In dealing with Civil Rights, we think it best to discuss the nature of rights in general, before we address civil rights, and we, therefore, assert: “Rights – in the most general meaning/sense – are claims of entitlement which an entity possesses by virtue of being a particular type of entity (note that businesses, organizations, and nations may possess rights…).” What is particular about the type of entity which may possess rights? That the entity is constituted in such a manner that he/she/it may claim – potentially – those said rights to which they are entitled.
“An inalienable right is a moral claim of entitlement, made by a rational agent/being, to which they are entitled due to their nature as rational; note that “rational” is essentially equivalent in meaning with “moral.1”” Now since inalienable rights are conveyed to rational beings by their Creator i.e., by God, then necessarily inalienable Rights precede the establishment of any Government, and may be acknowledged and protected – by Government, as such rights formerly were acknowledged and protected, by logical implication, the Constitution of the United States – but they cannot be conveyed by any Government sans for the Government of Divine Provenance; it follows then that if one denies God, one denies the possibility of inalienable rights. A corollary to inalienable rights and relevant to state at this juncture is the Natural Law, as Jefferson references in the first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence: “…which the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God entitle them…”
1 From our blog piece titled: “Inalienable Rights and Abortion.”
In regards to Civil rights we assert that they – by definition – presuppose civilization (Civil Rights do not originate in a jungle, they are derived through Government…), while as we have previously stated, inalienable rights exist prior to, and are the basis of, civilization (Note that those which deny God, knowingly – or unknowingly – assert inalienable rights are fictitious and absurd, irrespective of whether they avow such rights, or not e.g., Obama, Biden, Hoyer, Pelosi, Clinton may avow and aver inalienable rights, but they do so because they are too stupid to register contradictions, or they are manipulating their supporters with their carefully crafted facades); a logical necessary restriction is therefore imposed on civil right advocacy, viz: those advocacies for “civil-rights” which attenuate or negate inalienable rights are inimical to civilization, and therefore inimical to Civil rights i.e., “civil right legislation which contravenes inalienable rights, dissolves the indelible character of the rule of law, and reduces all rights to the caprice and fiat of malleable human whim; the 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision is such an instance of evisceration of inalienable rights, which consequentially negates/vacates the linchpin inalienable right to Life; all other rights a contingencies of the inalienable right to life, and thus all other rights are rendered equally tenuous.
The Civil rights movement has symptomatically addressed societal injustice e.g., racial discrimination – through Court action and Legislation, rather than addressing discrimination systematically through social Institutions e.g., secondary education, Universities, Churches and the entertainment industry et al, which could attempt to inculcate objective principles of morality – as a foundation and context of all future experience, to include learning – into those being educated; if objective principles of morality are assimilated – and we note that by assimilation, we mean embraced not only intellectually, but sentimentally, as well – then laws which attempt to coerce behaviors – such as, the acceptance of what one holds to be impalatable, with what resentment attend such coercion – would not be necessary. Just individuals presuppose knowledge of what is just, those which advocate the Civil Right symptomatic approach to realizing a “just,” society, place their “foot on the scale,” or if you will, have Lady Justice peak, so as to promote their interest; thus they are not about justice, but their end/goal is self-interest and power….
What do I mean by Institutions inculcating objective moral principles? I mean, for example Civics courses which should begin with speaking specifically as to why humans are capable of conforming their actions to the principles of Law, the concept of Equality prior to the law i.e., a concept of equality all humans share as a birthright i.e., mortality and moral capacity (see my article – on my blog – by the title: “Equality”); in teaching such principles, children may begin to grasp the unique and potentially noble character which attends to human nature. As it is, too often social advocacies have demonstrated – in their zeal to obtain lifestyle validation (e.g., homosexual advocates) through Court action – a willingness to “throw the baby out with the bathwater,” i.e., denying the philosophical underpinnings of Western jurisprudence; we note that such efforts have enjoyed their success as a result of Courts setting aside consistent reasoning i.e., precedent not only in Law but in the history of rational thought, for ideological sentiment… Scientism (The inconsistent2 application of the methods of science to area’s of knowledge not amenable to quantification e.g., to moral philosophy; this results in severely restricting – if not outright prescinding – such area’s of knowledge, often rendering them absurd, or reducing to the physical/material and/or to tautologies…) – not to be confused with Science – has insidiously insinuated (Note as corollary i.e., an organic intellectual entropic process, following schools of nihilism manifest from Kant’s epistemology; we note Kant likely anticipated nihilism, thus the Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morality, but Kant did not anticipate its range and depth…) itself into Academia, which allows such Academicians – specifically Jurists – to feel comfortable in setting aside the precedents of consistent rational thought as irrelevancies of the erstwhile…
2 The inconsistency is because, for example, the methods of science are not subjected to the criteria of scientism.
Let us note that racial discrimination i.e., denying another equal access due solely because the accident of “race” is a particular form of injustice, and any judgment -predicated upon objective moral principles – would find such discrimination abhorrent, for objective moral principles cannot be reconciled with injustice, thus the morally disposed would not abide such discrimination… Moreover, one may not balance the scales of past injustices perpetrated against groups A & B, by denying justice to groups C & D in the future. Those which desire social justice should advocate justice – for all – henceforth…
Regarding abortion, the Court in the Roe vs. Wade decision did not claim abortion was a right but instead made the claim that humans have an implied right to Privacy, and this implied Right allows a woman to confer with her physician regarding what best serves her good health; however, in practical fact the Courts and the Government of the United States has treated the Roe decision as a license for the wholesale slaughter of over 60 million babies… If the Right to Privacy exists, it exists as a Civil right, and therefore as a contingency of the inalienable Rights to Life, to Right of Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, and – as we have already stated, but repeat again – abortion eviscerates the inalienable Right to life, and reduces the Law to absurd capricious fiat; such Civil Right advocacies lay the ground-work for despotic Government, for they deny the inviolableness of human life… Recovering respect the United States Constitution requires recovering the weltanschauung – worldview – from whence it was derived; one of the ways which think-tanks, academicians & University’s which argue for the original intent, may begin such a recovery is to argue consistently that civil rights are as ephemeral, and as tenuous, as the inalienable rights, and objective morality which they presuppose. Thus, those individuals and Institutions should make it their business to consistently argue classical/scholastic metaphysics while impugning arguments predicated not upon science, but upon the “lab-coated” ideologies which have come to attend to science.
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