Individual Rights, not Individualized Rights

While walking on Bleecker Street this afternoon, an attractive woman smiled at me and said “Hi”, so I looked over.  She then asked, “Have you got a minute for gay rights?”  I shook my head and kept walking.

This kind of thing is to be expected when you’re walking through Greenwich Village, as there’s a pretty high concentration of homosexuals and gay-friendly businesses in the area.  People believe that “gay rights” are something that requires support in the form of money or petition signatures or volunteer time.

In a conversation about feminism lately, my mother said, “Well, you’re a feminist.”

I don’t believe in women’s rights, or gay rights, or disability rights.  I don’t believe in rights for groups.  I believe in the fundamental nature of the rights of individuals.

Consider the first three paragraphs of the Libertarian Party’s Statement of Principles:

We, the members of the Libertarian Party, challenge the cult of the omnipotent state and defend the rights of the individual.

We hold that all individuals have the right to exercise sole dominion over their own lives, and have the right to live in whatever manner they choose, so long as they do not forcibly interfere with the equal right of others to live in whatever manner they choose.

Governments throughout history have regularly operated on the opposite principle, that the State has the right to dispose of the lives of individuals and the fruits of their labor. Even within the United States, all political parties other than our own grant to government the right to regulate the lives of individuals and seize the fruits of their labor without their consent.

These principles hold that the kind of rights that might be associated with “gay rights”, “women’s rights”, and similar movements… are the kind of rights that naturally belong to those groups.  I won’t fight for the rights of a segmented group, I’ll fight for the rights of all of us.  If all a group is seeking is freedom from an unnatural restriction of their rights by government, I’m already on their side.  If they’re seeking special treatment, then I’m not going to.

“Government needs to get out of my shit” is the kind of movement I’d sign up for.