Do a google search on rights or the history of the ethics of rights in the US. This is not virgin territory.
Here's a quote posted on another forum on Yahoo!, today:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/VUSA/message/866?expand=1
(more from Bastiat at
http://www.lexrex.com/informed/otherdocuments/thelaw/main.htm )
""As Frederic Bastiat observed over one hundred years
ago:
Each of us has a natural right to defend his person,
his liberty, and his property. These are the three
basic requirements of life, and the preservation of
any one of them is completely dependent upon the
preservation of the other two. For what are our
faculties but the extension of our individuality?
And what is property but an extension of our
faculties?
If every person has the right to defend -- even by
force -- his person, his liberty, and his property,
then it follows that a group of men have the right
to organize and support a common force to protect
these rights constantly. Thus the principle of
collective right - its reason for existing, its
lawfulness -- is based on individual right. And the
common force that protects this collective right
cannot logically have any other purpose or any other
mission than that for which it acts as a substitute.
Thus, since an individual cannot lawfully use force
against the person, liberty, or property of another
individual, then the common force -- for the same
reason -- cannot lawfully be used to destroy the
person, liberty, or property of individuals or groups.
Such a perversion of force would be, in both cases,
contrary to our premise. Force has been given to us
to defend our own individual rights. Who will dare
to say that force has been given to us to destroy
the equal rights of our brothers? Since no individual
acting separately can lawfully use force to destroy
the rights of others, does it not logically follow
that the same principle also applies to the common
force that is nothing more than the organized
combination of the individual forces?
If this is true, then nothing can be more evident
than this: The law is the organization of the
natural right of lawful defense. It is the substitution
of a common force for individual forces. And this
common force is to do only what the individual forces
have a natural and lawful right to do: to protect
persons, liberties, and properties; to maintain the
right of each, and to cause justice to reign over us
all.
If a nation were founded on this basis, it seems to
me that order would prevail among the people, in
thought as well as in deed. It seems to me that
such a nation would have the most simple, easy to
accept, economical, limited, nonoppressive, just,
and enduring government imaginable -- whatever its
political form might be.
Under such an administration, everyone would
understand that he possessed all the privileges
as well as all the responsibilities of his
existence. No one would have any argument with
government, provided that his person was respected,
his labor was free, and the fruits of his labor
were protected against all unjust attack. When
successful, we would not have to thank the state
for our success. And, conversely, when unsuccessful,
we would no more think of blaming the state for our
misfortune than would the farmers blame the state
because of hail or frost. The state would be felt
only by the invaluable blessings of safety provided
by this concept of government.
It can be further stated that, thanks to the
non-intervention of the state in private affairs,
our wants and their satisfactions would develop
themselves in a logical manner. We would not see
poor families seeking literary instruction before
they have bread. We would not see cities populated
at the expense of rural districts, nor rural
districts at the expense of cities. We would not
see the great displacements of capital, labor, and
population that are caused by legislative decisions.
The sources of our existence are made uncertain and
precarious by these state-created displacements. And,
furthermore, these acts burden the government with
increased responsibilities.""