It is popular for Americans and people in general to cherish their rights. It's only natural. Rights are an important part of every society, free or otherwise. The abundance or lack of rights lie at the very core of any community large and small. However, at times the source of these rights becomes exaggerated. A peoples' rights take on an almost divine aura. Many will claim human rights are a gift from a god or some divine force. It's a comforting notion, but ignores reality. Rights are a complicated concept because their so abstract, but without a firm understanding of what rights are and where they come from the people are ill-equipped to defend them.

First and foremost, rights don't come from god or anything supernatural. They never have. They are and always have been an abstract concept of society. Their main source is law. Without law there is no order and without order there are no rights. Now law is a far more complicated concept than rights. There are so many different legal traditions across history, cultures, and countries that to explain one and apply it to all would be utterly meaningless in any argument as to the source of rights. But rights as most people understand them do have a basis in certain aspects of law, namely those meant to protect individuals and communities and ensure order.

Now it's impossible to talk about the source of rights without the source of the law. Throughout history law has come from many places. Ancient Egypt and the vast empires of history had rulers who dictated what the law was. Kingdoms and city-states had oligarchs, councils, or community proceedings that brought forth the law. It wasn't always logical. If a ruler was mentally ill, then the laws would not be very reasonable. Men like Calligula of Ancient Rome, Ivan the Terrible or Medieval Russia, and Pol Pot of Cambodia all had clear symptoms of serious mental illness. Yet being the rulers of their country, they were the law and that law was what the people had to live under. Needless to say, the people didn't have very clear or logical rights.

The problem with law and rights as always been that people were constantly debating the laws and bending them to their whims. That's where some of these irrational traditions come from. That's where barbaric systems like the Spanish Inquisition, Stalin's secret police, or Adolph Hitlers SS come from. It is only when those educated in reason and humanities come together that the source of natural rights take shape. The logic follows that all human beings, being of the same flesh and blood as anyone else, have an intrinsic worth. It is a concept that spans all religions and cultures to some extent, even those with ridged hierarchies. Thus, the law must protect each individual worth from the whims of other individuals and the only way to do this is through law.

This presents another problem. Law is not always forged in peace. As such, rights are not always forged from peace. When dealing with oligarchs and tyranical rulers, it often takes force to obtain the legal framework for these rights. That's why there had to be an American Revolution. That's why there had to be uprisings amongst populations in Europe and other Western countries to reshape the power structure in favor of defending rights rather than debating them. It also helps when the population becomes more educated and aware of their state. It was difficult in pre-modern times because there were so few connections between communities. Now with advanced understandings in law and reason, rights can take shape.

This is where limited government comes in. Starting with concepts like the Magna Carta, the state's role in rights shifted from being a giver of rights to a defender of rights. This was the reasoning behind the republic, which has it's roots back in Ancient Greece and Rome. Here, it is a fixed body of laws that limit the power of the state to maintain it's role as a protector of rights. This was what the founding fathers followed as they understood that rights could only be protected if the government was limited by law. So when people start assuming their rights are coming from somewhere else besides law, they ignore when the law is usurped and thus their rights are usurped.

The belief that rights come from some holy, god-given source has distracted people from the real problem with rights. They need to have a basis in law and at times there needs to be force behind it. Here's the situation. Government has grown a great deal in the last 100 years, expanding it's power and intruding on the rights of the citizens, sometimes overtly and sometimes covertly and sometimes completely unintentionally. Yet these violations aren't confronted because the people don't understand the government's role. They think their rights were with them when they were born or they come from some invisible deity. So if that's the source, why bother with the law?

It is dangerous and flawed thinking. It's the kind of thinking that causes complacency in a population. It gives people an excuse to sit around while their government continues to ignore the law and strip at their rights. It is only when the people demand through force that the government respect the law and the rights they protect that the free society prevails. At the moment, however, not enough force is being applied and too many people are not willing to step up.

For more reading on the source of rights, please consult the following academic paper by Brian Tierney:

The Idea of Natural Rights

It is universally accepted that economics is a complicated subject. Even the brightest of minds admit they are not sure what makes the economy tick. People have dedicated their entire lives to studying economics and mankinds understanding of it is still very much limited. One running theme is that an economists is the only other profession besides weatherman that can be wrong 100 percent of the time and still keep their job. Just as nobody can accurately predict the weather all the time, nobody can predict the economy all the time. So why would people assume a lone film-maker could sum it up any better?

Michael Moore is no stranger to economics. For years he's spoken on the ills of capitalism. His latest film "Capitalism: A Love Story" is a breakdown of everything he feels is wrong with capitalism. He paints it as the greatest evil and the source of all social ills in society. He does this, of course, with a very rudimentary (and flawed) understanding of what capitalism is. Yet what he documents is not pure propaganda nor is it a portrait of everyone like him. Moore, like most people of his trade, sincerely believes what he says. He just doesn't understand certain parts of the issue that very few understand to begin with.

What's Micahel Moore Talking About?

The most glaring flaw is the way he highlights certain ills and attributes them to capitalism. In his movie he talks about greedy banks using public money for obscene profits and the growing hardships small businesses face when they try to compete with larger corporate entities. But what he fails to understand is that these events are not driven by capitalism. They are driven by collaborations between government and business. If he had talked to anybody with some background in capitalism, he would know that the reason these big entites like oil companies, drug companies, and banks make such extreme profits is because they get the government to help them out. They use laws, regulations, and various red tape to stamp out competition, protect profits, and socialize losses. That's why they invest so much money in lobbyists. It helps them make more money.

This isn't a failure of capitalism. It's a failure of limited government. The constitution of the United States never stipulated that the government should aid in any business. Businesses, like individuals, were all subject to the same laws. It's when the government gets corrupted by businessmen that these ills develop. Going back to the era of Robber Barons like Rockefeller and Carnegie, they used tactics to weed out competition that were without question illegal. But they got help from the government, allowing them to get special breaks instead of using their own merits to succeed. This is how near-monopolies developed in many industries. It wasn't capitalism, but a perversion of it caused by an intrusive government.

Moore also documents the struggles of the middle class in his film. He blames capitalism for their declining standard of living and makes the case that the government should do more to help them. But what he fails to understand is that government is the reason for the declining middle class in the first place. The most notable cause involves inflation of priceses and the decreased purchasing power of the dollar. That's not because of capitalism. That's because of big government, namely the Federal Reserve. Since 1913 they have been printing money without anything to back it up. That's what causes the inflation and that's what robs people of their purchasing power. It's been documented in history going all the way back to ancient Egypt. Yet Moore doesn't get this and to his credit, very few people do.

The most telling shortcoming of Moore's film is his solution to the problem. He says democracy is the antidote to all these ills. Again, he's confusing his terms. Democracy has nothing to do with government. It has everything to do with politics. The very word democracy means people rule. It is a system that has never succeeded and for good reason. When the people have the power to vote on the excise of power, that vote is subject to majority rule. So if the majority want to oppress a minority, there's nothing stopping them. If the majority want to surrender all authority to a dictator, there's nothing stopping them. That's why the Founding Fathers scolded democracy. America as a whole has never been a democracy. It is and always has been a constitutional republic.

A republic is rule by law where a fixed body of laws is enforced by a government whose power is limited. This means that issues of business and personal conduct are free for the people to enjoy. No one business should be granted any favors. All should be free to prosper and free to fail. That is the essence of a republic. Moore doesn't get that. He doesn't understand that government has been granting special favors to entities like banks, utilities, and various enterprises for years and that is what has perverted the system. It's when government steps back and let business stand on it's own two feet that true prosperity is possible. It seems counter-intuitive to some, but historically speaking it is the best system for governing man.

In terms of the big picture, not everything in Michael Moore's movie is to be scoffed at. He's not wrong on everything just as he's not right on everything. He does highlight some important shortcomings of the current system. He simply fails to understand the philosophy and history of that system. Most people do not get economics, but they do get freedom. That is why the most powerful message in any argument for these issues is freedom because when people are free, people are free to prosper.