At least in the standard historical usage of the term, a right is something that exists simultaneously among people. A right confers no obligation on another. For example, the right to free speech is something we all possess. My right to free speech imposes no obligation upon another except that of non-interference. Similarly, I have a right to travel freely. That right imposes no obligation upon another except that of non-interference.
Contrast those rights to the supposed right to decent housing or medical care. Those supposed rights do confer obligations upon others. There is no Santa Claus or Tooth Fairy. If you don't have money to pay for decent housing or medical services, and the government gives you a right to those services, where do you think the money comes from?
I agree. It should. It does not. Though I can find no disagreement with the author in his listing of what rights *are* he in no way offers a simple explanation of their *source*.
The closest the author comes to this revelation is in one of his closing lines: "Actual rights—those actions to which you are *entitled by your nature* as man...."
I ask, what is my nature as a man? From what font did that nature spring?
Does evolution theory explain my rights? If the happenstance of my birth came through thousands - excuse me, millions - of years of evolution, and my life as man is pure luck of the draw according to the governing rule of survival of the fittest (over even cellular life), what claim do I have to the uniqueness of my nature? How dare I presume to set myself atop the chain of life for simply being born (with no involvement on my part) with the capacity for rational thought, a cosmic accident, biological happenstance?
Rights only apply to beings capable of thought, Fulton Huxtable asserts, capable of defining rights and creating an organized means—government—of protecting such rights.
Is this why babies in utero have no right to life and may be aborted at the whim of the 'thinking' mother? Is this why the Honorable George W. Greer, Judge, Sixth Judicial Circuit, Clearwater, Florida, can rule justly that Terri Schiavo's husband may remove her feeding tube? If a man (or woman, or child) is incapable of defending his rights does he not have them?
If you (or Fulton) were to argue that those men (or women or children) who are incapable of defending their own rights due to age or disability are given assumed rights because society has made provision for their rights in law, then you are admitting that rights come from government.
I beg to differ.
Animals have thought processes. This has been proven scientifically and is irrefutable. Animals have the desire to live, and the ability to defend their lives (as men do) until that defense is countered by superior force. Thought process is not the origin of man's rights.
Man's superior ability to gather into societies and to establish government on the agreement of delineated rights, and for the protection of these, does not explain the *source* of man's rights - *unless* you or Fulton Huxtable is arguing that *the agreement of what rights are* is itself the source?
I beg to differ with that, too.
As I see it, you have three choices in naming the Source of your rights:
1) God - absolute and unchanging, according to His revealed will by His Word
2) Government - whimsical enforcement by the Power du jour
3) Your personal declaration - rationally indefensible.