Pragmatics, Not Rights

2009.11.18   prev     next

There really isn’t any such things as rights. Every so-called “right” is really a carefully weighed pragmatic consideration.

For example: Who can be sued and who can’t (and for what), is massively based on pragmatic considerations having to do with the continuity of the system. If someone sues too much, they can be declared a “vexatious litigant,” which means that their “right” to sue will be severely curtailed in ways that don’t apply to other people. What if the “vexatious litigant” has a good case next time around? What if that good case is stifled by the “vexatious litigant” status? Doesn’t matter. The pragmatic necessity of limiting the number and duration of lawsuits takes precedence over any other consideration.

What if every lawsuit spawned an average of two new lawsuits, concerning what happened in court? Obviously, the system would crash, because the number of suits would grow exponentially and there wouldn’t be enough courts and time to keep up with them all. So the rules of the legal system arbitrarily exempt various persons and procedures of the court system from being the subject of new suits. And the judge has the power of “contempt of court” at the ready, to absolutely guarantee that the system can roll on, irrespective of anyone’s so-called “rights.”

We like to believe that we put an end to burning at the stake because it was wrong, and because people have the “right” not to be dispatched in that fashion. And that we require strong evidence of guilt, weighed by an impartially selected jury, because we know better than people did five hundred years ago.

But the truth is that we have the technology that makes strong proof possible. We have the travel technology and educated populace that makes juries possible. If the legal system of five hundred years ago had required today’s level of proof, to today’s kind of jury, then there couldn’t have been any convictions at all. And that wouldn’t be very pragmatic — to say the least.