Human Rights? Pish.

Disclaimer:  I have a feeling this post will be one of my least popular viewpoints.  You are entirely welcome to disagree with me in the comments, and I encourage you to do this if you feel strongly enough about it.  My role here isn't to tell you what to think, how to think or even convince you of anything.  I do not require your acceptance of my views in order to validate my existence on this blue spinning orb.  I will never tell you how to live your lives.  You have free will; you are more than capable of making your own decisions, and the last thing you need is yet another person telling you what to do.  So here we go:

I Will Survive!

The idea of "human rights" is utter bollocks.  The hard and fast truth is that you have none, except for tenuous legal constructs that governments have reluctantly conceded to give you in order to shut you up and let them take more of your money.  If you had any human right at all, it would be simply to do anything you want to your own body.  Except you don't even have that. There are hundreds of laws preventing you from doing what you might want to do to yourself.  Because there is always someone out there who thinks they know what's best for you, like Andrew Lansley, so they will go to great lengths to make sure that you cannot be in control of your own body and your life.  So what are you left with if you can't even do what you want to your body?  Nothing.  You can only hope to survive, which some mistakenly refer to as a "Right to Life."   That's all you've got.  Survival. A chance to survive, actually.  And this isn't a human right.  It's a fundamental law of nature.

There are no guarantees in life.  You are not born with a book or some kind of guide that definitively outlines your human rights.  No one is.  Every right you believe you have can be and most certainly will be taken away from you given the chance.  You do not even have a right to procreate and to have children, which is necessary in order to ensure survival of the species.  You have only a chance to reproduce, provided that A) you live long enough to reach sexual maturity,  B) you can find a mate who has also reached sexual maturity, and C) you are both fertile and you have sex together.  That's the magic formula for human life right there.  Children or Reproduction equals:

A+B+C

(Random Chance * Frequency of Mating)

OK, I've completely made that formula up, and I know it's not even remotely accurate, there are way too many variables for my little brain to consider -- if you have a better, funnier formula, please post it in the comments.  Still, you can significantly improve your chances of successfully reproducing with a set or two of these:

 

Your Human Rights Explained

You do not have a human right to own a home, or even live in one.
You do not have a human right to breathe clean, unpolluted air.
You do not have a human right to health care.
You do not have a human right to a job.
You do not have a human right to not be offended.
You do not have a human right to Internet access.
You do not have a human right to drive or to a parking space.
You do not have a human right to privacy.
You do not have a human right to marry.
You do not have a human right to education.
You do not have any human rights.

Welcome to Your Goverment-Approved Entitlements Culture

I'm sorry, but it's the truth.  The reason we say we have human rights is so that society and civilisation can get on with the business of surviving.  Just because people say it's a human right, doesn't make it so!

The point is this: All of the things that people say are "human rights" are merely civil liberties, whether ancient or modern, and they are liberties or rights granted to us by the powers-that-be in the place where you live.  Civil liberties that people have fought and died for, sacrificed greatly for.  If these were truly human rights, we wouldn't need to write them down and enshrine them in law.  We would all instinctively know them as universal truths from the moment of our birth.   You wouldn't even need to fight for them.  They would simply be without the need for defining them or arguing for them.

We bandy about the term "human rights" incorrectly so often that we now fail to realise or even consider that these are only "legal rights" afforded to us.  Legal rights always come with exceptions, and are not necessarily binding, for they can be stripped away at any time.  Indeed, they are taken away when it suits government.  Legal rights vary from country to country, culture to culture.  It's great we have some legal rights.  Some societies are far less fortunate.

Politicians love the idea of human rights, because it inspires them to create entitlements for us, by doling out taxpayer money that most of us didn't need in the first place, all in exchange for voting them into office.  What? You thought they actually cared about you?  Please.

The First Rule About Fight Club Is...

So, when you believe you are fighting for your human rights to do anything, including smoking, you are actually fighting for your civil liberties.  It really is an important distinction to make.  And when you wonder why your civil liberties have been taken away, like the smoking ban in public places, it's because you do not have any human rights at all.

"You take tuberculosis. My smoking doesn't go over at all."
Image Source: Entertainment Geekly via Google Image Search