And "Rights" Lead Where?

If this two-grafs-and-a-half doesn't make you stop to think, we're all in trouble.

The assumption behind the “rights-duty-dignity-values” understanding of the modern world is that no human nature exists. Nothing is given. Dignity means that we are free to project on ourselves and the world how we understand ourselves. We make ourselves. Values mean that no ultimate explanation is possible about God, the cosmos, or human life. We give ourselves our own values. Rights mean that we can demand that how we define ourselves be recognized by others. Duty signifies that others have an obligation to “respect” how we define ourselves, whatever it is.

Obviously, this interpretation is relativist and individualist. It can easily, however, by the same logic, become collective. Here ecology and globalization come in handy. Natural disasters, “failed” governments, poverty, and restrictions based on religion or traditional reason are “threats” to the international community. The common good is defined in terms of modern “rights.” They give rise to “humanitarian” intervention in all parts of the world, including in this country. Since we are “entitled” to our “rights,” we can empower the collectivity to set conditions and enforce corresponding conduct.

The modern regime of “human rights” increasingly portends the soft totalitarianism implicit in our culture since we substituted will for reason as the ground of our understanding of God, the world, and ourselves....

The reason to be concerned with a Statist in the White House ought to be obvious--no matter if that Statist is (D) or (R).