I've been reading some stuff and am not real sure where the line is drawn between a natural rights individualist and an egoist.
Line? What do you mean?
Do you deserve natural rights even if you aren't willing to maintain them?
Deserve? Use of the word implies not only that there is some objective standard for judging such a thing, but that there are people somewhere out there who hold the authority to judge. You should put such silliness out of your mind lest it cause some serious rot to set in.
The notion of rights arises out of the relationships between populations of human beings exceeding unity. If you put more than one person in a place, the question of rights naturally arises because the potential for conflict appears as if out of nothingness. This is the nature of things and it cannot be avoided.
When one derives in their mind the basis for natural rights, an exercise I strongly recommend every human being born do at least once during their lifetime and preferably during their "formative" years, it becomes clear that rights are facts that arise naturally and unavoidably in populations greater than one. There is no issue of "deserving" of which to speak. The only valid and sensible question that follows is whether any given individual is going to choose to respect the rights of his fellows.
I also take some issue with your use of "willing to maintain them". This usage implies a few things I find not only fallacious, but wholly repugnant. Firstly, how does one judge whether another is willing to maintain his rights? What may constitute such maintenance to one man may appear as gross failure in the eyes of another.
Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, how do you arrive at the tacit implication that anyone is obliged to "maintain" his rights?
Thirdly, what constitutes maintenance? Where is the standard, who wrote it, and by what authority are the rest of presumably bound maintain our rights in accord with that standard?
Fourthly, another implication of your language is that those who somehow fail to maintain their natural rights may somehow be justly deprived of them. Was this implication intentional or simply the product of language that might stand a little tuning?
Even if someone invades your house and you haven't bought a gun, locked your doors, or done anything to maintain the security of your home, I think to a point you deserved what you got.
And I think you need to reconsider your opinion. If we are endowed with rights then NOBODY holds authority to violate you in any manner including that which you suggest here. That one lives peaceably amongst his fellows, perhaps neglecting certain practical realities that most of the rest of us take for granted, it can in no way follow that he who has brought no harm to others
deserves to be violated by virtue of his failure to prepare for such. To my way of thinking it takes a profoundly and sadly demented way of thinking to arrive at your conclusion. It seems clear to me that you need to think about what your position
really means. To take it to a logical extreme for the sake of making clear what may otherwise remain hidden to your eyes, imagine a four year old child playing with his friends in his back yard. Perhaps mom is nearby but busily cleaning the house. That child is pretty well incapable of defending himself against and attack by an adult. Were such an adult to invade the yard and beat the child to within an inch of his life, would you deem that he deserved it? If not, then why so when such sorrow befalls the adult?
It is very easy to judge others in these ways, especially when one has not walked a mile or 3000 in their shoes. I gently recommend caution in such matters.
You alone are responsible for your own security
That is not quite right. Others are also responsible for your security from the standpoint that onus rests with each of us not to intentionally or negligently violate the security of others. It is
my responsibility not to draw my pistol and shoot you in the head just because I wanted to know what it was like to kill someone. It is my responsibility to exercise reasonable precaution in my activities that I not kill or maim you in the process of operating.
and you're wrong to depend on the morals of others to keep them from robbing your house, or depend on police officers to defend your home for you.
Here we may agree, particularly when looking at these questions as purely pragmatic issues. Others
ought not violate your rights, but some will try nevertheless. But if they succeed, how can you say they
deserve it? It may be rightly said under some circumstances that one was
asking for some ill fortune to befall them, but that is a far cry from asserting they deserved it. The two are not the same by a very long shot. They do not, in fact, have anything of truth in common.
If you aren't concerned with defending yourself why should anyone else be?
Another matter entirely and one answerable only on an individual basis. There are no blanket answers that apply here with equal force and validity for all.
Even tho a lot of people believe a man has a natural right to land, maybe you don't deserve it if you can't protect it.
I suspect you have a lot to learn about language. Do not feel badly - most people do; some of those have been around a good long time, no less.
