right to life [View all]

"Every human being has the inherent right to life." - Article 6.1 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

Human rights are due everyone. They are to be protected by law. This is a duty of government. They are not group or collective issues and may not be implemented in the law as such. The law must, most of all, protect the minority. The status of minorities among all people is of concern as it is wrong to ensure, grant or permit greater safety of a majority by neglecting the minority. The smallest minority is an individual. It is the individual, a molecular instance of society, that all of government is there to protect. If we surrender the idea that an individual can be protected, that his rights, liberty and property, indeed his very life, are beyond the assurance of his governments, we must also grant that his freedom to effect his own security and happiness is fundamental to his life.

It is instinctive among all living things to work toward their own survival and to defend themselves. To personally accept victimization is to accept slavery. Many people view self-reliance and self-sufficiency as desirable. To deny a potential means of violence to one known, declared or adjudicated unfit is a duty but denying a means of self-defense to anyone else is violation of human rights.

Mistakes may be made. Being intolerant of mistakes is, well... wrong.
"Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err." - Mahatma Gandhi
"No man is good enough to be another's master." - William Morris