One of the notions used by all sides to justify the draft, is that “rights
impose obligations.” Obligations, to whom?—and imposed, by whom?
Ideologically, that notion is worse than the evil it attempts to justify: it
implies that rights are a gift from the state, and that a man has to buy them
by offering something (his life) in return. Logically, that notion is a
contradiction: since the only proper function of a government is to protect
man’s rights, it cannot claim title to his life in exchange for that
protection.
The only “obligation” involved in individual rights is an obligation imposed,
not by the state, but by the nature of reality (i.e., by the law of identity):
consistency, which, in this case, means the obligation to respect the rights of
others, if one wishes one’s own rights to be recognized and protected.