Who Owns a Person?

This is one of the fundamental questions of cultures throughout history. Who owns a person? Who does a man (or woman) belong to?

There have been a lot of answers throughout the years. In the beginning, one belonged to the tribe. Cooperation between individuals was the key to survival, and nobody could be allowed to jeopardize that. Everyone had to work together. It was a very simple form of communism, which can work on a small scale - as long the group is small, everyone has something to gain, social pressures can easily be brought to bear on nonperformers, and the need for pure survival is strong. Everyone belonged to the tribe -- because if the tribe died, all the members died. It was that simple.

Once agriculture was invented (and yes, it was an invention, one of the first of the world-changing creations of humankind), one belonged to one's family. Men toiled in the fields, while women worked in support roles: cooking, preserving food, creating clothing, weaving cloth, bearing and raising children. The family was the unit of survival, and children belonged to their parents.

Religion has always been with us, but as it grew more organized so did the notion that one belonged to God, that we are all servants of whatever God or Gods held sway at the time. That our labors and efforts were to benefit Him or Them.

As societies grew more complex, feudalism developed in parts of the world. One belonged to one's Lord, almost as property. One's efforts, one's labor was done for the benefit of that Lord, almost exclusively. And at the top of the ladder was, of course, the King or Queen, the ruler of the country.

Feudal society gave way over time to other notions, as society became more mercantile and, later, industrialized. One's efforts belonged to one's country, to the nation and to its rulers. Patriotism in its purest form -- that nothing mattered except the State, the Country, the flag.

The shameful practice of slavery brought with it the notion that some human beings can belong to other human beings, explicitly as property. That they can truly be bought and sold like livestock. That a human being can be owned by a Master.

And in modern times, we have the notion that one belongs to Society. Notice the capital letter. That each one of us belongs to the Society we all share, and thus it is that Society that we should obey, and for whose good we should devote our highest attention. At its highest level, of course, we belong to Humanity, the Society that spans not just one nation, one race, one culture, but instead all of humankind.

And, of course, another trend arose -- that we belong to the Earth, that we belong to Nature. That we are part of Nature, and thus that we have our highest duty to serve the Earth and the natural order of things.

All of these things share common traits: tribe, family, God, Lord, King, country, Master, Society, Earth. Of them, the most honest are that of Lord, King, and Master -- at least there it is explicitly stated that, at least in the belief of those in control, that one human being belongs to another. The others are trickier -- they, too, mean that one human being owns another. The others are abstract concepts -- the Earth does not give orders. Instead, some people claim to speak for the Earth, and in its name to demand our obedience. The old notion is still there.

I'm oversimplifying above, of course -- there are thousands of years of history that I'm summarizing in a few paragraphs. I'm omitting many things, of course, and glossing over the details. But the fundamental elements remain unchanged.

Locke and the Rights of Man
There is one brief shining exception to this concept, however -- the writings of John Locke and those who followed him. Locke suggested a revolutionary notion -- literally so, since it led to the revolution that began the United States of America. The notion was simple on the surface, but breathtaking in its scope. A human being owns himself. It is such a profound, deep statement at so many levels that it bears considering.

All previous philosophies had proclaimed that a human being belonged to someone else, or to something else -- which amounts to the same thing, since in effect those who claim to speak for that something else are the ones who are asserting their claim to power. Locke's idea that a man belongs to himself defied all this -- and further, claimed that it was the natural order of things, and that any philosophy that contradicts this goes against the natural order.

This was a profound statement, and one that caused massive upheaval. Many fought against it, because it threatened their power, or the power of the order that they served. Organized religion hated it, because it denied the power of God -- and thus of the priesthood -- to give orders. Kings and royalty feared it because it threatened the Divine Right of Kings. And even after the great experiment based upon it -- the United States of America -- succeeded beyond anyone's dreams, still others with dreams of control have fought against the notion, tried to discredit it.

Locke proposed a system of negative rights. Negative rights, as opposed to positive rights, simply state that your right precludes somebody else doing something to you. A positive right requires them to provide something for you. For example, a negative right to life means only that other people shouldn't kill you, while a positive right to life would imply that it is their duty to make sure you don't die.

Among the rights that Locke proposed were the rights to life, liberty, and property. The idea of course was that, ethically, it was wrong to kill someone, imprison or restrain them, or take their property from them unless they were -- or had -- violated someone else's rights. It was a system that was beautiful in its simplicity.

The Role of Government
What purpose does government serve in such a society? Government's purpose is to protect the rights of man, and to avoid infringing them.

The concept of this was, again, revolutionary. Prior to this, the notion had always been that the government -- and by extension, those who ruled -- were above the law. The law was something that they created and enforced on others. Being in government meant you could do whatever you wanted. The only restriction on the powers of governments was, of course, those of other governments, who might declare war on you if you weren't careful.

Needless to say, those who were involved in government disliked this idea. The notion that the laws would apply to them as well, and that their powers would be circumscribed by the rights of their subjects, was not a popular concept.

The United States of America
A group of wealthy landowners in the British colonies in the New World were enamored with Locke's ideas, and they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to attempt to establish a society based on these rules. They were idealists, but their ideals were unusual in themselves -- the desire to create a government whose express purpose was not to have all the power.

Revolutions had happened before, but it was always a matter of one group seizing power from another. Nothing really changed except the question of who was in charge. Instead, you had a group of people who were risking their lives in order to give the power to other people -- or at least part of the power. Who were determined to create a system by which everyone would have a chance to participate in government.

I doubt anyone could have phrased it better than Thomas Jefferson:

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal;
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights;
that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that
to secure these Rights, Governments are institituted among Men, deriving
their just Powers from the consent of the governed.

There is so much packed into that one sentence that it deserves being considered line by line. All of this should have been covered in school, but lately the fashion has been to gloss over these documents without considering their meaning too deeply.

What a subversive document! First, a veiled insult -- claiming that one should easily be able to see the justice in the words. Second, declaring that Rights aren't privileges to be bestowed or withdrawn by a King or by government, but instead something inherent to the human race, to each and every one of us. It then goes on to state three of those Rights -- though property was curiously omitted from the document. And finally, the most important phrase: the purpose of government.

It negated the Divine Right of Kings. It stated that what gives a government its legitimate authority has nothing to do with power, has nothing to do with divinity, but instead that governments are answerable to the people they govern. It places the government into the role not of master, but instead of servant, and explicitly states that their duties involve the protection of the Rights of those under their control.

Naive? Yes, in a way. And the exclusion of women and the slaves was also not exactly the most just -- but at the same time, progress doesn't happen overnight. Just because they didn't carry the concept as far as it should have been taken does not diminish what they did accomplish. And they laid the groundwork for later abolition of both of these injustices.

The Constitution
Once the revolution was successful, and the Constitution was written, most of these same notions were translated into the supreme law of the land: the notion that individual rights, freedom, and a limited government were to become the basis of this new nation. It was among the grandest experiments in the history of human culture, and it has been wildly successful.

I firmly believe that the United States of America is the greatest country on the face of the planet, in principle. And I believe strongly in the values that were part of its founding. But at the same time, over the years, those initial principles have been eroded for various reasons. Even today, it continues.

Those on the Right wish to use the powers of Government to force compliance with their moral agenda. In the name of Patriotism, they wish to overrule freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, many of the guarantees of the Constitution against illegal search and seizure, all in the same of increasing security and protecting us from threats both internal and external.

Benjamin Franklin gave an answer to this long ago:

They that would give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

There will always be threats from abroad or from within. But it is important to maintain the principles of freedom even in the face of these threats. Whenever you allow expediency to override your principles, they cease to be principles. A principle is worth dying for. It doesn't mean we have to commit suicide and roll over for aggressors, but it means that these principles have to be held in high regard and considered in every decision. Once we cease to defend principles, they become meaningless words. Or, as another wise man once said,

It ain't a principle until it costs you money.

Those on the Left, however, see a different series of threats that require the erosion of our freedoms. Convinced that people left to their own devices will commit various atrocities and injustices, they seek to substitute their own judgement for that of their fellow men. Believing somehow that they know best, they seek to protect us from ourselves, to establish rules that violate people's freedom, especially economic freedom. They commit the same mistakes as the right-wingers they oppose -- but then propose to do the exact same thing, simply with different issues.

Both sides have forgotten much of what it is to be an American, and that is what I want to talk about in this series of posts. They have misused science to try to confuse the issues. They have used scare tactics to try to trump up support for this measure or that measure, all of which is either "The War on Whatever" or "The Whatever Crisis". I'm probably guaranteed to make a lot of people fairly mad with what I say here, but I feel like, for better or worse, it needs to be said. A lot of people may find themselves agreeing with things that I say, as well. But whatever happens, if it encourages people to think in a new way about issues, then I'll consider it a success.

Thanks for reading!