Follow me in this reasoning if you would: I'm alive. Do I
have a right to this life I currently posses? Yes. Do I have any other
rights because of my life? Yes, lets start with the most basic ones. If I
have a right to my life it means I have the right to maintain my life.
Thus because I need food and water and shelter and clothing, I have a
right to these things because they preserve my life.
If I have a right to my life, and therefore the
right to sustain my life, do I also have a right to my body? The obvious
answer is yes, I have right to leave this world with all the pieces I
came in with.
If I have a right to my life, and my body, what do I
do if something threatens the integrity of my body, my shelter, my
food, my water, or my life directly? Do I have a right to eliminate the
threat imposed on myself and/or those necessities that keep me alive?
Well do I? If I don't my life will end, or be
severely compromised eventually leading to my demise. If I don't have the right to
defend these things then what does the "right" to these things mean?
Without the right to defense, all of these things
which we clearly have a right to are meaningless. Thus, yes I do have a
right to eliminate a threat to my life, body and necessities.
How is that done? How do I defend myself? The answer
changes throughout history, but the answer can be summed up as:
matching and preferably exceeding the force of the threat so as to stop
and eliminate it.
In the past this would have meant a club, or a dagger
maybe. Later a bronze sword, maybe a sickle. Later still an iron, then a steel
sword, then a bow, crossbow, and then various primitive firearms. Each
weapon becomes obsolete as technology advances. If a thief jumped you
with a dagger and you drew a flintlock pistol you properly preserved
yourself and your possessions by exceeding the force of the threat. If
the thief had jumped you with a flintlock pistol you would have only
matched the force, and may not live to tell about it.
Thus your right to defense extends, not to any
specific object, but to the pinnacle of defensive weaponry of the day. If
you don't have access to such weaponry, you risk becoming a victim from
some one who does have access.
By this reasoning then, I have a right, as a living
being, to defend my life, all that it encompasses, and that which is
necessary to sustain it with the best weaponry of my day so that I can
achieve parody with, or preferably exceed the force of my attacker, regardless of who or what my attacker may be.
If I don't have this right, if I am to stay limited
in my defense by artificial laws imposed upon me by another, what does
that mean? If I don't have a right to the best technology of the day for
my defense, doesn't that put the threats to my life and necessities at
an advantage? And since the threats now have
preferential treatment, what does that say of my life? The threats to my
life are not bound by the laws of man, if they were, then the laws of
men would eliminate them.
The answer is my life is reduced in value if I am denied the ability to defend myself with the best weapons of my day.
By
this reasoning, any one who imposes laws upon me that reduce my ability
to defend myself are devaluing my life, and putting it at risk, and
thus are a threat themselves.
What rights then do I have to protect myself against those who can make laws that can harm me? Obviously I would need a way to defend myself from them, yet force is the last method one should seek with authority. Thus I must obviously have the right to speak out, so that my complaints can be heard and others can know my plight. I would also have the right to assemble with others who share in my complaint, or cause for standing up to authority alone is almost always futile.
But authority despises any insolence, however peaceable it may be, and would desire to shutdown any attempt to influence the people to change it's rule. Thus I would also have a right to privacy, which would preclude the powers that be from monitoring my actions taken in the privacy of homes and gatherings.
You see, our rights all derive from one simple aspect: our life. Our rights exist to preserve our life, and expand it's vitality and quality. Every freedom which neither steels from another nor harms their person is validated by this truth: all life seeks not to survive but to thrive.
When you realize that what is true of the rights of one, is true of all mankind, then you realize that these rights benefit society as a whole, each person thriving to the best of their ability. It is a standard rarely met in this world, yet in nature it is clear to see that every creature strives for it none the less, and those societies who permit the most freedom while still retaining the ability to punish crimes against others are the most prosperous.
Thus your rights can be summarized in one statement:
Because I am alive I have a right to my life and all it encompasses and to all means of preserving all that I am and have attained, without infringing upon the same of any other except through preservation of my and my own.