on not enforcing one's right to restitution or revenge.
Where is that right established?
I think victims have the right of restitution at least. Revenge (punishment of the criminal) seems to be society's attempt at the next best thing.
It's the only way to enforce our inalienable right to property, which comes from our right to life. There's no way a society that recognizes the general right of theft could survive, and enforcing proportional punishment of some kind flows pretty clearly from that prohibition.
Well put. It's virtually self-evident, as it were.
The point I was trying to make was that these "rights" are an artifact of the human mind in the case of "no controlling legal authority". That does not mean I disagree with the "right" only that Albert Gore may have a different view than we do.