human rights

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Human rights are peculiar. I suspect that human rights do not actually exist, but that doesn't mean there cannot be a vociferous clamoring in support of them. A right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." A right to live in peace. A right to speak up and be heard. A right not to be enslaved. A right to equality. The right to nourish and be nourished. "Endowed with inalienable rights."

Socially, there are any number of organizations or philosophies that propose and promote human rights. But the existence of such organizations or philosophies suggests to me that if the rights espoused were actually rights, the organizations or philosophies would not need to exist. The organizations and philosophies exist because what are called rights are not in hand and in fact are denied through one circumstance or another.

"It's my right" might more appropriately be phrased as, "it is my dearest wish."

What brought this wispy train of thought to mind was the court decision in Australia that gives the green light to a law that would place graphic depictions on cigarette packs. Rotten teeth, blackened lungs and worse will now replace jolly company logos. The object is to warn smokers of the dangers of their chosen habit. Tobacco companies are going understandably apeshit.

It seems to me that in the apoptosis of life, everyone chooses their own way to die. Some ways receive more approbation than others, but the assertion of a right to choose is woven in. And some ways are inescapable, as in old age and infirmity ... but still, the clamoring to be in control, to have a right, lingers and nags. In old age, for example, as earlier capacities and earlier rights are whittled away, death may be the last remaining right.

About a month ago, I was talking the Jack, a neatly-kept 80-year-old who asserted that his love for butter was something his doctors decried but, in the end, was probably worth dying for. Butter gave him pleasure even as it wreaked havoc on his digestive tract. His life, his choice; his death, his choice. If life was not life without butter and if butter was death, then he chose to live/die. It was his right.

Those in the thick of things may fall down in a tantrum at the idea that rights are little more than an assertion of hopefulness. But does a dandelion have 'rights?' No, a dandelion is alive ... and that's the end of it. Human consciousness may bridle at the idea of being neither more nor less than a backyard weed, but somehow it's important to make peace with it ... not lie down in some determinist stupor, but find peace with a smile on its face. Sure, fight all the good fights you like; eat all the butter you like; expound and expatiate and find meanings up the chute ... but don't neglect the obvious.

Alive is nice.

Would you like butter on your toast?
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