"Here I stand with my bayonets, and there you sit with your laws. We'll see which prevails." ~Adolph Hitler

One might at first suspect that I might have more aptly titled this article "The Origin of Rights," but such an observation would be premature, since this article has nothing to do with the history or makings of rights. Rather, the question asked here is, how are rights mechanisms powered, and what is the source of that power? One might again suspect that instead of the word "power," I perhaps might have used the word "authority." After all, many treatises incorporate some kind of "authority" from which to support their resolutions. In The (American) Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson cites a "Creator" as the "authority" for the legitimacy of certain rights, whereas it cites "self evidence" as authority for their existence. However, despite the seeming incontrovertability of those two authorties, nothing in the Declaration of Independence explicitly states how its claimed rights will be powered, enforced, protected, etc. So by "powered," I refer more exactly to how rights, when violated, shall be defended, and by what power such defense shall be had. 

With all deliberate cuteness, I argue that it is self-evident (i.e. obvious) that, in order to have any effect, rights can only be powered by superior force. Further, since superior force tends to win any conflict with an inferior force, rights can only ultimately be powered by the ultimate superior force. This must be so since if all "forces" were to be evaluated in terms of strength, and laid in order of superiority or inferiority, then the most superior (observable) force must be that which is sovereign. I say this because it is tautological that only a power of sufficient strength to enforce its own sovereignty can be the power that wields the ultimate force. It is equally tautological (or self-evident), at least in a society comprised of human beings, that that which is sovereign must also be that political entity that is referred to by political philosophers (or political scientists for those who care to possess the audacity to title themselves with such an obvious oxymoron) as the state. For those to whom this concept is not so readily "self-evident," let us accept as a premise that in any conflict of force, the entity possessed of superior force in that conflict usually wins (or at least if it wins, then we say after the fact that it is possessed of superior force), and that ultimately, the ultimate winner may be said to be the entity possessed of the ultimate superior force, and let us define such entity as "the state." Happy now?

 Let that sink in for a moment. I have just not only stated, but reasonably shown (I clearly do not go so far as to say logically proved, since such proof would be a much longer document) that the source of rights is the state. The implications are far reaching indeed. This is important because the Libertarian doctrines tend to conflate origin with source, and thus assume that the "universe" is the source of rights. The origin of rights is immaterial here, just as the origin of man is immaterial to one who is starving. Whether the origin of man was divine or evolutionary has absolutely no bearing on the source of man, which is bisexual reproduction and sustenance. In the same sense, conflating origin with source is rather like conflating creation with procreation. One happened once a long time ago, the other is an ongoing sustained phenomenon that is susceptible to change.

Under Libertarian doctrines, since the source of rights is the universe, and since the universe is ubiquitous, it follows from that assertion that rights are ubiquitous. Therefore, Libertarians hold that all rights are the same regardless of political structure, and thus rights have no borders. This would necessarily include property rights, which, in turn, would mean that political boundaries have no meaning with respect to the exchange of property. Ultimately, therefore, any attempt by the state to regulate foreign commerce is and can only be the state dealing in oppression -- the oppression of liberty and individual rights. This is all completely logical, based on the premise that rights are universal.

The problem with this logic is that regardless of the origin of rights, the source rights, as I have shown, is the state. Where different states protect rights differently, necessarily including fundamental property rights, and most specifically including the right to absolute title to the fruits of ones own labor, it follows that fundamental inequities, when comparing one state to another, are inevitable. Since these states are sovereign entities, it is implicit that no external regulatory body respecting the regulation of rights can exist. To the extent that some extragovernmental judicial body is established to observe and "police" such issues (such as the WTO), such a body would be de facto powerless to actually accomplish either function, since the sovereign state has the ability to both limit observation and preempt police action.  

I have said elsewhere that the work-product of labor from which the fundamental property right is violated, is stolen property. If a state does not regulate that which enters its borders from other states, it inherently also declines to protect the rights of its own citizens from such theft, since it allows the labor value of its own citizens to be devalued through unfair competition. Such a state implicitly abdicates any self-stated duty to protect the property rights of its own people. Thus, the only feasible remaining remedy available to the state with respect to foreign commerce is that state's own regulation of that which enters and leaves its territorial boundaries, since that is the only point at which a state's own sovereignty is capable of being exerted with respect to foreign things. If a state expects to maintain economic solvency, it must necessarily limit unfair foreign competition wrought by the violation of human rights that that state itself protects.

Widespread adoption of this fundamental error is what has led many who subscribe to libertarian doctrines to side with the fatal doctrines of the free traders, and thus has helped to accelerate the destruction of the one country in the world where liberty truly had a chance, the United States of America. So, to you Libertarians out there who support Ron Paul, heed my words and support Buddy Roemer for President!