In the first definition, a ‘right’ is simply any action which is not a ‘wrong’. Although this might seem like mere wordplay, it is actually a valuable way of looking at things. If a course of action causes no harm — directly or indirectly — to another sentient being, what grounds are there to prevent someone from pursuing it? Unless you subscribe to arbitrary religious edicts as a basis for morality, there aren’t any. Since we can’t think of a morally compelling reason to prevent someone from taking such an action, we might say that they have a ‘right’ to take it.

(It is worth considering here that — under this definition — our ‘rights’ are vast in number. I.e., the number of actions we can take which do not result in harm to others — and consequently the number of ‘rights’ we can exercise — are essentially uncountable.)

We are morally justified, also, in refusing to take certain actions, to refuse participation in certain enterprises, and to resist attempts at duress and coercion.

This is important because some people resort to the idea of an implicit ‘social contract’ to justify coercive mechanisms for achieving societal goals. The ‘social contract’ would be tenable if it was something that people willingly ‘signed up for’ — if it was based on meaningful informed agreement, and confined to limited geographical areas (e.g. towns or villages).

But this is not typically how ‘leftists’ understand a ‘social contract’; they view it as something which someone is ‘born into’ by merely being birthed within the boundaries of a particular nation state, and which one can not ‘opt out of’. (The argument that a person can ‘move to another country’ if they disagree with the social contract is debased; almost all nation states have adopted similar social contracts; and why should the ‘dissident’ — rather than the ‘statist’ — be the one to leave?)

The second view of rights mentioned above is a more modern incarnation. This view is that people have a ‘right’ to goods and services, or — on a more abstract level — to a certain ‘standard of living’. (Since a certain standard of living relies, ultimately, on the provision of goods and services to the person who enjoys that standard of living, this is essentially arguing the same thing.)

But goods and services require people’s time, energy, and labour for their provision. It is not possible to proclaim a ‘right’ to goods and services (e.g. education, health care or national defense) without introducing mechanisms in society to ensure that sufficient human labour, time and effort are directed and allocated towards these ends — to fulfilling these (theoretical) ‘rights’.

And this, in a way, is the crux of the matter. Such ‘mechanisms’ — whether taxation, conscription, or other forms of compulsory ‘public’ or ‘national service’ — invariably involve some form of duress, coercion or theft, and the violation of a person’s actual rights — including the right (alluded to above) to not participate in a system or enterprise which they do not believe in or does not align with their values.