Judging from their bills and pronouncements, Colorado Democrats generally believe that women have an absolute right to get an abortion for any reason prior to birth; that transgender children have the right to seek, and doctors have the right to offer, gender-affirming hormones and even some surgeries; that immigrants already here (this point is ambiguous) have a right to live here peacefully; that employees have a right to vote that other employees hand over a portion of their paycheck for union organizing; that business owners have only a weak right to run their affairs as they see fit and may be strictly controlled by politicians and bureaucrats; and that people have at best a weak right to own a gun for self-defense, such that the legislature may ban many popular types of guns used for self-defense.
Meanwhile, Colorado Republicans generally believe that an embryo even before it develops a brain has an absolute right to life, such that abortion should be totally outlawed; that transgender youth have absolutely no right to seek gender-affirming medical care and that people who provide such care should be harshly punished; that people have no right to immigrate except by permission from the national government, and that people who immigrated illegally may be imprisoned and forcibly expelled from the country; that employees have a “right to work” without paying union dues; that business owners generally have the right to run their affairs as they want (except that they can’t hire illegal immigrants); and that people have an absolute or near-absolute right to own guns.
Claiming a right to do wrong
In other words, most political actors in Colorado (and elsewhere) hold wildly incoherent views on rights. Their views have more to do with tribal loyalties than with logical consistency or fidelity to reality.
The good news is that most people do think that people have rights and that rights matter. They just disagree about where rights come from and what rights we have. At least most people no longer believe that might makes right.
Throughout history, people often have used the rhetoric of rights to mask the flagrant violation of rights. A lot of Americans used to claim that they had a “right” to hold their slaves as “property,” because they paid for the slaves. Even today many people claim to have a “right” to create an ethno-nationalist state.
This tradition of claiming a right to do wrong runs deep. My family is reading Emily Wilson’s translation of the Iliad, and I was struck by how the central conflict among the Greeks concerns which leader gets to keep a young woman, captured from a nearby town the Greeks had looted, as a sex slave.
As wise Nestor says, “The Greeks gave [the woman] to [Achilles] to be his trophy.” Yet Agamemnon, forced to give up his own slave, insists on taking Achilles’ slave. Although he does not use the language of rights in this ancient time, Achilles in effect argues that he has a right to keep the woman as a slave because he helped to capture her and the other Greeks agreed to give her to him. Achilles is so worried about suffering insults and being dispossessed that he does not once consider the interests or preferences of the poor girl who has been violently carried off from her home to be raped and enslaved.
Sussing out a theory of rights
We can try to make some semblance of order among popular theories of rights. Democrats, especially “democratic socialists,” think that people somehow have a right to enforce majority will, such that the majority may, for example, restrict people’s business activities or ban their guns. But they lean on majority will only selectively and believe, for example, that the majority should not be able to outlaw abortion or gay sex. Democrats shuttle schizophrenically between majority will and individual rights.
Conservative Republicans, on the other hand, think that our rights somehow come from God. But you will search the Bible in vain for text supporting an absolute right to own a gun, a prohibition on abortion, or severe restrictions on immigration. Indeed, harsh immigration restrictions straightforwardly violate the teachings of Jesus, who said, “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.”
I believe (roughly following Ayn Rand and like thinkers) that rights are moral-legal recognitions of the freedoms we need to live, prosper, and associate peacefully with others.
Let’s not pretend that working out a theory of rights in all its applications is an easy or obvious task. Anyone who claims it is, is an intellectual charlatan. So, to be clear, in this short essay I am merely summarizing my views, leaving detailed arguments for another day.
I believe that women have the right to get an abortion for any reason at least until the fetus gains the capacity for consciousness, but that government probably properly may restrict abortions after that; that transgender youth, although minors, do have agency, and so should not be legally barred from seeking gender-affirming care, if they have the consent of their parents and doctors; that people generally have a right to immigrate so long as they are able to pay their way or find a sponsor, but they do not have a right to violate people’s rights, take subsidies, or bring in diseases (see Michael Huemer’s essay); that employers and employees have the right to associate by mutual consent; that business owners have the right to run their affairs consistent with the rights of others; and that people have a robust right to own tools for self-defense, although this right properly is subject to (genuinely) reasonable regulations consistent with public safety.
I believe that my theory of rights is logically consistent and grounded in reality. I know many of you will disagree. The point of this article is to try to induce people to think more seriously about where rights come from and what rights we have, so if me provoking a disagreement over some particular application of rights helps to foster a broader discussion, great.
Ari Armstrong writes regularly for Complete Colorado and is the author of books about Ayn Rand, Harry Potter, and classical liberalism. He can be reached at ari at ariarmstrong dot com.
