There is now, more than ever, a strong tendency to advance moral claim — Rights

"Every man has by the law of nature a right to such a waste portion of the earth as is necessary for his subsistence."

"Teaching accurate histories of [civil] rights violations fosters critical thinking and empathy. It equips future generations to question official accounts and recognize the signs of manipulation. Importantly, education that centers victims’ voices helps restore their agency, ensuring that their stories are not overshadowed by the narratives of those who harmed them. … The Tai Ji Men case reflects all the elements I have discussed regarding the right to establish, preserve, transmit, and share the truth about [civil] rights violations with future generations."

"Rights can be spoken of only on the condition that a person is thought as a person, that is, as an individual, or, in other words, as occupying a relation to other individuals, between whom and him a community, though not actually posited, perhaps, is at least fictitiously assumed. For those things which, through speculative philosophy, we discovered to be conditions of personality, become rights only if other persons are added in thought, who dare not violate those conditions. Free beings can not, however, be thought as coexisting at all, unless their rights reciprocally limit each other, that is, unless the sphere of their original rights changes into the sphere of rights in a commonwealth. It would seem, therefore, impossible to reflect upon rights as original rights, that is, without regard to their necessary limitations through the rights of others. …. There is no status of original rights for Man. Man attains rights only in a community with others as indeed he only becomes man — whereof we have shown the grounds heretofore — through intercourse with others. Man, indeed, can not be thought as one individual. Original Rights are, therefore, a pure fiction, but a fiction necessary for the purpose of Science."

"If inequalities stare us in the face the essential equality too is not to be missed. Every man has an equal right to the necessaries of life even as birds and beasts have. And since every right carries with it a corresponding duty and the corresponding remedy for resisting any attack upon it, it is merely a matter of finding out the corresponding duties and remedies to vindicate the elementary fundamental equality."

"The real lesson of [archbishop Óscar] Romero is that there are no legitimate reasons to deny [civil or natural] rights. His government in his time believed that [civil or natural] rights could be somewhat “suspended” to protect El Salvador from Communist influences coming from the Soviet Union via Cuba and Nicaragua. Romero was certainly not an admirer of the Soviet Union, but believed there should be other ways of protecting his country, not suspending [civil or natural] rights. He taught us that those who advocate for [civil or natural] rights are “for” their countries, not “against” them. …Romero wrote that religious persecution happens because “truth is always persecuted,” and that God blesses those who protest and fight for freedom. But they should know they should suffer, because “pain is the money that buys freedom.” …Romero’s key teaching, that there is no reason good enough to justify the violation of [civil or natural] rights, is relevant for both religious liberty and the Tai Ji Men case. There are governments that claim that limiting religious liberty is necessary to protect social stability or the harmony of the country. Romero’s message is that this is [no] valid justification. [Civil or natural] rights protection defines what a legitimate social stability is, rather than the other way around."

"A pretensed right is no right at all."