What rights should a person have within a society? I’ve been thinking about this question for a little while. It’s an interesting (to me) question that seems very relevant these days.

In order to answer this question, the first thing to understand is the goal of the society you’re in. The rights of the individual draw from those goals. Since I’m in America, I’m focused mostly on it, but I’m not rehashing what the laws are, but instead talking about should be

A good place to start seems like the Preamble to the United States Constitution. The purpose of this text was to lay out the intentions of the Founding Fathers.

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

The goals are stated here fairly clearly, but leave a fair amount of room for interpretation:
* Establish Justice
* Insure Domestic Tranquility
* Provide for the Common Defense
* Promote General Welfare
* Secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.

One way to look at this is that a persons rights extend until they conflict with these goals.  That is my rights extend until they unsettle Justice, endanger domestic tranquility, deplete the common defense, or hinder general welfare.  Since I’m not really sure what the Blessings of Liberty are, I’ll skip that one.

Our rights exist to insure fairness, tranquility, and general welfare of this society, and it’s population.

With that basic tenet in mind, what does it mean?

This means that my rights and your rights cannot be unfair to another member of society.  It means that they cannot create strife.  It means that they cannot take away from the general health of the people around us.

My rights extend to the point where they would intrude on yours.  My rights extend until they give me more than they give you, until they directly cause conflict, or they make your life more difficult.

Of course the devil is in the details, but I’ll be using this understanding / belief as I tackle other subjects.

Where am I wrong?