Where Do Rights Come From?

Revolutionaries have often resorted to God. It may sound cute but is fallacious. Just because God says so does not make something right. That’s an argument from authority. All you need is a fake God and you can wreck a nation. Rights come from nowhere. They are as made up as paper currency. Man is not governed by a piece of paper, a constitution, or a set of laws. Man is governed by his inclinations, attitudes, and primarily by his situations.

2 years ago, I was in almost $1400 debt. I was passing out my resume on the streets of Starkville, Mississippi. At Palmer Homes, I was required to affirm Christian faith in order to apply for work. The clerk sympathized with me and advised me to lie. No matter how much debt I had, I couldn't support religious tyranny. I filled up the application but called them out on their bullshit.

I later posted this picture on Instagram. The only Christian friend who responded defended Palmer Homes. She explained that the U.S. is not a secular nation. Christian nonprofits are exempt from discrimination laws. Fine, does it make it right? Not everything that is legal is necessarily ethical/moral. Even if the US was a Christian nation, since when has it become Christ-like to discriminate against a religiously unaffiliated man? The man said, “love your enemy”. I am not even your enemy.

She further explained that Palmer Homes hires people with the same core values (vaguely defined Christian values in this case). By this logic, there is nothing stopping businesses from taking up a Christian tag if they want to safely reject non-Christian applicants. However, I didn't demand any legal action. I don't support the use of force at all, not even to stop discrimination. Evil should have the freedom to be evil so others see what they shouldn't be. Moreover, there where people can't be evil, they can't be righteous either.

Freedom to sin is necessary for moral development. A world where one group is forced to treat another group fairly is not a just world. And that is what law does. It is simply an insidious use of force, a tool for tyranny. The only free world is where people intrinsically hold moral values. In that world, you won’t need a constitution, a set of laws, police to enforce them, a judicial system to announce judgment on others. You won’t need an illusion of rights, just like birds don't show passport when they fly all over the globe. This is the model of the Garden of Eden-- no police, no judges, no constitutions, no nations, only moral laws. The Garden of Eden isn’t a physical place. It is a state of existence in which man holds himself accountable to moral principles. Only this model allows him freedom, while everything else is tyranny, covert or overt.

Rights don't exist. All that exists is morality. You feel like you have rights when people are moral and they don't wrong you. When they become immoral and harm you, you discover that law enforcement was never for you but only for the rich. You wake up. The obvious next question is -- where do moral laws come from? Can morality be man’s invention just like rights and laws? No. Just like the Pythagoras theorem and laws of physics, moral laws predate human existence. In the beginning was the Logos. Just like a free market helps an economy prosper, moral laws keep society functional, free, and happy. When they are kept, humans prosper. Life becomes enjoyable, heavenly like in the Eden Garden. People live happily. War and poverty disappear. Society produces abundance (the Garden of Eden had an abundance of food).

Whenever these laws are violated, human life becomes suffering, just like economic control produces economic suffering. The moral ones either leave to places where people are still moral or continue to struggle against immoral forces of society. They help one another and manage to survive while the immoral ones die. Thus, moral laws restore themselves. They exist independently of humanity, just like physical laws exist even if there is no matter to observe them on.

To read examples of how moral laws restore themselves, read how to spot higher principles. Here is an excerpt to encourage you -

Why do you think that every society starts out conservative? Simply because conservative values (besides religion) are right. Liberal values such as political correctness, moral relativism, feminism, minimum wages, abortion, and socialism are not constructive. Guess the kind of girls who were invisible to most guys in college: feminists. Thus, they are the least likely to pass down their genes and ideas. Conservatives are more likely to have families. Their children inherit conservative values. Generations down the line, their descendants will wonder why their ancestors were so conservative.