Two weekends ago, Long Range Acoustic Devices (LRAD) were deployed during the anti-mandate protests outside Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, despite being known to have caused hearing loss and permanent nerve damage ( https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-18/coronacheck-sonic-weapons-lrad-police-canberra-protests/100839612 ). One of the legal concerns with these devices is that, unlike a gun which can point at and injure or kill only one person at a time, LRADs can injure multiple people indiscriminately, including innocent bystanders.
What “right” do police have to deploy such a weapon? Don’t members of the public have the “right” to participate in a protest or to spectate without being injured by police?
What are “rights”? What does that really mean?
Let’s say you assert a right against me. What happens if I don’t magically agree, how then do you get satisfaction? Perhaps you take me to court. Let’s say you win. What happens if still I disagree? Perhaps the police arrest and gaol me. And if I disagreed throughout this process? They use physical force to lift me into the police van and carry me into the cell. In short, a right is a claim that can be defended by force. In our society, however, you yourself may not use force; only the state may do that. So, what if the state decides not to enforce your right? You have no right.
Let’s say I assert a right against you. Put another way, I am imposing an obligation upon you: in asserting a right against you, I am claiming that you are obliged to do that thing. Similarly, if I have an obligation to you, you have that right against me. Rights and obligations are two sides of the same coin. However, the two are not identical.
As mentioned, a purported right that is not backed by force is not in reality a right. By contrast, an obligation requires no force. If you feel an obligation to me, who "enforces" your obligation? You do. Your sense of honour impels you to discharge your obligation.
The second difference is one of scale. Let’s say you have a “right” against the world, say, a right to free speech. That means you can say a thing in public and everybody must let you. What if they don’t let you? That’s a lot of enforcing you will have to do. It will be time- and money-consuming, and it will require the co-operation of the state. Too bad if it's the state not doing the letting! The entire exercise will be unpleasant or worse. Now let’s take the other perspective and say you have an obligation to let someone speak. Not only do you have your honour impelling you to discharge your obligation, you in fact have the easiest obligation in the world to discharge. You literally do nothing — and you’re done. Wow. Now go back to the first perspective of you saying a thing in public. You have a multitude of people all discharging their obligation to you by doing literally nothing. Easy and pleasant for them, easy and pleasant for you. What a beautiful world.
So, while obligations and rights are two sides of the same coin, obligation is a much more powerful and fulfilling approach than right.
If you’ve heard of positive and negative rights and wondered what is the difference, we’ll talk about that next time. In the meantime, please do feel free to ask questions and discuss the issues.
The most fragile aspect of rights is that they do not exist outside of human consciousness.
Our rights are recognised and prevail to whatever extent out fellow man chooses to recognise and respect these. The primary weakness of rights is that some people do not, and if they have the capacity and motivation to injure us, rights may as well not exist.
This undeniable fact of life has important implications for social organisation. We require a society in which every member recognises human rights. This can only come about if that recognition comes about through fully informed consensus that has been applied for three generations.
This in turn presumes everybody has access to the same unrestricted flow of information. While entities like Rupert Murdoch, Frank Lowy, and Ross Garnaut control all significant information flow in Australia, constructive and knowledge-based consensus is impossible. We have witnessed the outcome of this in the mainstream media, wherein only one overview of covid, PCR, and mRNA 'vaccination' is permitted to be diseminated; and the resultant attitude is unquestionably adopted by the illiterate, the willingly ignorant, and the unthinking.
Previous surveys show that 30% of Australians do not think to link evidence with beliefs, and even less so to behaviour. This is also the most violent sector of the community and I do not intend to apply chicken and egg analogies to possible cause and effect. This is also the sector most represented in police, army and private security, which should give cause for sober reflection.
Force will be used to alienate rights, not to enforce these.
So, if we want to talk about rights, we should really be talking about a post crisis scenario. I am in close contact with other sectors of the community; most recognisably the 'anti mRNA jab mandate' sector, which is divided yet again into: (a) protest rally participants and their supporters, (b) the small business protest lobby, and (c) southern urban Aborigines.
Group (a) believes rallies will convince government it must abandon its illegal and anti-democratic repressions;. Group (b) believes it will resolve the crisis with expensive legal challenges, and Group (c) believes only direct action and, if necessary, violence, will force resolution. Interestingly, one of the rally sector participants, Australia One Party convenor Riccardo Bosi hints that direct action will probably be the only means of restoring government of the people. Or, if forced down this road, he will introduce a new fundamentalist theocracy.
Election experience tells me that no minor party will make a difference, because it is the mainstream media that makes or breaks elections. Unless, and this is the big unless, News Corp is broken up before the elections, no small political party will make a difference, even if its membership is ten times that of the ALP and Liberals combined. This is a matter of simple arthmetic. Two thirds of the electorate will not join a new party.
Having said that, a plethora of small parties that can form a coaliton and force the balance of power, is a critical necessity if we are to have a future at all. But his must be accompanied by the destruction of News Corp. And in case some of you have not yet twigged, News Corp runs the ABC.
I neither know, nor care, how News Corp is eliminated but if rights are to be a feature of our future, News Corp must go, and go permanently.
None of this gives me great cause for hope that an era in which we debate the best way to establish a just society is going to happen any time soon. Group (a) will be violently repressed or killed. Group (b) will feed the lawyers and go broke. Group (c) will fight.
My point is, unless we get real, real quick, there ain't gonna be any rights for anybody. Ever.