Critical Analysis of David Boaz's Essays
Uploaded by spootyhead on Mar 04, 2007
Critical Analysis of David Boaz's Essays
From David Boaz’s essay What Rights Do We Have? it seems that the First Amendment and the Declaration of Independence is getting more and more publicity. Since the 1990s politicians and people jumped on the train of “I have the right to…” which blitz across the nation like a tornado. Boaz tried to draw out the significance of America’s most important document on the issue of rights—the Declaration of Independence. According to Boaz, the theory of rights starts from the most fundamental right, the “Basic Rights.” Inside the “Basic Rights”, he provided us with two of the most important rights—property rights and Freedom of conscience. Of course, none of these would be possible without the “Self-Ownership” which means that every one is the owner of themselves, including their bodies and minds. Boaz later concluded that all human rights can be represented by property rights, because we are the owner of our bodies and we have the right to do whatever we desire to our legally owned property as long as we are not forcing others to serve our needs. If we support Boaz’s point of view, then our government is clearly violating and constantly restricting our rights.
“No one has the right to prevent another person from expressing his thoughts and trying to persuade others of his opinion” (Boaz 740). And “murder a person is the greatest possible violation of his rights.”(Boaz 735) It all seems a very agreeable statement right? But Dr. Jack Kevorkian is serving his time for helping his patient taking their legal property away from them when they are voluntarily giving up their own property while some of them are unable to perform the task on their own. Some people might also argue that in Dr. Kevorkian’s case, he actually performed the injection into his patients’ body, which sentenced him to prison for second-degree murder but nevertheless his patient all signed the agreement which granted Kevorkian the right of taking their property away and he did not force any of his patients to die, he just simply “persuaded” others to believe his opinion.
People have the right to say whatever they want but there are some things that people should not say, if they know it is not “right to say it” but they do it anyway they are going...