What is the true source of rights?

How are they not earned? People have fought for their rights for centuries. Of course they are earned, unless one believes in magic fairies bestowing rights to one and all....... LOL.

 

Because infants have no earning capacity, Brainiac.

by the infant's parents, which means they are bestowed upon the children by the parents - assuming, off course, that the parents choose to do so. Got that about right, haven't I?

 

Me. The people I love. My own compassion. The world is irrational and meaning is elusive, but compassion abounds.

 

Presumably, by "A," you mean amendment.

And this is the proper way to correct the Constitution. (Either that, or through a second Constitutional Convention--which has never yet been attempted.)

Liberals, however, simply want to invent "rights" out of thin air...

 

Well, I halfway agree: A major alteration in our constitution should not be made, absent a vigorous national debate prior to its enactment.

But I am not eager to see anything enacted that just amounts to a redistribution of the wealth (i.e. taking from some citizens, in order to benefit others).

 

And just how do you suppose that our society would avoid total chaos, if we suddenly had no government?

 

Then you do believe that the autho

Then you would appear to be saying that you know better than the authors of the Declaration of Independence just what is the genuine source of our rights.

Do you mean to be implying that?

 

No my "bias" (Is that really the correct word for it?) is a fealty to the Declaration of Independence (as well as the US Constitution).

 

At least you didn't say natural rights



Anyway, you should read some of Brutus' anti-federalist papers if you want to see the true debate that was going on. Most people ignore historical dissent and cherry pick the things that confirm their bias.

 

Yes, human are not infallible.

 

A natural right *can* be supressed. It just can't be taken away. If rights *could* be taken away then slaves would never revolt because their right to be free would have been taken.

It's a simple proposition that you "might is right" proponents always shy away from and will never address directly.

 

Their natural rights come from somewhere!

 

If you have no rights then where does the compassion come from? A feeling that you *do* have natural rights that should not be violated?

This is the stumbling block those who believe we have no natural rights *always* stumble over!

 

Didn't read whole thread. In the U.S., the true source of rights is the Constitution and all the body of lesser laws subservient to it. The important notion is that our rights come from law that results from a representative legislative process, not from edicts of the crown or church.

 

Well the way I see it is that you simply fight for your opinions and ideology. That is good enough for me. No metaphysical justification is required.

 

The only thing that guarantees any right is the military. Without that, our rights are only determined by whether or not we are a sovereign country or colony of another.

 

Your opinions and ideology come from *somewhere*. Do you believe people have a conscience that they use to tell right from wrong?

 

Government doesn't give us our rights. That's the philosophy of Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao, Castro, the Mongolian Khans. What man gives man can take away.

Even the Dec of Independence, our original founding document, recognized that we have rights outside of government, *any* government.

 

Your cherry picking. The Bible differentiates how slaver are to be treated based on whether they are from the "tribe" or from foreign nations.

E.g:

Slaves, male and female, you may indeed posses, provided you buy them from among the neighboring nations. Lev. 25:44. You may also buy them from among the aliens who reside with you and from their children …. Such slaves you may own as chattels, and leave to your sons as their hereditary property, making them perpetual slaves.


Slaves taken from foreign nations were much akin to black slavery in American. Indeed, slavery defenders used the Bible as justification for slavery.

 

That is true. I suppose you could say they come from a combination of my personality, emotions and my experiences. As for people having a conscience, it's difficult to say. So many disagree on what is wrong or right that it makes it hard to tell. But if I had to guess I would say yes. Just that consciences can vary. What do you think upside222?

 

If there is a God, it will be nature. Just try living without the natural elements of air and water. They are unalienable rights. We fought for the rights of our constitution and any government that does not observe them is illegitimate. The constitution provides Article V as a legitimate, orderly method to alter or abolish a government that is destructive to un-a-lien-able rights.

Before we fight, we need to unify under the laws of the constitution to use our right to alter or abolish. There is good reason to believe that IF we do this well, THEN law enforcement and the military will support us.

 

This is always an interesting question, fraught with semantical misconstructions.

For example, when people speak of "rights" it can mean either rights we have under the law, or right we claim we should have, whether recognized by law or not.

People refer to all kinds of authority to bypass defending what they think should be right with logic and fact. Examples include God, Nature, and the Constitution. But, IMO, these are just labels used, as I noted, to provide authority for rights you want to claim.

The problem with using "God" as the source of rights (putting aside the essential issue of whether God exists) is ... which God, and which interpretation of "God"? The God of different religions would have different rights. But even if we just focus on the Christian God, since God doesn't come down and directly enforce rights, the rights must be those set forth in the Bible, which is written by men but is supposed to be the word of God. And then you run into the difficulty of determining exactly what "rights" the Bible confers. People of radically different views on what the Bible mean, and pick and chose "rights" based on their political views. And even if you can achieve a consensus on meaning, many of the "rights" in the Bible are simply incompatible with "rights" we believe in today. You don't find the words "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" in the bible. Nor do you find anything about a right to vote, and many other rights we take for granted today. It does give you a right to have slaves, "provided you buy them from among the neighboring nations." That's a "right" many would say today is not a right.

You have the same problem with "natural" laws. "Natural" is just another appeal to some higher authority, in this case, nature. Who determines what "natural" laws are? You? Me? Learned thinkers?

Each person can (and does) have his own view as to what "rights" are, in the sense of what should be. But ultimately, whatever rights we have are rights that are conferred (or not intruded upon) by men or governments. You can believe all you want that owning slaves is a "God given" or "natural right", but in then end, if the law of society says you cannot own slaves, you do not have that right.

 

No cherry-picking. I gave you what you asked for. Apparently you simply don't care. You were just looking for posts to validate your confirmation bias.

How you obtain slaves has nothing to do with how they are to be treated. I gave you what the Bible ways about how slaves are to be treated.

Willful ignorance is not a survival trait.

 

rights only exist if society chooses to recognize them

 

If a conscience exists it came into existence somehow. If a person has no natural rights then the conscience would have no way to distinguish between right and wrong. Even young children with no developed emotional maturity or experience level exhibit an inherent knowledge of right and wrong.

If you are born with no inherent, natural rights then no amount of personality, emotions, or experiences would lead you to the concept of individual freedom as a right or of self-defense against attack as a right.