The Problem of Human Rights

[Chris]

Pickle without laws and structure, humans return to their roots animals.

The problem with govt today is simple, Laws are not written by the parties for THE GOOD OF THE PEOPLE, they are written for the good of the party, their politicians and their supporters voters and donors...doesnt matter if the law takes from others

I think that's true, about the need for laws and structure. Premodern times saw an interdependency between ruler and ruled, laws based on tradition, and a strong intermediate social structure. Nowadays, under democracy and capitalism, there's a disconnect between the rulers and what is but a mass of men.

[Mister D]

I think that's true, about the need for laws and structure. Premodern times saw an interdependency between ruler and ruled, laws based on tradition, and a strong intermediate social structure. Nowadays, under democracy and capitalism, there's a disconnect between the rulers and what is but a mass of men.

There is also a disconnect between rights and social/political life.

[Private Pickle]

The Founders, generally speaking, straddled both worlds,* one foot in the past, going back to the ancients, upon which to build a new nation; and one foot in modernity, following not just Hobbes but Rousseau and Locke who invented man in a state of nature on which to build a new individualistic one.**

* See Gordon Wood's The Radicalism of the American Revolution on this split.

** From the OP: "...modern political philosophers, such as Hobbes, finding the then-prevailing system of law confused and inadequate, undertook to tear law down and rebuild it from the ground up, so to speak. They postulated a “state of nature,” a pre-political state in which all human beings are equal and free, and they sought to base their political teaching on that allegedly original and natural human condition. In other words, according to Manent, they tried to strip law entirely away from man and then restore law on a more solid foundation, or on what they thought was a more solid foundation—the desire of each person to be safe from the personal danger that necessarily accompanies the lack of law."

Wood's utopia before the revolutionary war didn't exist. The militarization of the U.S. as a result of the Revolution did not create Capitlization. But I'm not sure why we are diving down this rat hole. Are you suggesting that the founders and the politicians that directly preceeded them didn't recognize the modernization that would inevitably take place and forge the Constitution in such a way to allow for that modernization?

[Chris]

Wood's utopia before the revolutionary war didn't exist. The militarization of the U.S. as a result of the Revolution did not create Capitlization. But I'm not sure why we are diving down this rat hole. Are you suggesting that the founders and the politicians that directly preceeded them didn't recognize the modernization that would inevitably take place and forge the Constitution in such a way to allow for that modernization?

Not sure I follow since Wood speaks not of utopias but no, the founders could hardly have known. After all it was seen as a great experiment. Their first attempt was a loose federation, abandoned for a stronger federal government that grows ever stronger and more centralized, leaving the individual isolated, atomized, alienated.

[Private Pickle]

Pickle without laws and structure, humans return to their roots animals.

The problem with govt today is simple, Laws are not written by the parties for THE GOOD OF THE PEOPLE, they are written for the good of the party, their politicians and their supporters voters and donors...doesnt matter if the law takes from others

I never suggested otherwise.

[Private Pickle]

Not sure I follow since Wood speaks not of utopias but no, the founders could hardly have known. After all it was seen as a great experiment. Their first attempt was a loose federation, abandoned for a stronger federal government that grows ever stronger and more centralized, leaving the individual isolated, atomized, alienated.

I suppose that's right...

“Life was theater, and impressions one made on spectators were what counted. Public leaders had to become actors or characters, masters of masquerade.”

-Gordon Wood

It holds true today.

[jet57]

An excerpt from a review of Pierre Manent's new book, Natural Law and Human Rights: Toward a Recovery of Practical Reason.




Sorry, forgot the link to The Problem of Human Rights.

Something I've said for some time is that the concept of "natural human rights" have been made up out of whole cloth. Such rights are strictly dependent upon social contracts as in our own Constitution and bill of rights. The addition of human rights has come with the growth of social change and truths concerning the differing states of human nature; that is to say, gay rights, elder rights, minority rights etc and of those the problem, the real problem has been suppression of rights of such groups thereby giving the left the ammunition, under our own social contract to change the value system of the human experience.

Manet's article is interesting in that it challenges such run away changes without consideration for social contracts that create said rights to begin with. He writes strictly from a political perspective, being a political scientist, but he neglects to enter into the realm of suppression which caused the problem to begin with.

[Chris]

Something I've said for some time is that the concept of "natural human rights" have been made up out of whole cloth. Such rights are strictly dependent upon social contracts as in our own Constitution and bill of rights. The addition of human rights has come with the growth of social change and truths concerning the differing states of human nature; that is to say, gay rights, elder rights, minority rights etc and of those the problem, the real problem has been suppression of rights of such groups thereby giving the left the ammunition, under our own social contract to change the value system of the human experience.

Manet's article is interesting in that it challenges such run away changes without consideration for social contracts that create said rights to begin with. He writes strictly from a political perspective, being a political scientist, but he neglects to enter into the realm of suppression which caused the problem to begin with.

"natural human rights" have been made up out of whole cloth

And I agree. As explained in this thread "natural human rights" is an oxymoron.

Natural rights depend on our nature. Human rights depend on social contracts, are socially constructed, invented and instituted by law coercively and in most cases violating natural rights.

The Bill of Rights is not a social construct, it is a list of restrictions on the government--it does not demand the government provide freedoms like speech but that it not interfere with existing rights. The Constitution could be viewed as a social contract.

[jet57]

And I agree. As explained in this thread "natural human rights" is an oxymoron.

Natural rights depend on our nature. Human rights depend on social contracts, are socially constructed, invented and instituted by law coercively and in most cases violating natural rights.

The Bill of Rights is not a social construct, it is a list of restrictions on the government--it does not demand the government provide freedoms like speech but that it not interfere with existing rights. The Constitution could be viewed as a social contract.

As I've said: there are no natural rights. The natural world and the unregulated human condition; see The Final Solution etc etc etc throughout history are what determines said rights. Natural rights and human rights are the very same thing. Each is considered dependent upon the society that reflects them to one degree or another. Therefore you are contradicting yourself by separating them. The Bill of Rights is part of pour social contract, and whatever you might believe it says it simply enumerates rights that Americans have and not at the exclusion of any other rights.

[Mister D]

And I agree. As explained in this thread "natural human rights" is an oxymoron.

Natural rights depend on our nature. Human rights depend on social contracts, are socially constructed, invented and instituted by law coercively and in most cases violating natural rights.

The Bill of Rights is not a social construct, it is a list of restrictions on the government--it does not demand the government provide freedoms like speech but that it not interfere with existing rights. The Constitution could be viewed as a social contract.

Social contract is a theory developed to explain the origin of the state and its legitimacy. Nothing more. Nothing less.