"I've got my rights."
When a person wants the community to give them something, this slogan is a common first cry. Rights are the first cry, and they are often prefaced by adjectives such as “inalienable,” “god-given,” and “natural” to make them sound like constants of their community universe, as in, things the community should take care of without giving them a second thought. But in fact all rights are privileges granted by other community members. If the community powers-that-be decide an inalienable right is alienable... it is, and you can kiss it good-bye for now. Look at what happens to the inalienable free speech right when a hate speech accusation is successfully invoked.
If rights are so ephemeral the question becomes: Why are they considered important? They are important because they are the link between guilt-trip thinking and social justice.
Wikipedia defines social justice as “The ability people have to realize their potential in the society where they live.” This is the Industrial Age version of a Neolithic Village person saying, “I'm going to improve my lot, and I'll soon be helping out again.”
The bight side is that this is a good intention that can produce good results if good head-thinking is matched up with good heart-thinking. The dark side is that when the head part is weak, the calls for paying attention to rights sound a lot like advanced begging.
The positive side of rights is that they can define the playing field. They can act like social constants that all players respect. An example of this is respecting rule of law. This particular right works wonders when the laws enacted are respectful of both community wishes and circumstances - its harsh reality. A good example of rule of law working well is the Constitution and the Bill of Rights amendments enacted as colonial America transformed into the United States. These were rights and laws well suited to their time and circumstance. (It also serves well to keep in mind that these were the second attempt. They replaced the Articles of Confederation which had been the law of the land for ten years previous, and hadn’t worked out so well.)
Social justice works well at creating inspiring goals. Ending poverty, providing equal opportunity, and providing universal health care are examples of great goals to aspire to. The catch comes when these goals start getting called rights. When goals start being called rights, it is an invitation for the dark side to creep in.
The dark side of both social justice and rights happens when heart-thinking is not tempered with good head-thinking. What follows is abuse of both social justice and rights, and the abuse can take many forms. The most common one is gaming the system. This can happen in almost infinite ways and by almost any player. The innovative system gamers tend to be amoral and clever. Exploiting loopholes is an example of system gaming. The right to health care is one that has been difficult to implement well around the world. In the US Medicare and Medicaid programs are filled with loopholes and plagued with outright fraud.
Pursuit of a self-interest agenda that has little to do with rights or social justice is another form of gaming the system. An example of this is using community resources to promote a “side” on a controversial issue. Protectionism is an example of this, and the Jones Act of 1920 is a specific example. It requires that all goods transported by water between US ports be carried on US-flag ships, constructed in the US, owned by US citizens, and crewed by US citizens and US permanent residents. This is some serious protecting! And it has been in place for decades.
Another dark side occurs, ironically, when the programs enacted accomplish the opposite of what they were intended to do. An example is the War on Drugs. The goal was to make America a better place by having Americans, particularly young Americans, lead better lives by kicking recreational drug use habits. Instead of succeeding at that, it has succeeded in putting record numbers of Americans into jail and transforming our police forces from community servants into SWAT teams. In the process a whole lot of civil rights have been trampled on in the name of catching drug users, drug money, and drug suppliers.
All these happen when heart-thinking is not lead by good head-thinking - as in, considering how the system might be gamed, deterring agenda enthusiasts from adding their spin, and being proactive when unintended outcomes reveal themselves. In sum, head-thinking involves how to get, and keep getting, effective feedback on how implementing this noble cause is working out in harsh reality.
Calling upon rights to pursue social justice is a common tactic. It works well in the sense that it strokes guilt instincts, which can be an extremely effective catalyst for action. But if the subsequent action remains guided by the heart, there's going to be a lot of waste accompanying the noble effort. To avoid the waste, a lot of head-thinking needs to be mixed in.