[pp.int.general] "Natural" law

[Carlos Ayala Vargas]

John Nilsson wrote:
> I think there is a case to be made for "natural" laws. The basic 
> argument being that legislation and law is not the same thing. While 
> legislation is created and designed, "law" can be seen as the cultural 
> phenomenon of agreed boundaries of behavior.
If the boundaries are agreed, then are not natural but made by human 
beings.
> The English system of common law is in this way a codification of such 
> emerged behavioral norms rather than the designed law of legislation.
Sure there is a customary law; however, it is valid only because we, 
human beings, agree on it being valid; would you accept any /wise men 
council/ forbidding you to change customary laws? Not in a democratic 
context; constitutional courts may be thought of as wise men councils, 
however they are not able to legislate, and specially not allowed to 
counter constitutional changes -he may, however, counter the way those 
changes are made (usually, constitutional changes have to follow certain 
rules)-.
> also take a look at Murray N. Rothbards writings on the subject of 
> natural rights. I believe it is in "The Ethics of Liberty" he makes a 
> thorough exploration of the subject. (Not that I agree with Rothbard 
> in everything, his logic can be a bit faulty at times)
I simply reject the idea of the "/existence of a law whose content is 
set by nature and that therefore has validity everywhere/" -according to 
the definition of natural law at the Wikipedia -from the International 
Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences-. I only accept the law made by 
human beings, and only under certain circumstances:

- at least for fundamental laws like UDHR, constitutions and such, if 
agreed by a high consenssus between citizens -i.e., sovereigns-
* e.g., while people in Spain hadn't the chance of voting UDHR, in 1978 
people had the chance of voting for a Constitution who pledges 
allegiance to UDHR ... and *60 % of eligible voters* supported that 
text, with little opposition
- if changeable

There is a third, arguable (due to being subjective if we reject the 
/natural/ approach) requirement, which is expressed by UDHR preamble: 
"/it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a 
last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human 
rights should be protected by the rule of law/"; 90 % of people can 
agree, following rule of law, on exterminate the remaining 10 %, which 
wouldn't be really democratic; Francisco Franco or Adolf Hitler can be 
reborn -or simmilar people can appear- and 90 % of people can 
democratically decide, following rule of law, to surrender their civil 
rights and liberties to such dictators ... would they, however, be able 
to surrender the civil rights and liberties of the remaining 10 %? I 
don't think so, and I don't think that any of you would accept such thing.

There always will be controversy on which the exact definition of human 
rights should be; also, there always probably be people not accepting 
current status, and other (or the same) people not accepting new status, 
of human rights -e.g., pro-copyright lobbies, always willing to distort 
them in order to protect their interests-. We will never find a /happy 
Arcadia/, with everyone being happy with the state of things, as people 
like us will always clash with people like the pro-copyright lobbies 
-call me pessimistic, however I will keep thinking that mean people 
(archetypical villians) will always exist, even though in a low 
percentage-. What in my opinion matters, then, is what we do think as 
PPI, and what citizens -the true sovereigns- think.

To summarize this thoughts, I think that:

- at least we should try whether we agree on what human rights are 
(there are some nuances in the About Civil Rights and Liberties section 
of Pirate Manifesto, though there apparently is an almost total 
consenssus except for one issue)
- once we agree on what human rights are, we ought to defend them, 
specially the most essential ones -freedom of information, freedom of 
speech, privacy, etc; the list I have in mind is written in the Pirate 
Manifesto drafts and, as I said, there is apparent consenssus except for 
one issue-
- never to accept the mandate of wise men councils -who may talk about 
laws as coming from a divine or natural origin-, but the sovereigns 
(i.e., citizens) mandate -considering that, if laws are passed by 
sovereigns, observing the constitutions and other fundamental laws is 
not only observing the citizens' mandate, but the highest citizens' 
mandate (usually, constitutions are passed with a higher consenssus than 
ordinary, statutory laws)-; one reason to do it is that /wise men 
councils/ may be wrong; other powerful reason is that /wise men 
councils/ may lie and/or be corrupted.

Democracy -understood as a regime where citizens free and voluntarily 
decide to bind themselves to basic rules in order to build a society 
(including decision-making rules), and later and only later, decide how 
to live according to those rules- is for me essential, and I believe it 
must not be subjected to /natural/ nor /divine/ laws, but by laws free 
and voluntarily agreed by human beings. Regards,


                                                                                           
Carlos Ayala
                                                                                           
( Aiarakoa )

                                                                     
Partido Pirata National Board's Chairman