One Reply to “This is interesting. On Israel’s legal right to exist”
All of the talk in this video, by clearly very knowledgeable men, about ‘rights’ is based on a false understanding of what proper rights actually are. Rights are at root a moral principle, not a political principle, and not a legal principle; rights, properly understood, can apply only to individuals (hence the term ‘individual rights’), and so to talk of ‘collective rights’ is actually absurd. It is only possible to understand all of this if one has a full understanding of the nature and source of rights, which very, very few people actually have.
I would exhort anyone with a desire to understand what the proper conception of rights is to read this essay:
Individual rights are rights to the freedom of action. They recognise the fact that people own their own lives and must be fully free in order to live their lives fully in accordance with their nature as rational beings. They therefore constitute a moral principle. Each person must be fully free to take all those actions necessary to achieve all the values required to make his/her life the best and the happiest that it can be for him/her – these are the rights to life and the pursuit of happiness; each must be fully free to earn property and to keep, use or dispose of the products of his/her efforts as he/she sees fit – this is the right to property; and each must be fully free from all coercion – this is the right to liberty. The right to life is the fundamental right, and all other rights are corollaries of it. The only way in which any of these rights can be violated is by the initiation of force (directly or indirectly) or the threat thereof by other people, and the group of people with the highest potential for initiating force against others is a government. It is for this reason that the power of a proper government is constitutionally limited solely to the protection of individual rights, a power the government implements by the use (or threat of the use) of retaliatory force against those who initiate force; and this power is directed by objective law. Essentially, this is the right to self-defence (a component of the right to life) delegated by the people to their government. The government’s right to use retaliatory force – its only right – is therefore derived from the individual rights of the people. The only fully legitimate government is the government based constitutionally on the moral principle of individual rights. And the only purpose of such a government – the purpose to which it is constitutionally limited – is to protect the individual rights of the people it governs.
Israel has the moral right to exist because its government recognises the moral principle of individual rights – it recognises the individual rights of the people it governs. There are no other countries in the Middle East that do this, and indeed most are constitutionally based on the irrational, rights-violating principle of Sharia. All governments that do not recognise the principle of individual rights (which includes all countries based constitutionally on Sharia) exist only by brute force and the enslavement of minds – they do not, and cannot, exist by right. It follows, therefore, that any rights-respecting nation, such as Israel, has the moral right (and, when threatened, the moral obligation) to eliminate any government that does not recognise the principle of individual rights.
Note also that the only proper (objective) laws are those that protect individual rights. Any law that sanctions the violation of individual rights, although providing the legal ‘right’ to such violation, is clearly immoral. There can be no such thing as ‘legal right’, only moral right.
Discover more from Vlad Tepes
Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.
All of the talk in this video, by clearly very knowledgeable men, about ‘rights’ is based on a false understanding of what proper rights actually are. Rights are at root a moral principle, not a political principle, and not a legal principle; rights, properly understood, can apply only to individuals (hence the term ‘individual rights’), and so to talk of ‘collective rights’ is actually absurd. It is only possible to understand all of this if one has a full understanding of the nature and source of rights, which very, very few people actually have.
I would exhort anyone with a desire to understand what the proper conception of rights is to read this essay:
http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageNavigator/arc_ayn_rand_writings.html
Individual rights are rights to the freedom of action. They recognise the fact that people own their own lives and must be fully free in order to live their lives fully in accordance with their nature as rational beings. They therefore constitute a moral principle. Each person must be fully free to take all those actions necessary to achieve all the values required to make his/her life the best and the happiest that it can be for him/her – these are the rights to life and the pursuit of happiness; each must be fully free to earn property and to keep, use or dispose of the products of his/her efforts as he/she sees fit – this is the right to property; and each must be fully free from all coercion – this is the right to liberty. The right to life is the fundamental right, and all other rights are corollaries of it. The only way in which any of these rights can be violated is by the initiation of force (directly or indirectly) or the threat thereof by other people, and the group of people with the highest potential for initiating force against others is a government. It is for this reason that the power of a proper government is constitutionally limited solely to the protection of individual rights, a power the government implements by the use (or threat of the use) of retaliatory force against those who initiate force; and this power is directed by objective law. Essentially, this is the right to self-defence (a component of the right to life) delegated by the people to their government. The government’s right to use retaliatory force – its only right – is therefore derived from the individual rights of the people. The only fully legitimate government is the government based constitutionally on the moral principle of individual rights. And the only purpose of such a government – the purpose to which it is constitutionally limited – is to protect the individual rights of the people it governs.
Israel has the moral right to exist because its government recognises the moral principle of individual rights – it recognises the individual rights of the people it governs. There are no other countries in the Middle East that do this, and indeed most are constitutionally based on the irrational, rights-violating principle of Sharia. All governments that do not recognise the principle of individual rights (which includes all countries based constitutionally on Sharia) exist only by brute force and the enslavement of minds – they do not, and cannot, exist by right. It follows, therefore, that any rights-respecting nation, such as Israel, has the moral right (and, when threatened, the moral obligation) to eliminate any government that does not recognise the principle of individual rights.
Note also that the only proper (objective) laws are those that protect individual rights. Any law that sanctions the violation of individual rights, although providing the legal ‘right’ to such violation, is clearly immoral. There can be no such thing as ‘legal right’, only moral right.