mightiswrong
12-09-2007, 09:39 AM
I attempted to mention this article in the discussion of "The Universal Declaration of Human Rights" in the NO2id forums. For some reason it was deleted.
http://forum.no2id.net/viewtopic.php?t=15252
The comment, "Why are all the moderators suddenly making so many spelling errors?" was also me;)
Anyway. This is a very interesting article and well worth a look. I will post a couple of snips.
http://www.strike-the-root.com/71/wyk/wyk1.html
It will undoubtedly seem odd for somebody who is concerned about political rights and their importance to freedom to pen an article with the above title. After all, somebody who supports “rights” should support something called the “Bill of Rights,” right?
The answer to this query is a reluctant “no.” Clinging to rights enumerated by some crusty old landed gentry on a now centuries old piece of paper is not conducive to the goal of the free society or to a consistent anarchist or libertarian ethic of rights.
It is abundantly clear that despite the ostensible “good intentions” of The Sacred Founders we are conditioned to fawn over, the “Bill of Rights” hasn’t really protected the rights it was allegedly drafted to secure. Of course, it is true (at least last time I checked) that none of the first ten amendments have been “officially” repealed as a matter of “law.” That is, the Federal Government of the United States still claims to protect these rights because it is bound by the Constitution to defend these rights (at least as we are told in high school and college Civics courses).
Anarchists view rights as ethical truths that transcend states, statesmen, and time, and that exist independent of historical circumstance; and anarchists must present this view unabashedly, clearly, and without equivocation, to critics and would-be converts alike. If we appeal to “Bills of Rights,” it will look like we don’t truly believe in the natural, transcendent status of rights and liberty. Perhaps most importantly, without a cogent theory of rights, anarchism is deprived of its core ethical and intellectual thrust.
Furthermore, anarchists must remain poised to point out that the State is founded not on protection of rights but on their very usurpation. From this viewpoint, does it not seem like madness to appeal to the “Bill of Rights” and state “protections” of rights, thus condemning anarchism to a blinding internal contradiction? To ask the usurper to act as the caretaker is a bald affront to good sense.
If rights are immutable, eternal, and natural – that is to say, not “granted” by some father-figure like the State (or, for that matter, God) – then clinging to the Bill of Rights only makes anarchists look like bewildered hypocrites. Appealing to the Bill of Rights will ultimately work against the imperative of revealing to the mass of humanity anarchism’s ace-in-the-hole: its true radical moral ethic and conception of rights. Anarchists must continue insisting that rights do not come from evil concepts like States, “democratic” “deliberation,” pieces of paper, and fictions like “social contracts.”
It is thus a clear imperative that anarchists strip away the anti-intellectual trappings of appeals to Bills of Rights along with the sick, implicit underpinnings of those appeals. Playing the Ace will hasten the goal of freedom far more than winning an occasional court case by appealing to the Sacred Bill of Rights.
http://forum.no2id.net/viewtopic.php?t=15252
The comment, "Why are all the moderators suddenly making so many spelling errors?" was also me;)
Anyway. This is a very interesting article and well worth a look. I will post a couple of snips.
http://www.strike-the-root.com/71/wyk/wyk1.html
It will undoubtedly seem odd for somebody who is concerned about political rights and their importance to freedom to pen an article with the above title. After all, somebody who supports “rights” should support something called the “Bill of Rights,” right?
The answer to this query is a reluctant “no.” Clinging to rights enumerated by some crusty old landed gentry on a now centuries old piece of paper is not conducive to the goal of the free society or to a consistent anarchist or libertarian ethic of rights.
It is abundantly clear that despite the ostensible “good intentions” of The Sacred Founders we are conditioned to fawn over, the “Bill of Rights” hasn’t really protected the rights it was allegedly drafted to secure. Of course, it is true (at least last time I checked) that none of the first ten amendments have been “officially” repealed as a matter of “law.” That is, the Federal Government of the United States still claims to protect these rights because it is bound by the Constitution to defend these rights (at least as we are told in high school and college Civics courses).
Anarchists view rights as ethical truths that transcend states, statesmen, and time, and that exist independent of historical circumstance; and anarchists must present this view unabashedly, clearly, and without equivocation, to critics and would-be converts alike. If we appeal to “Bills of Rights,” it will look like we don’t truly believe in the natural, transcendent status of rights and liberty. Perhaps most importantly, without a cogent theory of rights, anarchism is deprived of its core ethical and intellectual thrust.
Furthermore, anarchists must remain poised to point out that the State is founded not on protection of rights but on their very usurpation. From this viewpoint, does it not seem like madness to appeal to the “Bill of Rights” and state “protections” of rights, thus condemning anarchism to a blinding internal contradiction? To ask the usurper to act as the caretaker is a bald affront to good sense.
If rights are immutable, eternal, and natural – that is to say, not “granted” by some father-figure like the State (or, for that matter, God) – then clinging to the Bill of Rights only makes anarchists look like bewildered hypocrites. Appealing to the Bill of Rights will ultimately work against the imperative of revealing to the mass of humanity anarchism’s ace-in-the-hole: its true radical moral ethic and conception of rights. Anarchists must continue insisting that rights do not come from evil concepts like States, “democratic” “deliberation,” pieces of paper, and fictions like “social contracts.”
It is thus a clear imperative that anarchists strip away the anti-intellectual trappings of appeals to Bills of Rights along with the sick, implicit underpinnings of those appeals. Playing the Ace will hasten the goal of freedom far more than winning an occasional court case by appealing to the Sacred Bill of Rights.