Yes, those crazy libertarians are back with a vengeance. If you’ve never noticed, a lot of libertarians wear “natural rights” around on their sleeve like it’s a magic incantation. Anything they have to justify… natural rights. They can’t explain what they are, where they come from, what they mean or how they know any of this, it’s just true, damn it! Stop asking so many questions!
The problem is, natural rights don’t exist. There’s no justification for their assertion. Nobody can explain where they come from, how they are derived or how libertarians magically came to know what these rights are, they just do. In reality, they are simply inventions because libertarians want an unchangeable authority from which to pontificate their position.
Oh, did I say authority? That’s the latest tactic from a particular wing nut. His argument, specifically regarding abortion, is that humans do not have the authority to take away life from other humans. It’s a natural right! So where does this authority come from? Certainly not from any source he’s willing to name. I suspect it’s an imaginary friend in the sky, but since there are a few other crazy libertarians who are making similar arguments and I know they are atheists, I suspect that ultimately, there is no possible authority and they’re trying desperately to avoid saying so. In other words, they’re right because they’re right and they don’t want to discuss it further. Our insane little libertarian friend entirely ignores the authority question because he claims it’s a “loaded question”. Loaded? Try position-destroying.
Let’s deal with the reality here. Authority, like rights, come from people. They are concepts which are created by groups of people to facilitate better and/or easier social interaction. That’s it. There’s no magic, no mystery. As the social dynamic among that group changes, the rights may change as well. I think that’s what terrifies libertarians, they want eternal concepts that they never have to think about or justify. It just is. The same is true of the religious. God’s will must be eternal, it makes it easier than having to think about the alternative.
In fact, as I thought about it longer, it struck me that many libertarians are doing exactly what they criticize in others. They say that you should not confuse “is” with “ought”, referring to Hume’s philosophy. Then they turn around and do exactly that. They take what they think “ought” to be real, equal rights for all, etc., and confuse it with what actually exists in the world. I just had one claim that all humans are equal. Sorry, I don’t think you can find any time in history, in any nation, where that was strictly true. Sure, it’s a wonderful sentiment, it’s something that I agree with them OUGHT to be true, but IS it true? No. This is especially true when you look at it from an international perspective. Racism, sexism, religion… all of them make people “different”. Is any of that going away any time soon? Almost certainly not, no matter how much we might wish otherwise. However, wishes don’t make reality.
That might actually be the explanation for libertarianism. It’s just a bunch of wishful thinking nonsense, the same thing ultimately that religion is. People are emotionally attached to an idea, they want it to be true, but there’s no reason to think that it actually is. Therefore, they simply insist that it is and create elaborate rationalizations around it to explain why it ought to be true, whether or not it actually is. Doesn’t matter if you’re talking about gods or natural rights, it’s the same ridiculous nonsense at the core.
Doesn’t seem to be much difference to me.