Barry Schwartz's Non Sequitur
Barry Schwartz, professor of psychology at Swarthmore College and author of The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less, argues that changing government policy in order to provide more choice (such as in education, health care, and pensions) is not necessarily a good idea because an expanded array of options often makes people unhappy. Granting that dubious premise just for the sake of argument, my answer is: So what? Government’s purpose is not to make people happy or even to protect them from being unhappy. (As if it could do that.) If government has any legitimate purpose (a highly dubious proposition), it is only to protect life, liberty, and property—but I repeat myself.
Re: so who owns me, anyway?
Re: You still miss the point...
The issue isn't whether rights are limited or unlimited. Everything that exists is limited; that's part of what it means to exist. The issue is the nature of rights. Rights are principles, derived from the nature and requirements of human life, that set boundaries with respect to what each of us may legitimately do in relation to other people. Of course there is no right to violate rights; that would be a contradiction. Thus there is no right for A to poison B by emitting deadly fumes--that would violate his life, liberty, and property. Likewise, you have no right to fire your bullet from your gun into an innocent person's body. But acquiring material values through original appropriation and free trade violates no rights, no matter how much is acquired. To say that the right to property is a right to a "little" property is to play word games. It eviscerates the right altogether because some authority is necessarily endowed with the power to define "little" and to violently interfere with those who disagree and seek to acquire more. Under this scheme men are obviously not equal; the authority is more equal than others. If he can legitimately seize property from someone who has "too much," the authority must have a super-property right. Where did that come from?
Democracy won't get you out of this pickle. How does society possess rights not held by any individual member? If a gang takes an individual's "excess" property, no abstract political theory will transform that act of theft into something else.
you mean...
hence where many libertarians screw up...it is not all individual rights...there are collective rights that include economic, social, and cultural rights...although they are expressed on an individual level much of the time. THis being said, the property right also means right to some property while acknowledging past and future generations, holding the property in a sort of trusteeship while recognising all social and human rights consequences of actions involving the development and use of that property and ensuring that the rights of all others are respected...hence a pretty absolute rejection of the "free market...I can do whatever I want with the property I have...absolute ownership without regard" philosophy of many mistaken libertarians...including Rand on many occasions I might add. Not to state that you or anyone else necessarily covets this philosophy...just to point out one of the screwy statements in the post.
CP
www.wicper.org
Re: you mean...
You still miss the point...
One does not own one's person...this is a misnomer...one is considered by law an independent entity...others have the DUTY not to violate the rights of the independent entity...BUT the entity also has to realise that the rights are not unlimited and are accompanied by duties towards every single other independent entity and society as a whole.
CP
www.wicper.org
so who owns me, anyway?