Do you have a right to your car, your house, or even to your life? Why? Because the government says you do? Suppose they change their minds? Wouldn’t it be better if you could prove that you have a right to your property, including your own body?
This book offers such a proof. The proof begins with the premise that people have free will. A right is defined as a valid claim to the use of a physical thing, and the author argues that free will implies that the first person to use an unclaimed physical thing acquires a right to that use. For example, we acquire rights to use our bodies when we first use them.
Rights are transferred to another person when the right-holder abandons his right and the other person claims it. Rights are violated when another person uses the same physical thing in a way that conflicts with our use.
Difficult questions are tackled in this book, such as: What rights can children acquire? Can we acquire rights to intellectual property? How can retribution against criminals be implied by free will? Does a judge violate rights if he sentences a defendant who is in fact innocent? And, do rights conflict with survival?
