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We All Have Inherent Rights – Regardless of Whether a Nation’s “Authority” Recognizes It

Monday, August 31, 2015 14:52

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(Before It's News)

1st September 2015

By Makia Freeman

Contributing Writer for Wake Up World

We all have inherent rights, no matter whether the governing authority of a particular geographical area recognizes it or whether it has been written down on a piece of paper as law. People from different societies and cultures call these rights slightly different things.

In the USA, they have been referred to as “unalienable rights” ever since the 1776 Declaration of Independence. Some call them natural rights to distinguish them from state-granted rights (which are not really rights but rather privileges). Others simply call them human rights.

From a more religious perspective they are called God-given rights. Those who are uncomfortable with the loaded term “God” (because of all the connotations it carries) may prefer intrinsic rights or inherent rights. But, whatever you call them, they are a universal concept. They are a natural extension of ourselves with which we are born, and which we possess just by virtue of being human.

What is the Definition of “Inherent Rights”?

A right is an entitlement to a need. Inherent rights are the extension of intuitive self-knowing, of knowing that we are entitled to have our basic needs met. They are the verbalization of an instinctual feeling that we are worthy of love, peace and abundance, and that we deserve certain things because we are alive.

These rights “come with” us, and we carry them around, like a tortoise carries its shell. Technically, inherent rights have no material existence outside the human mind, so from one perspective you could say we have invented them. However, I believe they are pointing to something profound and ineffable, like a mapping device for how we are supposed to make our way in this world and socially interact with others.

Why Inherent Rights Matter

Inherent rights may be an invention, but they are a very important one, for they are the means by which we determine justice, fair entitlement and peaceful conflict resolution. They are also the key means by which we ensure, in law, in theory and hopefully in practice, that we live in a free society and that the will of tyrannical governments is restrained.

Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence and the 3rd President of the USA, had a lot of things to say about rights. They formed a big part of the basis of how he thought and viewed the world, and thus how the US came to be as a nation. Here are some quotes from him:

“Nothing … is unchangeable but the inherent … rights of man.” – Thomas Jefferson to John Cartwright, 1824

“Under the law of nature, all men are born free, every one comes into the world with a right to his own person, which includes the liberty of moving and using it at his own will. This is what is called personal liberty, and is given him by the Author of nature, because necessary for his own sustenance.” – Thomas Jefferson, Legal Argument, 1770

This is Jefferson on balancing your rights vs. the rights of others:

“Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plenitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law,’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual.” – Thomas Jefferson to Isaac H. Tiffany, 1819

Jefferson considered the primary – and only – function of Government was to safeguard the rights of all its citizens:

“To secure these rights [to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness], governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” – Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence, 1776

“It is to secure our rights that we resort to government at all.” – Thomas Jefferson to Francois D’Ivernois, 1795

You can understand how important the concept of inherent rights for a free society when you consider that from a Jeffersonian point of view the only reason for the existence of Government is to secure the inherent rights of those who elected it, and that the only basis for the authority of Government is that it has the consent of the governed.

The Special Meaning of Unalienable Rights

Inherent rights were given a special qualifier by Jefferson and the other founding fathers of the USA:unalienable. According to Black’s Law Dictionary, 6th Edition, unalienable is defined as “incapable of being alienated, that is, sold and transferred”, i.e. something which cannot have a lien or claim placed against it. The idea is that unalienable rights are yours, period, as long as you live. They can neither be bought nor sold. They can’t be used as bargaining chips. Any system which would allow the “selling” of rights would inevitably lend itself to plutocracy or rule by the rich, because they would buy up everyone else’s rights and thus ultimately enslave them.