I'm not sure what people think it means to say that a right is absolute. I guess they think that "absolute" means you can libel someone, or spill company secrets despite a non-disclose, or carry a gun on your neighbor's property when he's expressly forbidden it. And so on. (This would be akin to the popular understanding of deregulation, in which unfettered capitalism means that businessmen are not subject to common law.
)
I would insist that rights, if they are rights at all, must be absolute in the sense that they can never
justifiably be violated. One of the underlying problems with our politics is the idea that rights must be "balanced" or "limited" by some other right or interest. This leads to the fallacy that it's sometimes acceptable to violate a person's rights, for good cause. Or that your rights no longer matter, if I have a right that somehow trumps yours. But the very nature of a right is that x is yours
by right. It is always wrong to violate rights, because that's what they are - rights. How can anything on our human plane of existence be higher than a right? How can a right be transgressed, except by wrong?
So we find the limits of our rights not by balancing them against other people's rights, or against "compelling interests," but by understanding that our rights don't extend to our neighbor's nose (so to speak). My nose doesn't violate your rights, or take away your right to swing your fist; it was just never subject to your rights. Our rights are absolute as far they extend, and no further. 'Cause it's absolutely my nose, dangit. You can hit our own nose, because that's absolutely yours. (But this is not recommended.)
Thoughts?
