Patrick Smith (whose podcast I was on) responded to my article Bad People Have Human Rights Or No One Does by saying that the main assertion of the article “would seem to be disproven by thinking of a simple self-defense scenario. Bad person attacks someone. Good person denies bad person their human rights by restraining, or shooting them.”
This response collapses the distinction between bad people and bad actions. The original article discusses people and attempts to deny people their rights based on who they are or what they believe, not what they do. There are actions that could cause someone to lose their rights, like murder. This is different from simply being a bad person, like wishing others die in your heart.
Often what occurs in political discussions is that these distinctions are collapsed. It is assumed that because someone believes something they will act a certain way, and their “hateful” beliefs are used as a sort of “pre-crime” evidence that “hate crimes” are just around the corner. Once this distinction is erased, it’s possible to project any crimes onto an opponent’s beliefs.
There is a reason that most scenarios where a person is denied their rights require a trial. Beliefs are subjective. If you put someone on trial for believing the wrong things, they can say they don’t and the prosecution can say they secretly do. If someone believes something in their heart, yet takes no action from it, where is the harm? Plus, as anyone who meditates will tell you, the mind produces all sorts of thoughts that a person may or may not hold on to.
Actions have a concrete verifiable quality. Either they happened or they didn’t. One can produce material evidence for them and their harm. From this perspective, you couldn’t deny someone their rights for being an “extremist,” but you could if they blew up a building. Labels are subjective claims and actions objectively verifiable.
P.S. If you ever sue someone for defamation, watch how fast they turn around and say that every argument they tried to use to deny your rights was just a “statement of opinion” and not factual claims.
P.P.S. Patrick wrote something interesting on rights and consent. Read it here.
P.P.P.S. Subscribe.