On Greek tragedy and natural rights

Mr. Jim Pitts, I also don’t know you. But you drowned yourself in a sea of heedless reactionary accusations without any basis in fact. My piece was written in an impersonal manner, purposely deleting specific names. A quick glimpse into my assessment will have you leaving the last sentence reciting Gomer Pyle’s eternal expression, “Surprise, surprise, surprise!” in embarrassment.

You also came close to using the race card to express a universal human experience we all go through regardless of pigmentation. Sir, I think I am a good Christian and a staunch believer in the rights of all citizens and legally situated non-citizens. I cringe when I see locals fronting ethnocentric views on Article 12 that definitely works against everybody-lack of equal protection-and other disoriented policies here. But I agree with you that the responsibility of healthcare in the NMI remains that of this administration.

Too, I’ve spent about eight years going in and out of hospitals between here, Honolulu, UCLA Medical Center, and the Children’s Hospital in San Diego when my son was a critical heart patient. I’ve learned enough and need not peep into suspect materials designed for profit to figure out the importance of knowing a hospital’s backup system on critical medical cases involving invasive procedure followed by stint at the ICU, travails of folks with health issues without health insurance, etc. If I may digress.

Mr. Francisco R. Agulto wanted my views on “natural rights” dismissed, asserting that I left voids on some issues that require scholarly discussions. I humbly defer to his innuendo that I am a non-scholar, though I question if he’s unilaterally captured the wisdom corner all to himself as to leave others in the land of intellectual privation. I know the principle on natural rights was hardly discussed during the Covenant negotiations, though it was done for delegates to the first NMI constitutional convention. Obviously they’ve missed it, given that it’s heavy material and didn’t have the gall to digest it.

I am a retired journalist with over 40 years under my belt. The discipline leaves an indelible professional skill of getting to the truth followed by a simple explanation of what’s at issue. I have no plans to engage in disoriented or meandering scholarly discussion of the various rights that fly above the common people’s heads for that could be interpreted as arrogance. I believe I’ve succeeded in this respect by using the KISS concept. Therefore, I’ll leave scholarly discussions to self-professed scholars like you, sir.

You quoted one of history’s most famous philosophers, John Locke, a wasteful scribble. You should have devoted that segment to presenting his views on “natural rights” emanating from the First Principles. John Locke observes in The Second Treatise on Civil Government, “The great chief end, therefore, of men uniting into commonwealths, and putting themselves under government, is the preservation of their property.”

Locke did not create out of thin air the concept of natural law or property rights or the ordered relationship that was necessary between the sovereign and his subjects. He was well versed in the lessons of history before he ever put the first pen stroke on foolscap. The First Principles also defines the distinct difference between “natural,” “civil,” and “human” rights. Natural rights are God-given and are unalienable, meaning they can’t be infringed or violated.

Look forward to reading your scholarly dissertation on natural rights but please ensure employing political and intellectual integrity in your explanation. I can’t gloss over the fundamentally discriminatory aspect of Article 12 that not only turns “equal protection” on its head, but replaces over 400 years of land tenure system of individually owned private land here into collective ownership, a socialistic paradigm at best, a denial of full rights to landownership at worse. Presto!

John S. DelRosario Jr.
As Gonno, Saipan