(It is a perennial amusement to me to watch a person try to derive the notion of rights without reference to God.)

What is a right?

“Something a person should have, or should be able to do.”

According to whom?

“Well, you know, according to the majority.”

So if a majority agree that Jews don’t have a right to live, then it’s perfectly okay to kill them?

“Well, no.  I mean, the majority isn’t always right.”

So who decides when the majority is right or wrong about what constitutes a right?

“Well, you know, I mean, a right has to serve the greater good.”

Who decides what is the greater good?

“Well, it’s like, what benefits the most people.”

So if you decide that killing all the Jews benefits the most people, then the Jews don’t have a right to live?

“I wouldn’t do that.”

No, but plenty of people did.

“Well, obviously that’s wrong.”

By that you mean it’s obvious to you.  It wasn’t obvious to them, obviously.  Are you saying that the genuine rights are those rights which are obvious to you?  Are you the one who decides?

“Well, no, but…”

But…?

“Well, I don’t know.  This is why we have debate.”

And then a majority vote.  Because the majority ultimately decides what people’s rights are.

“…”

Except when the majority is wrong, according to some other majority.

“Look, nobody said this stuff is simple.”

It is simple.  If you say “the greater good,” you’re still leaving it to some human being, or group of human beings, to judge what is the greater good, and thus to determine what is a right and what isn’t.  The only way to get away from that is to say that rights come from some determination other than human.  That leaves Nature, or Nature’s God.  How can we recognize a right which has been assigned to us by Nature or Nature’s God?  Either by appealing to Scripture, or by identifying rights as existing in us prior to any human decision or agency.  If we would not appeal to a particular religion’s text, then we must look to the universe itself, and assess what qualities or essential elements are built into us by the very virtue of our being human.  What are these?

We live, therefore we have a right to life.  For a person to have been said to exist at all, that person must have lived, at least for a moment.  Therefore, life is essential to the definition, the essence, of a person.  A person cannot be a person except by having lived at least briefly, and therefore it is right that a person should live.  Life is a right.

A person is free, therefore people have a right to freedom (liberty).  Even a person born into slavery has the fundamental ability to self-determine, even if his choice is limited to obedience or suicide (though it is usually only so limited by the person’s lack of imagination).  If a person has lived, a person has had opportunities to make choices, has had some measure of freedom; it cannot be otherwise; therefore, it is right that a person should be free.  Freedom is a right.

A person has property, and therefore has a right to property.  To the extent that the word “property” has meaning, it means those objects or entities which are controlled by a particular human agent.  A thing is described as a person’s property if and to the extent that that person determines the thing’s fate, determines what becomes of the thing or what is done with or to the thing by people.  The moment a person can make choices, that person is exerting influence on the things around him.  The moment a child decides to pick up a crayon and draw with it, that crayon is, at least to some extent, that child’s property.  Control over a person’s physical, external environment extending from that person’s choices is a fundamental element of his existence.  A person cannot exist in the physical world and be free without, to some extent, having property.  Therefore it is right that a person should have property.  Property is a right.

And so on it goes like this.  This is the only objective way to determine what are the rights of Man.