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Thread: Rights

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    Helena's Avatar Senior Member
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    Rights

    What ARE rights? How do you define them? Where do they come from? How can something be labeled a right, as in something unable to be taken from you, when it's clear that everything outside of yourself (as in your consciousness) can indeed be taken from you?
    @Ethereal has already started discussing this: http://thepoliticalforums.com/thread...=1#post2509141

    and that was in regard to a comment I had made about land not being an inherent or legitimate right.

    So, let's have a good discussion about all of the above and hopefully it will help me to find more solid footing when it comes to my thoughts and further conversation about rights.
    You are wrong about police.

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    Essentially, rights are an abstraction. And as abstractions, individuals are free to accept or ignore them. Yet one does not judge the validity of an abstraction based on how many people accept them. For example, evolutionary theory - which is also an abstraction - was accepted by almost no one when it was first elucidated by Charles Darwin. But evolutionary theory's validity existed independently of whether or not the authorities or the masses accepted it. The same is true of the natural law and its attendant rights. Its validity derives from its reasonableness, not its popularity. So while it's certainly true that many individuals have had their rights violated throughout history, this does not evince the illegitimacy or subjectivity of rights anymore than the scientific illiteracy of some people evinces the illegitimacy or subjectivity of scientific theories.
    Last edited by Ethereal; 01-16-2019 at 03:34 PM.
    Power always thinks it has a great soul, and vast views, beyond the comprehension of the weak. And that it is doing God service when it is violating all His laws.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ethereal View Post
    Essentially, rights are an abstraction. And as abstractions, individuals are free to accept or ignore them. Yet one does not judge the validity of an abstraction based on how many people accept them. For example, evolutionary theory - which is also an abstraction - was accepted by almost no one when it was first elucidated by Charles Darwin. But evolutionary theory's validity existed independently of whether or not the authorities or the masses accepted it. The same is true of the natural law and its attendant rights. Its validity derives from its reasonableness, not its popularity. So while it's certainly true that many individuals have had their rights violated throughout history, this does not evince the illegitimacy or subjectivity of rights anymore than the scientific illiteracy of some people evinces the illegitimacy or subjectivity of scientific theories.
    And in that, if you are talking about a specific right as we were regarding land, how do you separate a right from an entitlement?
    You are wrong about police.

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    A right is a prohibition against government agents. We have a right to life. The government cannot take our lives without due process. We have a right to liberty. The government cannot compel us (in most cases) to choose against our will.

    Our right to property flows directly from our right to life. We trade our life (our time) for things of value. We have the right to use or dispose of those things of value without government intrusion or interference. Every time the government creates a new law some portion of our rights are removed.

    We have the right to govern ourselves. When the government injures our rights we have the right to overthrow it and create a new government better suited to protecting our rights.

    Can a right impose an obligation on another? In my opinion, it cannot. If it could then we would have a return to slavery. Slavery is an affront to our right to life and liberty.

    Our rights come from our existence. Our rights end when we do.
    Call your state legislators and insist they approve the Article V convention of States to propose amendments.


    I pledge allegiance to the Constitution as written and understood by this nation's founders, and to the Republic it created, an indivisible union of sovereign States, with liberty and justice for all.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Helena View Post
    And in that, if you are talking about a specific right as we were regarding land, how do you separate a right from an entitlement?
    I guess that depends on how we're defining an entitlement. I suppose one could use the two words interchangeably depending on the context.

    But to answer the question in a general sense, I would say that rights are something which subsist on pure reason, whereas entitlements come about as a consequence of a particular social context.
    Power always thinks it has a great soul, and vast views, beyond the comprehension of the weak. And that it is doing God service when it is violating all His laws.
    --John Adams

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    Quote Originally Posted by Helena View Post
    And in that, if you are talking about a specific right as we were regarding land, how do you separate a right from an entitlement?
    Winning the birth lottery...or not
    I'm yo.
    This my brother yo
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    In order for something to qualify as a genuine "right" within the context of natural law theories, it must be universally cognizable through the use of reason. The most obvious example of a right that meets this definition is the right to life. It's basically self-evident among all sane people that their life belongs to them and to no one else. From this basic premise, a wide array of related rights can be ascertained.
    Power always thinks it has a great soul, and vast views, beyond the comprehension of the weak. And that it is doing God service when it is violating all His laws.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ethereal View Post
    I guess that depends on how we're defining an entitlement. I suppose one could use the two words interchangeably depending on the context.

    But to answer the question in a general sense, I would say that rights are something which subsist on pure reason, whereas entitlements come about as a consequence of a particular social context.
    Which makes it a dangerous and faulty abstraction, doesn't it?

    I've had a long and continuous struggle with the words and meaning in the US Declaration of Independence, starting with "We hold these truths to be self-evident". Well, yes, the group that were in agreement of those things listed thereafter, held that reasoning.

    I don't know that I do.
    You are wrong about police.

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    Rights are responsibilities we have with regard to other in a society ("we the people").

    Rights a government has are called powers, but they are still, or ought to be responsibilities to depend on the people.

    Rights, natural rights, are not zero-sum. Those things some call human rights are zero-sum.
    Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire. ― Gustav Mahler

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    Quote Originally Posted by Helena View Post
    Which makes it a dangerous and faulty abstraction, doesn't it?
    I don't think so, no. All abstractions, by their nature, must live or die according to their reasonableness. So if subsisting on pure reason makes something faulty and dangerous, then all abstractions would be faulty and dangerous.

    I've had a long and continuous struggle with the words and meaning in the US Declaration of Independence, starting with "We hold these truths to be self-evident". Well, yes, the group that were in agreement of those things listed thereafter, held that reasoning.

    I don't know that I do.
    Well, if someone tried to kill you, what would you do? Is that not self-evident?
    Power always thinks it has a great soul, and vast views, beyond the comprehension of the weak. And that it is doing God service when it is violating all His laws.
    --John Adams

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