native inhabitants? I would say yes. Did they have the right to kill many of those natives and drive the rest onto reservations so that they could have the whole place to themselves? Well, no.
If I may digress for a moment from examples within our own country, did displaced Jewish people have the right to return to their land of origin and establish themselves as a nation? I believe they did. Do they have the right to bulldoze homes and communities of those natives who have been there continuously since antiquity? Do they have the right to displace these people from their ancestral lands? Do they have the right to bulldoze Bedouin villages, home to people who want nothing more than to live in peace and enjoy simple lives, to operate schools in which children can be educated? Do they have the right to establish their own nation by destroying another one? NO, they do not.
Humans are the cruelest breed.
To return to my main subject, the banner under which the conservative movement has marched over the last several decades is Right to Life, or the hoped-for revoking of Roe v Wade. Yet when these same advocates of protection for the unborn are confronted with the right of immigrant children in detention centers to be released from the cruel circumstances in which they’re being held and returned to their parents, the only response is “Meh! They wouldn’t be there if their parents hadn’t tried to enter the country.” When confronted with the fact that “Black lives matter,” their response is “All lives matter,” even though their attitudes toward many other groups belie that statement.
It’s enough to make one think unborn lives are not really their concern after all. Could it be that advocating for the rights of embryonic humans is a smokescreen? Could it be that they’re using an emotional appeal to gain more support for their “conservative” agenda? Could it be that they’re really just pulling at some people’s heartstrings in order to gain more power for themselves and their party? I wouldn’t go so far as to assign motives to people I don’t know, but I think those questions are worth considering.
I’ve often quoted Thomas Paine, writer of many influential pamphlets during the American Revolutionary period, because I think he had the most clear-eyed view on human rights that I’ve read. In Paine’s 1792 book “Rights of Man,” he opines that all humans have two categories of rights: natural rights and civil rights.
This is his definition of natural rights:
“Natural rights are those which appertain to man in right of his existence. Of this kind are all the intellectual rights, or rights of the mind, and also all those rights of acting as an individual for his own comfort and happiness, which are not injurious to the natural rights of others.”
In the previous paragraph, he has discussed the Genesis account of creation, not as a religious sectarian, which Payne was not, but as a philosopher explaining the origin of this category of human rights. Our natural rights, according to Thomas Paine, were given to us at our individual creation, and every human receives exactly the same endowment. Thomas Jefferson expresses the same idea in the Declaration of Independence: “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.” We all know by now the problems with those words; but taken at face value, they echo Paine’s statement of natural rights and equality of all humans.
It’s also worth noting that, even in this initial statement, Paine includes the caveat “which are not injurious to the natural rights of others.” Even our God-given rights, according to the great thinkers, have limits; and that limit is “where my nose begins.” At no point in history have humans ever been recognized as having unlimited personal rights, although our actions certainly speak louder than those words–to use another familiar folksy saying from my youth.
Paine goes on to explain the concept of civil rights:
“Civil rights are those which appertain to man in right of his being a member of society. Every civil right has for its foundation some natural right pre-existing in the individual, but to the enjoyment of which his individual power is not, in all cases, sufficiently competent. Of this kind are all those which relate to security and protection.”
Thomas Jefferson put it this way in the Declaration of Independence: “To secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
The purpose of government, then, according to both Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson, is to protect our natural rights. As Paine says, security and protection are the benefits we gain from being part of a civil body, since we are individually not always capable of protecting ourselves and insuring our own security. I think I feel another old saying coming on: “There is strength in numbers.”
Paine goes on to add another caveat: “It follows, then, that the power produced from the aggregate of natural rights, imperfect in power in the individual, cannot be applied to invade the natural rights which are retained in the individual, and in which the power to execute is as perfect as the right itself.” In other words, if I can execute one of my natural rights on my own–and my exercise of that right is “not injurious to others,” the government does not have the authority to take over that particular right.
Thomas Jefferson lists our natural, or “unalienable” rights, as “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” He uses the words “among these,” meaning that these are just three examples, not a comprehensive list.
Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau–among others–called this concept of natural and civil rights, and the relationship between the two, the social contract. Individuals who wish to enjoy the security and protection of a civil body enter into a contract with that body. I believe the most important thing to remember here is that a contract is an agreement between two parties which is binding on both parties. In other words, we each have a responsibility in the forming and maintaining of that “more perfect union” that the writers of our Constitution envisioned.
So what does all of this mean to us right now? If you’re one of those who believe you have a right to go wherever you want without a mask, I would say you’re wrong. You have a right to be maskless any time you are alone or in the open air with no one else less than six feet away from you, but you do not have the right to refuse wearing a mask in a public place where other members of our civil body will be in close proximity. I would also say you do not have the right to discount the information given by people who know more about the subject of disease than you or I know. Those experts do their part to uphold the social contract by sharing their expertise with the rest of us, and my ignorant opinion is not equal to their scientific research. The same principle applies to following social distancing guidelines and limiting our number of contacts. Wait, I’m thinking of another not-so-old saying: “You are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts.”
America is leading the world in COVID infections and deaths. That’s not the way we’re supposed to be the leaders of the free world! We are a civil body, and what affects one of us affects us all. There is no “God-given” right–not in any of our governing documents, not in any religious text, and not in common-sense thinking–to ignore medical guidelines meant to protect the whole civil body. It just doesn’t exist, and if it did, it would be superseded by the greater good of keeping the whole body alive and healthy.
It’s not about you. Or me. So here’s my final wise saying, not so very old but it will be by the time this is over: “Wear the damn mask!” Oh, yeah, and for God’s sake put it over your nose.