–INVINCIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD–

 

 

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that Superman could take over Earth if he really wanted to, and there’s not much we could do to stop him.

It doesn’t have quite the same ring to it as the Declaration of Independence’s assertion of our God given rights, but I’d venture to say it’s more self-evident. While one may quibble over whether he would or we could, few would argue with the fact that Superman is nigh impossible to stop. Sure, there’s kryptonite and magic, but an Achilles’ heel is, by definition, the exception to the rule of invincibility.

For those who aren’t quite buying it, I direct your attention to Robert Kirkman’s Invincible, a depiction of what it might look like if Supes decided to go rogue. Like… really, really rogue. Omni-Man, the stand-in for Superman, is a nigh invulnerable being from the planet Viltrum. Long story short, he’s not here as a beacon of hope but as a conqueror. While his mission is temporarily deferred, he picks up with it during the course of the show and we see just what havoc can be wrought when trying to stop the unstoppable.

While we mere humans are not endowed by our Creator with super strength or Class A maneuverability flight, we are, in a way, just as unstoppable. We are, after all, made in the image of God, and the freedom and willpower this grants is nothing to sneeze at. Nothing can stop us when we put our minds to something. Can’t fly? We’ll build flying machines. Can’t survive in space? We’ll build a suit to make it possible.

This doesn’t just go for our physical limitations, but external constraints as well. Don’t want us to buy, sell, or use X? We’ll create black markets to do so. Don’t want us to harm ourselves? We’ll find a way to do so with whatever innocuous thing we’re allowed. Even in a prison, we are ultimately only restrained so far as we restrain ourselves.

Simply acknowledging that one can do something doesn’t necessarily mean one believes one should do it, though. Merely having the power to do something doesn’t make it right, nor does it make that latitude a right. For that, we need restraint. In order for our natural ability of free action to constitute a God given right to liberty, we need to respect that autonomy in others. Only with a reciprocal understanding that every human being has a worth beyond measure and thus is equal to one another can we assert that no one is entitled to infringe on that freedom.

As the saying goes, my right to swing my fist ends where your nose begins. Such rights are often characterized as negative rights: they are defined by what one cannot do. Positive rights, by contrast, are those granted by government. These are your Miranda rights, your right to vote, etc. At best, they’re truly privileges. At worst, they’re state sponsored violations of individuals’ rights for the benefit of others.

But voting & assistance of counsel are rights, you say? It says so right there in the Constitution! While each may be an integral part of a just government, neither is integral to humanity. Human beings survived for millennia before either existed, and in order for either to be upheld in the event of a conflict of interest, someone ultimately ends up with the short straw. Someone has to defend Jeffrey Dahmer. Someone has to abide by a law he doesn’t consent to, or else have his rights violated for choosing not to. This directly contradicts the very basis of rights, and is thus incompatible.

What if Superman didn’t want to show up as a witness to crimes for which he’d apprehended someone? Could he be forced to do so? Nope. What if Superman was the only witness in a defendant’s favor? Could he be compelled to testify? Nope. Is anyone being deprived of something which is intrinsically theirs by his abstaining in either case? Nope. His testimony belongs to him alone, as do any of his thoughts or actions, and he alone can withhold or provide it.

Should he do these things? Yes, but just because something should be done doesn’t mean that it must be done. Likewise, believing that something shouldn’t be done doesn’t mean that it mustn’t be done.

Herein lies the crux of the issue. Restraint is ultimately the only safeguard we have to our rights. Negative rights exist by virtue of restraint. Positive rights, or rather, privileges assured by government, likewise require the restraint of those who might refuse to abide by common decency. All rights, no matter how sacrosanct or rational, can be violated by those who fail to exercise restraint.

Does it not then hold that society can and should ensure restraint through its laws? No, for the simple reason that it can’t. Laws can no more impel humans to exercise restraint than they can do so for Viltrumites. Pass a law that says we can’t smoke pot, and we’ll blow the smoke right in your smug face just to spite you. So constraints it is, then?

We can learn a thing or two about the misguided nature of government constraints from Invincible as well. From the time Omni-Man’s true colors are hinted at, the government is on the case, bringing boundless resources and authority to bear to tackle the difficult task of constraining the unconstrainable. Despite cooperating with an evil, mad scientist and unleashing literal monsters on Omni-Man when things finally came to a head, they did next to nothing to slow him down. Not only were their efforts fruitless, but they actually forestalled the one thing that ultimately did stop him. The conceit that the government knows best, that a private investigator whose troubled pedigree (yeah, yeah, he’s a demon) would probably foul things up, kept Omni-Man’s family from discovering his dirty little secret much sooner. Had his son known his intentions sooner, had they had it out before things escalated to all out super battle, thousands of lives could have been saved and devils bargains could have been avoided. Ultimately, the only thing that saved the Earth from annihilation or enslavement was Omni-Man’s own restraint.

In the real world, we don’t have to contend with Viltrumites or Kryptonians, but we don’t have to in order to recognize similar counterproductive results from our own attempts to constrain what can only be held back by the restraint of individuals. In order to save lives from potential ruin from addiction, we preemptively tarnish so many with incarceration and stigma. In order to ease our minds about potential threats, we tolerate intrusions and restrictions a conquering power could only dream of achieving. In order to promote tolerance, we make it illegal to exercise certain beliefs and personal discretion. In order to protect the right to bodily autonomy, we allow the murder of nearly a million children a year.

Do our rights have boundaries? Of course they do. Just because one is capable of assaulting someone or enslaving an entire planet, it doesn’t mean that one has the right to do so. But if the pursuit of one’s happiness doesn’t infringe on anyone else’s rights, if one just wants to be left alone to indulge in one’s vices, that’s between oneself and one’s God. More to the point, the only sure thing to come from subjecting the rights of the individual to some ill-defined and contested “common good” is that rights will be infringed. There is no reasonable assurance that the “common good” can actually be achieved or that it is even all that good. There is no reasonable assurance that such efforts won’t in fact make things much, much worse. There is only the vain hope that, counter to all human experience, these chains will yield grateful compliance rather than resentful defiance.