Obama Doesn't Understand, "Rights" Are Freedoms!

President Obama's fellow travelers can often be heard saying things like, "health care is a right." Such a nice sounding liberal-progressive pipe dream! But a horrible perversion of a glorious concept! Yet we probably should keep in mind, as Ayn Rand wrote, "The concept of individual rights is so new in human history that most men have not grasped it fully to this day." So while not supporting President Obama we forgive him because he knows not what he does.

It's up to libertarians and those who are somewhat attracted to libertarian ideas to educate America as to the nature of rights, namely that rights are freedoms, a right is a freedom to act.

We can use Ayn Rand's description of the concept:

A “right” is a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man’s freedom of action in a social context. There is only one fundamental right (all the others are its consequences or corollaries): a man’s right to his own life. Life is a process of self- sustaining and self-generated action; the right to life means the right to engage in self-sustaining and self-generated action-which means: the freedom to take all the actions required by the nature of a rational being for the support, the furtherance, the fulfillment and the enjoyment of his own life.

The concept of a “right” pertains only to action—specifically, to freedom of action. It means freedom from physical compulsion, coercion or interference by other men.

Thus, for every individual, a right is the moral sanction of a positive—of his freedom to act on his own judgment, for his own goals, by his own voluntary, uncoerced choice. As to his neighbors, his rights impose no obligations on them except of a negative kind: to abstain from violating his rights.

Libertarians somewhat more than conservatives, and infinitely more than so-called "progressives," recognize that rights are freedoms to act. Thus, for example, legislation like Obamacare, which does impose obligations on neighbors (the mandate to buy health insurance), is a violation of an individual's natural right to choose for oneself whether or not to buy health insurance ... and therefore must be repealed.

Ayn Rand's essay entitled "Man's Rights" also explains in fine detail the anti-rights, and therefore anti-human nature of Obama's philosophy (which is why libertarians must join with others to make sure Obama is defeated in 2012). To read the full essay see Man's Rights.

To understand the evil psychology of modern "liberal progressives," read Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged"

"God's laws will keep your minds at peace, because peace IS His Will, and His laws are established to uphold it. His are the laws of freedom, but yours are the laws of bondage. Since freedom and bondage are irreconcilable, their laws CANNOT BE UNDERSTOOD TOGETHER. The laws of God work only for your good, and there ARE no other laws beside His. Everything else is merely lawLESS, and therefore chaotic." -Jesus Christ in A Course in Miracles