The Mislaid Rights of Man: How We Forfeit Our Own Rights—and Those of Others

A not inconsiderable flaw of modern Western civilization is that it has never fully absorbed Article IV of France’s 1789 Declaration of Rights of Man and the Citizen, that we all have the same natural rights, and that our rights end where others’ begin. Too often we neither acknowledge nor observe these rights, even though they are a cornerstone of democratic life, insofar as they are “inalienable” and can’t be written out of existence by legislation. The “imprescriptible” nature of these rights is meant as a warranty against their wanton excision from any people’s charter. These lofty sentiments seem neither to bother nor frequently occur to the ruling classes of Western society, unless they are called upon to defend them, which they can then do with great aplomb, before allowing them to sink back into oblivion. As a result of this cavalier attitude, whether or not your rights are respected tends to depend on your class or race. More