|
Any society, when it organizes itself, presumes certain truths about people and the world. Those presumptions can be as simple as a right of occupancy or self-determination ("The French people have the sole right to determine social and political issues within the boundaries of the country of France.") or as complex as notions of the natural rights of human beings ("...That all men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among those being...").
Such presumptions, whatever they may be, are the core of any organized society.
Ultimately, human beings make the decision about what rights human beings have. And such decisions inevitably begin with one person. Who are we to say that an individual's claim to a right to freedom is null or valueless? If enough others agree, such a right will actualize, and once actualized, it becomes a precedent to consider for all succeeding societies. Thus, anyone's claim of a right must be taken seriously, scrutinized, weighed-- not just once, but from time to time throughout the life of a society, for one never knows but that the claim may be true.
__________________
Dull sublunary lovers love,
Whose soul is sense, cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
That thing which elemented it.
(From "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" by John Donne)
|