The Lie Of Collective Right

23Nov09

It never fails.

Any time one begins in earnest a discussion of America's movement toward collectivism, in jumps some pseudo intellectual devil's advocate who's stopped suckling upon the government tit long enough to offer their two cents:

"Oh, think government health care is collectivism, huh? Well then I guess you don't want fire departments, or a police department. National Defense, you'd better give that up too."

Smugly self satisfied, they retreat from the discussion having offered their one and only point. Whether it's to set us back upon our heels, or imply collectivism's banality through association with trusted institutions, I couldn't say. But a clearly fallacious argument like that is little more than blood in the water to someone who knows what they're talking about.

I do.

You see our founders didn't just pull their ideas out of a hat. Our concept of individual right is based upon principles of natural law inherent to the human condition. These natural laws predate the law of man, and make it possible. They have been recognized throughout recorded history, and are exceedingly well represented in a work called "The Law" by Frederic Bastiat. Our founders read Bastiat and knew the truth of his works.

You see there's a difference between collective action and collectivism. Collective action involves the rights of the individual being lent to the group, for a common purpose. Collective action is an extension of individual rights, not a replacement of them.

Individuals are granted certain rights under natural law. Chief among those right are the rights to life, liberty, and the right to possess property. These are the basic requirements to sustain life. An individual has an inherent right to defend by force his life, and by extension his liberty and property. To deprive him of any one of these would be to deprive him of the other two.

If the individual may defend his rights, it follows that multiple individuals may come together to support a common force to defend the rights of each other. The government may only do for us what we would do for ourselves, but choose not to, because collective right is based entirely in individual right.

Just as I can defend my home and property from fire or violence, I can instead choose to employ a fire department and police force to do it for me. However, just as my rights cannot supersede and nullify the rights of another, those rights of the group cannot nullify the rights of the individual.

But collectivism goes beyond what we could do for ourselves, to perform that which we would and should do for ourselves. That is the true meaning of collectivism. Beyond the emphasis on human interdependence, or the belief that group goals take precedence over individuals goals. Collectivists believe that the collective may possess rights which the individual does not.

It runs contrary to both human nature, and natural law. That's why no matter what you call it; Marxism, Nationalism, Socialism, Communism...it always fails.