Rights - god given? inalienable? self-evident? natural? WRONG

I need to prove nothing. Far more people on this earth believe in a creator than do not. The burden of proof is on you, not me.

 

You would have to substantiate that. Humans have the same basic needs and the goals of humans are to fulfill the needs. Normal humans put needs before wants.

Your position is illogical.

 

right, in a true state of nature, we have the right to do anything and no duty to respect each others' rights. We would have the right to behead longshot and belch and they would have the right to behead us, none of us would have a moral entitlement not to be beheaded. ENTER SOCIETY..

the 4 of us would create a society and form a social contract where we would agree to give up right to behead each other in order to peacefully co-exist. However, if we find each other fighting over basic needs to survive, we will break the contract and resort to state of nature - eliminate each other.

 

If you assert "god given rights" you need to prove the existence of a creator/god/gods.

lol, you don't seem to understand how this works. YOU are claiming rights are "god given". YOU need to prove a god exists, in order to make the claim it gave us rights.

 

most people believed earth was flat at one point, was it?

God's existence is based primarily on - lack of understanding of the universe, nothing else. Basically, the rationale is - 'Since we don't understand the universe (mainly concept of time), there MUST be a creator'

This to me doesn't pass the sniff test.

another powerful motivator to believe in GOD is that religions condemn those who do not have faith, so some that question the existence of a god are scared to embrace it for fear of what could happen at death (burn in hell).

 

Needs are 1 thing. Every animal needs food and water. And will do what is necessary to obtain it.
Once the base needs are met, then they fulfill wants and some will say those wants are rights. And if enough people agree, they can make them rights enforceable or granted by their society.

 

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In this world yes, but the kind of agreement needed to make a want into a need in this society won't happen. We've actually lost an appreciation for and unalienable rights, or needs but that goes the other direction from making wants into needs or rights.

 

There is no debate about what natural rights are. Natural law is... I think it's the same thing. If there's any difference, I don't know what it is.

But debate over what natural rights are? None at all. I've spelled out exactly how they are defined time and time again in this thread. They are everything you can do by yourself in nature. There is no debate there. You can disagree, but you're just wrong.

Dude, you're continually trying to conflate natural rights with positive rights. That don't fly.

 

It seems to be the normal progression of things when basic needs are met.
IMO, that is a whole lot better than having a majority needing basic needs.
And as long as we have the means, why not make life better for all?

 

The reason "we" don't do that is because "we" is not how the country was set up. As the declaration of independence pointed out, "we hold these truths to be self-evident" and then it goes on to list natural rights as reasons to have a government.

Positive rights necessarily negate natural rights, and trying to say that a positive right is good for us, you necessarily say to hell with the country as it was founded.

You don't care about the natural rights the the positive right of property which socialized healthcare undermines, so that's why "we" don't care about your basic needs. You are not as important as the country.

Yes, that means that you can die for lack of food, shelter, healthcare. You are not as important as the union and the foundational values that the union is premised upon.

You can talk to your state or local government about how you think your health is more important than property rights, but you're going to have to talk to the hand when it comes to the federal government.

 

The first 10 amendments to the US Constitution is called The Bill of Rights.
After the French Revolution, there was the "Declaration of the Rights of Man"
In 1948, approved by the UN General Assembly was the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights"
Adopted by the UN General Assembly on 12-16-1966 were the "International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights" and the "International Covenant of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights". Let's get out in the streets and confront the Powers that Be until each and every right or freedom mentioned in any of these documents is Permanently and Inalienably guaranteed to every US citizen in perpetuity. Let's protest, demonstrate, strike, until this happens. Let's re-refer to Thomas Payne, Henry David Thoreau, Mahatma Ghandi, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. re: civil disobedience, non-violent resistance, dissident organization, etc., etc. until ALL THESE RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS ARE OURS FOREVER. Let's pry the claws of the greedy capitalists from around the neck of the American People; let's retrieve the national ecological environment from the septic tank of Industry. Let's extract the funnel of Big Pharma (with its evil cornucopia of pharmaceutical pills/capsules of opioids, psychotropics, symptomatic medicines) from the maw of the body politic. Let's lift the boot of Agribucks off the neck of populist nutrition. Let's keep at this agenda, this manifesto, until every last evil self-seeking lobbyist, every last Republican shill, every last two-faced Democratic liar is forever banished from the halls of congress. Let's start this SOONEST. (How very, very different would be a nation "of the people, by the people, for the people" from anything we can see around us presently.)

 

there is a subtle difference, one has to come first.

then we agree, in a true state of nature, i agree to right to ANYTHING and EVERYTHING, even killing you. I thought you had a specific list of rights that would exist in state of nature, so you agree even right to kill is a right in state of nature? then we agree.

I have already laid out arguments showing how prominent philosophers have argued over natural rights/laws and how these arguments can be used to support right to access to affordable healthcare, you have kicked and screamed and refused to accept it, fine.

As far as positive rights, you don't seem to understand what you talk about so much. A positive right is not a violation of someone else's right if it is consensual. We have consented to taxes, as a society. If you don't want to pay taxes, you do not belong in society and should be kicked out, to a deserted Island where you would have no rights as an american citizen, even defense.

 

very nice but what makes you believe this government isn't ours? We do elect representatives every 2 years, senators every 6 years and presidents every 4 years so we have the power to remove them, at will. So if congressmen and the president don't run the government, who does? and if they run it, we run it, they are our agents.

 

Then it's irrelevant to rights, which come after natural law, yes?

Nope. You are, yet once again, conflating positive rights with natural rights.

We cannot continue until you understand the difference.

Sorry, but I'm not going to play this game with you. Either be intellectually honest, or... we can't do this.

See, you bring violence (a positive right) to the table. I'm forced to go there with you and defend myself (a natural right), but I'd rather not. You want violence, and that is a positive right in that it is something that takes my life from me.

 

Once you admit that you have a right to self-defense merely by being alive then you have admitted that you have natural rights. Once you admit you have natural rights then it is merely a matter of defining what those rights are. How you got here is actually nothing more than a red herring argument meant to deflect from the fact that you *do* have natural rights.

 

no. Hobbes believed in rights first (right to everything and anything) and a chaotic state of nature, then laws of nature are required for man to co-exist peacefully. Locke believed in natural law first, rights come from what natural law dictates.

a positive right is a simple concept but i view it as a irrelevant to the the core point i make and i have already addressed this.

you don't seem to understand what you claim you have mastery over. A positive right is not the same as violence, if it's consensual, there is no violation of someone else's rights. An example would be i paying for a contract that requires a service to be performed when i need it (towing etc..) and when i need it, someone else has a duty to provide me with this service (POSITIVE RIGHT) but it's part of a contract so there is NO VIOLATION of anyone's rights. You seem not to fully grasp concept of a positive right so do your homework and then come back.

As far as taxes to ensure everyone has access to healthcare, bringing the concept of positive rights into the debate and equating it to violence is not a strong position. Again, as i have explained above, a positive right can be consensual and if it is, there is no violence or violation of rights. When we pay taxes, we, as a society, have consented to this duty and so there is no violence or violation of any rights. You have agreed to enjoy the benefits and rights of being an American citizen, no-one is forcing you to remain a citizen. By agreeing to be an American citizen, you have agreed to the social contract and therefore consented to your duty to pay taxes, no-one is violating your rights. You have the RIGHT to denounce your citizenship, leave the USA and seek residence elsewhere, no-one is stopping you. Finally, when you pay taxes, you also are paying for yourself, not just others so to tell me you are just paying for someone else, isn't entirely accurate. Under a single payer system, we would all chip in and in effect, pay for our services as-well. It's part of the social contract.

 

Every time we think we know the universe we find out differently. Maybe the Creator is smarter than man ever will be?

 

or maybe our intelligence is limited and there are aliens out there that understand things much better. We may think we are the most intelligent beings in the universe but i'm sure that out of the billions and billions of planets, there are aliens that would consider us primitive and stupid.

 

nonsense. You only have rights agreed upon by society, or rights you can defend.

And I'll keep pointing out there is no such thing as natural rights. It's simply a philosophical man made concept.

 

i suppose i agree if someone tells me 'natural rights' means right to EVERYTHING and ANYTHING. What i don't agree with is anyone coming up with specific list and trying to explain to me why some things are excluded and some included. I think rahl and dairyair would prob agree with me here. Yes, we do have right to EVERYTHING and ANYTHING in a true state of nature - killing, violence, self defense, property and we have no duty to respect each others rights. The minute a specific list is determined, it's made up and something agreed to by society. Get it?

 

Didn't read thread, just skimmed 12th grade level unsourced "article" linked in the OP.

1. "God-given rights" is a nod to the ascendance of one of the foundational pillars of Protestantism and the Enlightenment, a great development that we don't appreciate today because the alternative is so far removed from our present experience, is woefully misinterpreted in simplistic ways all over the place, and OP article is no exception.

"God-given rights," in a world of the past where it is suicidal (burn at the stake level) to stand in public and say "there is no God," or "I don't believe in God," or -especially- "the Bishop/Pope/King is not God's representative and has no right to govern my life" is a kind of subtle workaround. What it means is that any rights purported to originate in some metaphysical belief come directly from a -personal, direct relationship- and not an intermediated one (e.g. saints, confessional, Mother Mary, kings, popes, imams, chancellors, even Magna Carta). In other words, the KEY part of the concept is not some kind of "Godly rights" from this or that God through a king or priest, but rights NOT INTERMEDIATED by a man with a funny cloth hat or a man with a funny gold hat, or a beatific entity or a man in a booth, or any group of people claiming to define "God" and the "rights given from beliefs" that you must GO THROUGH THEM to get and the nature and extent of which are defined by them IN THE MOMENT as they see fit. God/X gave the rights DIRECTLY, not "to you through the priest/king." The proper expanded rhetoric would be

"People are endowed directly with any rights they have, and such rights are not intermediated arbitrarily by a king, priest or group of men claiming to interpret what those rights are but by the RULE OF LAW that applies to all equally and is administered with standard processes."

In short, wherever the rights come from, they come DIRECTLY from there to the individual, and not intermediated. This feeds into:

2. "Inalienable rights" does not and never meant "rights that cannot be regulated, restricted or even taken away by the law," but rights that each citizen possesses to the same degree that every other citizen possesses them, rights that cannot be arbitrarily -alienated- by a man or men outside the rule of law from one person as opposed to another. Admittedly, the notion of "citizenship" is an abstraction, and has been swinging in a pendulum from restricted to expansive historically. Again, the underlying principle of both 1 and 2 is that a codified rule of law, equally administered and not intermediated, to the extent possible, governs what rights citizens possess, not a "star chamber" or tribunal, priest, town reeve, etc. Of course the state regulates and restricts rights, but the ways in which it does are based on application of uniform codified and common law, and not arbitrary distinctions or whim, else the state is illegitimate.

Does this make rights a "construct" or a "mere construct?" I don't think the question is remotely useful because the term itself is strained and close to unworkable vagueness. What does "construct" even mean, as blithely as it is tossed around today? You won't find the term in ANY remotely legitimate legal documents... vague and null.

The constant misinterpretation of these two key concepts is unfortunate. Another fallacy commonly seen, and seen in the OP article, is undue focus on summary, abstract, idealistic rhetoric instead of the actual, specific codified laws that apply to society on a day-to-day basis. It's easy to "disprove" or "debunk" rhetoric or abstractions, much harder to dismiss specifically codified and case-generated law.

The primary codification of "inalienable rights" in U.S. Constitutional law is the 5th> 14th Amendment, and together with the MOUNTAINS of supporting and interpretive jurisprudence thereof, make a great, legitimate starting point for defining and specifying abstract rhetoric of what rights are in the United States. That's the proper starting point, not vague idealistic abstractions in foundational documents that aren't -codified law- such as the Declaration or philosophical texts.

 

http://www.crf-usa.org/foundations-of-our-constitution/natural-rights.html
As others have said, it is a philosophical idea.
And from the link, a means to take up arms against Britain.

So men declared them, organized a gov't to grant and keep them.
So in reality, there is NO Natural rights. Just those rights some of the founders declared to be natural. And they didn't lock them in stone.
Matter of fact, it's pretty wide open. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

To keep a country locked into something from 200+ yrs ago, says to hell with the current world and people.
It's like a religion trying make sure the believers never grow from the strict belief of some unknown god. Take the Amish. They never progress. They still live like the 1800s for the most part.

Life, does not mean you can die for a lack of food, shelter, or healthcare. For everyone will die without water. So everyone is entitled to water. And if one has water, they will die shortly after without food.
And the pursuit of happiness is wide open.

Property rights? How is anything natural about property rights? That is purely gov't controlled, regulated, taxed, and record keeping. Without the gov't there are NO property rights.

 

He didn't say he wanted violence. Only that it is a part of nature. Especially if there is conflict, and not you agreed upon consent.
At that point the natural right becomes might makes right. And might can include smarts.

 

Admitting to self defense is 1 right.
Anything beyond self defense has to now be agreed upon by at more than 1 individual. Now it becomes contractual rights. So everyone doesn't have to enact the self defense right. Or as some could say, might = right defense.

 

I concur.
IMO, the only natural right is might = right.
Everything else is contractual.