The January 5th edition of the Epoch Times carried an opinion piece written by William Gairdner titled, The Fallacy of Human Rights. The piece accurately describes the situation as it is today with a multitude of conflicting claims obfuscating the core issue, the age-old philosophical question, “What may one do to another.” or as Mr Gairdner says, When is a solitary individual justified in saying, “Get your foot off my neck.”
A correct view of human rights will make it self-evident that the solitary individual is justified in demanding, “Get your foot off my neck.”
And so, rather than add to the critique of today’s Human Rights flaws, I want to share what I see as the path to resurrect what we have lost, a means to end the cannibalization of human beings. Yes, today we are destroying human life with fallacious thinking and the implementation of improper ideas about human rights.
I’ll begin with the part Mr Gairdner left out, The American, Declaration of Independence and the words from the second sentence;
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men were created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”
That statement, properly understood, gives the entire answer, though a few words written by the same author, Thomas Jefferson some 50 years later clarify the idea more succinctly;
“… that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of god.”
The individual rights argument was made by many scholars centuries before the American Revolution and codified the proper words in Mr Jefferson’s document. Legions of manipulators have done all they can to nullify the idea of individual sovereignty ever since, causing the quagmire of Human Rights laws we have today. And we stand to lose our civilization because of that.
I had the distinct pleasure of having Ayn Rand explain individual rights to me more than 50 years ago. It is her ideas from two essays, ‘The Rights of Man.’ and ‘The Nature of Government.’ that form the basis of my thinking with respect to individual rights. That said it took a number of years of reflective introspecting to solidify the concept of individual rights in my mind and further, to fully parse the logical steps of ‘self-evident’ correctly. I first had to clearly understand nature’s parameters without society.
Reciprocity is key when considering human beings in a social organization.
As a morally-sovereign individual, it is your willingness to act responsibly when dealing with others that places you in a position that allows you to act freely. In other words, freedom is earned by accepting responsibility for your own actions in a setting of equals.
And those of us that accept an evolutionary rather than a divine origin of human life need to formulate that logical chain to justify placing legitimate restrictions on the actions of each other.
I see that resolvable by clearly assessing the nature of living entities and the requirements for life.
It’s your moment of birth. You’re faced with your first of many monumental hurdles – you must draw your first breath of air. Success will mean you’ve become a living entity, failure, a coffin if you’re lucky
That is why each individual living entity, be it a tree, a bird, a fish or a human, all are subject to the same rules. If your genetic program is accurate, you will succeed in staying alive for the first few minutes and you will then go through the normal stages of life, youth, maturity and finally, death. All living things are born with the potential for life and if they exercise their ability to act in the appropriate manner, to sustain that life by accessing the natural world around them.
Everything you need for life lives on this earth and it must die for you to live.
Squeamish about death? Get over it. You would be dead if you didn’t exploit the earth or had someone do it for you. Few people like the word ‘exploit.’ I consider ‘to use fully’ to be a good thing and, if that bothers you, some manipulator has had access to your mind.
At some point in time, some of our ancestors developed consciousness, the attribute that drives the principle of human rights. They began to define the difference between humanity and brutality. They saw that it is our human consciousness that gives us empathy, that allows us to see the pain in others, and to do our best not to inflict pain needlessly.
Yes, that is the mark of civilization.
The originators of our social systems envisioned an arrangement between human beings that would create human flourishing, in the main, for themselves originally. That they saw cooperation between free people worked best came later, when those insights became more obvious.
Humans are unique in that our programming, and our level of instinct is less than all other creatures as we’re born with a bigger brain that allows us to adapt to a greater variety of conditions than all other life forms. That bigger brain can only be a bonus if you use it to your advantage. The person that walks in front of a moving truck didn’t get any help from a big brain.
Our history show we can get things wrong at least as often as we get them right. The first step is to recognize that the discussion needs to be about individual rights rather than human rights.
As Ayn Rand states in her essay, The Rights of Man;
”Individual rights are the means of subordinating society to moral law.”
Individual rights are the means by which collectivism is held in check – the only way we can stop a majority from exploiting a minority – and create a free environment that allows everyone to flourish.
“For the greater good” is a smoke screen behind which evil lurks. As does the religious viewpoint, divine judgement will correct evil in the next life. Harken back to the Crusaders’ famous cry, “Kill them all. God will sort it out.”
Gross misunderstandings go back forever and are still with us. It’s a secular view of individual rights that shows us, killing an innocent person can never be undone and is utterly inexcusable.
Interestingly, Matius Desmet has articulated that Covid has divided our society, that a new irrational ‘Mass Formation’ pits one viewpoint against another with no quick, easy resolution in sight. I wonder though, is it only Covid fear or is it an acceptance of full government control that divides us? Are we divided because some people accept expert advice and restrictions while others claim to want the right to think independently?
A few words from David Hume …
“Nothing appears more surprising to those who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye, than the ease with which the many are governed by the few.
Particularly though, I recognize the horrific price that an individual pays when challenging government, those who have the power to finance their adventures with everyone’s tax dollars. As Voltaire said,
“When the Government is wrong, it is dangerous to be right.”
And yet while the world often seems a pool of despair, evidence of hope also abounds. Jordan Peterson has the personal insights to see and to share with a broad segment of our population that grasps that idea;
personal responsibility is a key component in building a civilized society.
That Our Prime Minister and his cabinet members panicked over the Trucker Convey also shows that we truly fight the intellectually weak.
What about Ayn Rand’s justification for individual rights? Does it succeed in solving our human rights dilemma?
Do we fully understand that we are living entities and share the world with other living entities, that we must eat some of them in order to stay alive? Do we also recognize the unique attributes that make us human and that cooperating with others makes it easier to survive? Do you understand that your life belongs only to you as does your effort?
Yes, there is a way we can live peacefully with each other, and maybe it’s time to give that a bit more thought. Changing the discussion from human rights to individual rights shows us that the ship of state can be steered clear of the collectivist rocks.
seine rambling 
RE Dr Desmet, “his” mass formation story line and his “teachings”…
The official framing of the mass formation (or mass psychosis) “phenomenon” is misleading and wrong in terms of what the whole true reality is. The false hope-addicted psychologists and their acolytes want you to believe this is “just some temporary occasional” madness by the masses when it is but a spike of a CHRONIC madness going on for aeons with “civilized” people — read “The 2 Married Pink Elephants In The Historical Room –The Holocaustal Covid-19 Coronavirus Madness: A Sociological Perspective & Historical Assessment Of The Covid “Phenomenon”” …. https://www.rolf-hefti.com/covid-19-coronavirus.html
One of these mainstream psychologists who have been spreading this whitewashed reality, Dr. Desmet, also fails to see that the PLANNED Covid Psyop is a TOTALLY deliberate ploy because he doesn’t think (after more than 1 year, even 2+ years, into this total PLANNED scam!) it’s ALL intentionally sinister as he stated in a prior podcast (this makes him witting or unwitting controlled opposition). It should be apparent that Desmet’s lack of truth-telling is then also present in his largely plagiarized truth-distorting mass formation theory.
In the May of 2022 podcast with James Corbett he stated that “some people tend to overestimate the degree of planning and intentions” (behind the COUNTLESS, VERIFIABLE, FULLY INTENTIONAL, FULLY PLANNED atrocities by the ruling tribe of psychopaths over the last century alone) and see all of it as being planned which Desmet called “an extreme position” … Sound logical thinking is “extreme” and therefore false and sick in his demented delusional view! As MLK pointed out…
“… normal and healthy discontent .. is being termed extremist.” — Martin Luther King, Jr, 1929-1968, Civil Rights Activist
In his overpriced misleading whitewashing old material regurgitated book the psychology of totalitarianism he too states that “There are countless … examples that seem to point in the direction of a plan being implemented, such as the fact that the definition of ‘pandemic’ was adjusted shortly before the coronavirus crisis; that the definition of ‘herd immunity’ was changed during the crisis, implying that only vaccines can achieve it … [he continuous with several other obvious facts of an ENTIRELY PLANNED event, especially discerned through the totality of all these facts].” “SEEM to point in the direction of a plan”??? No! They most evidently, clearly, and irrefutably DO demonstrate and prove it IS a COMPLETELY AND FULLY DELIBERATE PlanDemic! A big scam. An Entirely Planned Holocaust against the non-ruling herd of people (see cited link above). A coherent 12-year old kid can figure that out. But not Mr. ‘I’m entitled to teach my deep wisdom to the world’ professor.
It clearly shows Desmet’s own complete lunacy. But because almost everyone in the culture is a member of mass formation (madness), including the “woke” people of the alternative media domain, hardly anyone recognizes Desmet’s lunacy. Not surprising that he has even become some type of popular “guru” among the adherents of the alternative media landscape and his whitewashed fake narrative strongly resonates with both mainstream people and alternative mainstream folks.
“All experts serve the state and the media and only in that way do they achieve their status. Every expert follows his master, for all former possibilities for independence have been gradually reduced to nil by present society’s mode of organization. The most useful expert, of course, is the one who can lie. With their different motives, those who need experts are falsifiers and fools. Whenever individuals lose the capacity to see things for themselves, the expert is there to offer an absolute reassurance.” —Guy Debord
As expected, “useful expert” Desmet has been also advocating and pushing the false misleading dogma-based non-scientific holy mantra of trust the official science … “everything and everyone should follow the scientific consensus” [ https://archive.ph/9QRmw ] — meaning trust and follow the fabricated fraudulent official consensus science behind the Covid jabs that the killing of over a million of people around the world is based on(!!). Are you STILL wondering whom he’s wittingly or unwittingly serving? That’s why it’s no wonder he’s been heavily popularized globally by the dominant psychopathic world instead of censored and suppressed (as lots of truth-tellers have been), yet in his crafty stylish total hypocrisy and public misdirection ploy, he wants you to buy his belief that everyone should have a voice. Everyone BUT the true truth-tellers is what the reality is.
With his SUPPORT of the Covid holocaust-driving official consensus science he OKAYS and PROMOTES the idiotic herd Covid mass formation (they way the masses “think” and act)! Yet in his absurdity, irrationality and lunacy, with his mass formation/mass psychosis notion he frames the problem as the public being a mere unaccountable non-culpable victim in this phenomenon (the gist of the circular argument is: the masses should change their thinking but they got brainwashed so they’re victims). Nothing could be further from the truth (see first referenced source above).
With his false use of language Desmet also obscures or hides the true reality instead of directly and uncompromising exposing it — aiding the obfuscation of the vital reality of what the ruling authorities really are. He speaks of ‘the elite’ (as he does in a number of podcasts) when, in reality, they are THE SCUM OF HUMANS because they are REALITY-VERIFIED PSYCHOPATHS (see referenced source above). Yet in the Corbett podcast he “teaches” us that we, the masses, need to start thinking differently. Right… how about YOU start with sane instead of insane thinking/talking/”teaching”/etc, Dr. Desmet?
How do self-styled “truth-tellers” wake up the masses to the so-called truth when they THEMSELVES use lies with their deceitful fake language???
No one is “teaching” or “waking up” the ignorant masses to the CORE truths with lies, with the official “language of lies” (see first cited source above).
This all means Desmet is ALSO a member of the masses of lunatics, an ACTIVE CARD-CARRYING MEMBER of mass formation!!! When, if at all, will he wake up from his state of mass psychosis, his “invisible” stupidity? When, if at all, will he face the TRUE and FULL reality instead of hiding behind fantasies such as his whitewashed “reality” of human civilization?
It shows we live in a global mental asylum with criminal and/or delusional mainstream psychologists, scientists, and docs as the guards, “teachers” and “therapists” … The blind/criminal/mad leading the blind/criminal/mad; the blind/criminal/mad adhere to the blind/criminal/mad = the human madhouse.
In October of 2022, once a few people finally caught onto his public-misdirecting game he took no responsibility for it but dishonestly and conveniently framed himself as the victim of frivolous attacks against him — https://archive.ph/9QRmw
Desmet is right in that truth-activists must fight against mass formation psychosis (human madness). That also means exposing HIS deeply destructive mad part of it. This comment serves, in part, that objective.
The ruling gang of criminals pulled of the Covid Scam globally via its WHO institution because almost all nations belong to it. If you’re in the US go to https://sovereigntycoalition.org and sign the American Sovereignty Declaration to #ExitTheWHO and follow their prompts to contact your representatives and tell them to work for their constituents instead of the mega psychopaths in power.
“… doctors and scientists are now on the same lever of public confidence as the scum living in the swamp.” — Unknown in 2022
Out of time right now but I concur, Mr Desment himself is under a mass formation. I will elaborate my thoughts later. Thank you for responding.
Greetings. I’ve read and given some thought to what you say and I have not done enough research to toss condemnation on Prof Desment at this time. I agree he is giving a new name to an old and ongoing social disease but he happens to have resonated with the public with his treatise. And I fully agree with his solution, that we need to be persuasive in our argument in order to sway the people that have been duped. force won’t work and there is no authority to appeal to as the authority is the problem. Further, I do what I can not to fight those who fight on my side, even if there is a significant disagreement.
And at this stage, I am focusing on the loss of independent thinking rather than the remnants of Covid. In the Covid field, there are many voices far more knowledgeable than myself. I’m hoping you don’t see what I’m saying as a brush-off but I read through most of your Pink Elephant link and see it as a million words burying a grain of truth, an exhausting read for the gain achieved in my case. I sincerely hope I haven’t discouraged a fellow traveler in this fight and … thanks for your input, gs