Rights

Logical consequences of agency and the passive Golden Rule. Given an agent who can act, and the rule against doing to others what they would not want done to them, certain boundaries follow by reasoning alone: limits others may not cross without consent, over an agent's body, property, and agreements. A right is one of those boundaries, named. Any agent who can reason can work them out; they are not granted by power-holders or votes. They bind everyone the same way: claim a right and you owe the identical right to every agent like you, so whoever crosses another's boundary forfeits the protection of their own. Rights say only what others must not do to you, never what they must hand you -- a "right" that needs someone forced to supply it would itself break the Golden Rule, so it is power dressed up as a right, not a right. They matter only where a crossing is possible.