I think the question is broader and more fundamental than you’re considering it. It’s not nonsense, but it is basically all of political philosophy boiled down. It all ends up in the same place, in my opinion: what sort of right are we talking about – like what does the word really mean – and what’s your ethical basis for the claim that it differs from everyone’s practical ability to ignore the law entirely? When it comes right down to it, you are inevitably endowed with the right to break the law in that participating in civil society is kind of a voluntary thing. Go try it and see. The real question is what’s that right’s legitimacy compared to the legitimacy of the law?
The Declaration does say that some rights are inalienable, and the significance of saying a right is inalienable in that specific context is that it’s an acknowledgment that the government can’t take it away from you. So right there is a “built-in recognition” of the right to challenge any law that attempts to do that, and it could be fairly argued that the same concept is implicit in the Constitution. But again, you’re left hanging in any individual case in terms of justifying your action.
Of course, if we’re talking about a statutory right, which obviously would have to be granted by the same authority that you’re contemplating challenging, that isn’t going to happen for the obvious reason that they wish to retain the ability to throw you in jail without having to prove the legitimacy of their governance when you kill somebody. You aren’t going to go into court and say Your Honor, I was merely exercising my “right to violate” under Title 21, Chapter 4. The right to break the law, in whatever form and to whatever degree it exists, is external to it.
Rights are actions that are protected by the law, and I can’t see any sensible argument that you have the right to do something that is against the law. But the Constitution take the view our rights don’t come from the law and I think the system recognizes that the law can conflict with those rights. There are times when breaking the law a moral necessity because the consequences of following an unjust law are greater than the consequences of breaking it. And regardless of the reason you break the law, you have important rights as a defendant. In a sense that also supports your ability to break the law if not your right to do it.
I don’t get why Parenti is talking about a “right” to violate laws. We don’t need a right to break the law because we already have the innate freedom to do so. Every day, there are people who put that freedom into practice. What Parenti seems to want is the right to break the law without consequences which is completely naive and unrealistic. And it sounds like he’s special-pleading. I doubt that he’d extend the “right” to break laws to someone with different political views.
A law is essentially a consensus among the population, and for a law to be changed, the consensus has to change. One person in isolation isn’t going to do it. Rosa Parks broke a segregationist law, but she didn’t overturn segregation by herself. She inspired enough people to eventually change the consensus. On the other hand, murdering your neighbour for his money or defrauding a senior out of her life savings won’t inspire anyone else to change the laws against murder and fraud, so the deterrents against them remain in place. Consensus is what keeps us from falling into chaos.
See, this pretty clearly demonstrates that the problem with this is that there are as many definitions of rights as there are political philosophers (and everyone who thinks about this is a political philosopher, even if amateur). Rights, ethics, morals: these are words that some people use in myriad technical ways and some use in extremely vague and casual ways, and almost any debate that uses them gets bogged down in semantics unless the person asking the question or stating a proposition makes it very clear exactly what they mean by these words. Often someone will try to clear up the confusion by citing a dictionary, but that doesn’t help since dictionaries try to look at the broad range of meanings found in recorded texts and then craft a small number of definitions that cover that entire range of uses. Unless the person actually using the word is very clear on what it is they are actually saying or asking, it’s hopeless.
Here are some possible questions the OP might be meaning to ask:
Is breaking the law an act protected by the law?
Is there an implicit principle in the codification of US law that recognizes that not all lawbreaking should be punished?
Should there be such a principle, whether or not there is in fact? (And according to what standard?)
Is one purpose of some laws or legal structures to allow individuals to break certain other laws with impunity, for whatever reason?
Is breaking the law an act worthy of (or actually receiving) societal approval?
Is breaking the law an act worthy of (or actually receiving) my approval?
Is breaking the law an act worthy of (or actually receiving) God’s approval?
Is it always always or sometimes impermissible to stop one from breaking the law? (And according to what standard?)
Is preventing someone from breaking the law an act worthy of (or actually receiving) society’s condemnation? My condemnation? God’s condemnation?
I could keep going…
Sometimes you have to violate a law to get standing to challenge that law in court. Do you have a right though? Depends I guess, on whether you’re successful.