The Right to Life

On April 5, 1984, Elmo Patrick Sonnier, age 35, died by electrocution in Angola, Louisiana.  On the same day, Arthur F. Goode III, age 30, was electrocuted in Starke, Florida.  Neither death was accidental nor was either death voluntary.  Both men were killed against their will by the government.  I don't propose here to debate capital punishment but to document that it exists.  The purely academic question of whether their right to life continues after death, and they are merely being prevented from exercising it, isn't of any value in this lifetime to Elmo Patrick Sonnier and Arthur F. Goode III.  In practical terms, their right to life was taken from them without their consent and is therefore not an unalienable right.

The Right to Liberty

Liberty is an extremely broad concept.  However, each aspect of it has been limited or removed by government.  A single example will suffice for this discussion.

The Right to the Pursuit of Happiness

Of the three rights under consideration, the pursuit of happiness is the least susceptible to control.  It encompasses a broad range of meaning and emotion and its exercise can be difficult to prevent.  Some people can pursue happiness in the most bleak of situations.  This right may be more nearly unalienable than any other.  However, in its constitutional sense, it is subject to limitations.

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Meaning can be influenced by description and to that end language is a never-ending resource.¹  Metaphors can suggest meanings beyond the words themselves.  Analogies can describe the indescribable.  Anthropomorphisms can inspire life into the inanimate.  Among the forms of literary license, the oxymoron is less well known but has been long accepted.

Rights must be real in practice, not just in theory, or they don't exist.  When they do exist, it isn't because of the authority of the various constitutions, or the generosity of the courts, or the vigilance of the police.  It isn't even due to the pronouncements of the founding fathers.  When rights exist, it's only because they're uncompromisingly exercised by those people who claim them.  Without such unfailing attention, rights will inevitably perish.

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Inalienable rights.  Rights which are not capable of being surrendered or transferred without the consent of the one possessing such rights.  Morrison v. State, Mo.App., 252 S.W.2d 97, 101.

Personal liberty consists in the power of locomotion, of changing situation, of removing one's person to whatever place one's inclination may direct, without imprisonment or restraint unless by due course of law.  1 Bla. Com. 134.

Political liberty is an effectual share in the making and administration of the laws.  Lieber, Civ. Lib.

Liberty, in its widest sense, means the faculty of willing, and the power of doing what has been willed without influence from without.  It means self-determination, unrestrainedness of action.  Thus, defined, one being only can be absolutely free, - namely, God.  So soon as we apply the word liberty to spheres of human action the term receives a relative meaning, because the power of man is limited;  he is subject to constant influences from without.  If the idea of unrestrainedness of action is applied to the social state of man, it receives a limitation still greater, since the equal claims of unrestrained action of all necessarily involves the idea of protection against interference by others.  We thus come to the definition, that liberty of social man consists in the protection of unrestrained action in as high a degree as the same claim of protection of each individual admits of, or in the most efficient protection of his rights, claims, interests, as man or citizen, or of his humanity, manifested as a social being.  (See RIGHT.)  The word liberty, applied to men in their political state, may be viewed with reference to the state as a whole, and in this case means the independence of the state, of other states (see AUTONOMY);  or it may have reference to the relation of the citizen to the government, in which case it is called political or civil liberty;  or it may have reference to the status of a man as a political being, contradistinguished from him who is not considered master over his own body, will, or labor - the slave.  This is called personal liberty, which, as a matter of course, includes freedom from prison ....

A state in which energy of function is ever resisting decay and dissolution.

It commences, for many legal purposes, at the period of quickening, when the first motion of the foetus in utero is perceived by the mother.  1 Bla. Com. 129:  Co. 3d Inst. 50.  It ceases at death.  See DEATH.

But physiology pronounces life as existing from the period of conception, because foetuses in utero do die prior to quickening, and then all the signs of death are found to be perfect:  Dean, Med. Jur. 129, 130.

For many important purposes, however, the law concedes to physiology the fact that life commences at conception, in ventre sa mère.  See FOETUS.  Thus, it may receive a legacy, have a guardian assigned to it, and an estate limited to its use:  1 Bla. Com.
 

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Life is presumed to continue for one hundred years;  9 Mart. La. 257.  As to the presumption of survivorship in case of the death of two persons, at or about the same time, see DEATH:  14 Cent. L. J. 367, a full article reprinted from the Irish L. Times.

Things which are not in commerce, as, public roads, are in their nature unalienable.  Some things are unalienable in consequence of particular provisions in the law forbidding their sale or transfer:  as, pensions granted by the government.  The natural rights of life and liberty are unalienable.

Unalienable ....  Inalienable;  incapable of being aliened, that is, sold and transferred.

Inalienable rights. Rights which can never be abridged because they are so fundamental.

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