Declaration of Rights

Declaration of Rights

            The rights of man have been formulated and administered by those who are in power or in office. Sometimes the ones in power clench the throats of the people and forcibly grasp control themselves by will, or sometimes we elect and choose those who will lead us down the road of civilized society. Civilization has shone a very truthful and shining light on a simple fact that the regressive, primal nature of man needs an overruling force for which governs the ethos of mankind. This is not to disclaim anarchical possibilities, but theoretical concepts are often lofty and unrealistic at that. The rights claimed to us in the Western world derive from the theoretical concepts, however, of the minds of classical men, more often than not from the Age of Enlightenment or believers in such a cultural movement. But the still lofty products of the Enlightenment period have been diluted in a modern age. The empowered have corrupted certain natural rights of man for the establishment of personal advantage and an irrelevant, inflictive agenda against the citizens and their society which wholly disavows certain decrees in the foundational document The French Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizen.

The French Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizen was a document conceived in the year of 1789. This document was pivotal to the French Revolution (1789-1799) and outlined the rights of the individual and it’s relating collective under the rule of the state. The document has basis in the doctrine of “natural rights”, or the idea of human nature as universality. The concepts in the document derive from the Age of Enlightenment, and from Rousseau’s Social Contract theory which touches on individualism and other Enlightenment concepts in their relation to societal hierarchy and governing rule. These ideas were products from natural law and order and do not rely on religious doctrine or theocracy. This was very important to the French Revolution as it introduced, and later induced, a more or less true freedom—the document brought reality to what Enlightenment thinkers only theorized.

            These declarations, compiled from the ideas of many men, should be constantly withheld, universally valid, and collectively and individually adhered. The concepts materialized within the document were regarded as democratic and even anarchic during the French Revolution, which were then divulged as abhorrent or mere metaphysical, theoretical fluff by some. However, the Revolutionaries saw hope within this idea and continued to execute its reality, which it so endearingly received. This bloom attained notice from the early American settlers and thinkers—men such as Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and many more. Documents as influentially important as the United States’ Declaration of Independence borrow affluent ideas from this, and retain a basis of natural rights based on human nature. James Madison’s Bill of Rights also touched on the subjects encapsulated by the French Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizen.

            As the original idea was translated and adopted by figures of early American development these concepts and decrees can be associated with our modern society. However, some of the document has become completely misconstrued or overlooked by the power hungry or ones “in charge.” One can dissect a few of these decrees and apply them to a modern facilitation and see how mutated the original idea has become. The twelfth decree within the document reads as follows:

            The security of the rights of man and of the citizen requires public military forces. These forces are, therefore, established for the good of all and not for the personal advantage of those to whom they shall be entrusted.

            This decree relates to the police force of the nation, or the safeguard force which should serve and protect the citizens without any personal gain or absorption of power. In direct reflection to our modern society, this idea has devolved into a militaristic herding technique. In other words, the police force which we hope to serve and protect has become unfortunately endowed and abusive with the only thing which could separate the citizens from the force: power. It is not out of the ordinary for one to be overwhelmed with a flood of anxiety upon the presence of the so called “civilian force”; for example, the feeling evoked when driving passed a police officer with a radar gun. Even if one has not done any unlawful act, which could be defined as an act harmful to the society as a whole, one continues to have a feeling of anxiety or fear or uncomfortability. One could even relate this relationship to the type shared within the institutionalized confines of prison between the inmates and the guards. It seems as though the modern police force herds its sheepish citizens into line as a derivative of abusive power.

            This type of absent-minded, selfish abuse is obviously apparent in Western society, as the earlier ideals are completely ignored. One could retreat to the larger scope and claim that this relationship has grown within the entire political system of the West. This concept then touches on another decree of the French Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizen. It is the second decree, obviously adopted by Thomas Jefferson in a later year within the United States Declaration of Independence read as:

 “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

The second decree of the document reads as:

The aim of all political association is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man. These rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression.

It is obvious that the empowered have corrupted the natural outlined rights of man in both of the scenarios. We live in a society which cowers in mass hysteria from the outcome of the extremist attack on September 11, 2001, and as a result of the attack the world trembles in paranoia a la the Red Scare of the Cold War. Our government, through things passed such as the Patriot Act, has denied us of certain nature rights outlined in the document, the most obvious being security. There is a certain oppression governing forces has placed on the citizens for agenda which seem oddly specific in accordance with some vague concept such as terrorism. Terrorism can be defined as: the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes; a terroristic method of governing or of resisting a government. (Dictionary.com). Oddly enough, the origin of the word “terrorism” is traced back to around 1785.

This idea can be used as a buffer to deter rights from the citizens which the empowered believe they have a kind of control over. With this reality unfolding, an uneasy vibration disrupts the waters of justice and natural order idealized by the thinkers who established the very government we supposedly abide by today. The people of the Western world are succumbing to an infringement of law and to a world of synthetic oppression guided by hysteria and an imposed weakness of the people. The French Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizen has laid a solid foundation to the grounds of the Western world which has been finely shaped by the masons of centuries past—our forefathers—and shall not be intruded upon for the imposition of coercion of the people by the personal agenda of those we have placed in a position of power.