What is the true source of rights?

No kidding, Sherlock. But what right you do have is to trade what you've earned to purchase what is available on the market to defend yourself. So though you may not have a right to gun, you sure as hell have the right to earn the money necessary to buy one. Its the same old stupid argument that bureaucrats use with driving: driving is a privilege, not a right. Like hell. I might not have the right to drive on someone's else's property, but I sure as hell have the right to drive on my own property whatever vehicle I purchased with my own money.. So drive that "driving isn't a right" insanity up a politicians ass and rev that 426 hemi until his brains explode.

 

Almost everyone I meet liberal and conservative respects the founders greatly. But that doesn't mean we should be founder-worshipers and blindly agree with everything they believe. We should evaluate all beliefs from everyone critically. The founders have never provided a good reason to believe in objective natural rights. So I have to disagree with them on that point.

 

I've repeated over and over and over and over and over and over and over. Right to life and defense of it could be a natural right. But can be taken or suppressed.
Instinct dude, instinct. It's innate in most if not all animals and/or living things.

And changing my quotes is quite dishonest of you.
You left out without being beaten or killed. Pretty low.

There were some slaves who had it good and didn't want to be free.

 

Since none of them are in power any more, it also puts me in the same category as all those who defeated them. Because might beat them down.

 

Yes. After being called on it. For what is looking like dishonest debate tactics.

 

Is not the patriot act an intrusion of our rights to be free?
And in time of war, the gov't/military will commandeer whatever is needed to fight its battle. Our violations would mean squat.

 

To show you have not succeeded in getting your point out.
It is you trying to make it have some significance.

 

I'm not sure who you were replying to. I agree with everything you've just said.

 

It can *NOT* be taken. If it could then slaves would never rebel. It *can* be suppressed, on that we agree. That still leaves the right existing as a reason for slaves to rebel!

This is *NOT* an issue of instinct. It is an issue of natural rights. On Naked & Afraid, the partners don't try to kill each other for food when they are starving or dying of thirst. Instinct, based on might is right, would see one of them try to kill the other in order to survive.

I didn't change any of your quotes. Put down the whiskey bottle. You are lost in the thread forest.

 

Again, you are confusing self-defense with taking power using the "might is right" meme.

 

Yes, after you pointed out I had a misquote.

SO FRIGGEN WHAT?

You keep wanting to debate something dead and gone. Stop beating the dead horse! It only makes you look petty and vindictive!

 

But calling the Bible a fable doesn't refute the Bible. It is only your OPINION. Therefore it refutes nothing!

Why is that so hard for you to understand? *YOU* are not the final authority on anything associated with the Bible or any religious belief. Your hubris is unbelievable!

 

You, upside222,

Appears, perhaps a misunderstanding on my part. I took your post as a post that implied we had no right to a gun. Same as we have no right to a TV, or an IPhone or whatever. Which I viewed as an attacked on the 2nd amendment. The constitution is not a Santa Clause handing out gifts. It is a legal document prohibiting the government from certain acts that violate are rights as men.

The second amendment, itself, is not an amendment of a gift of guns to us from the government. It is a statement of law prohibiting the government from stopping us from owning guns.

The big hang up appears to be is the amendment to protect our right to self-defense, or to have the ability to revolt against the government. For me, I take it as both. But really, if you are going to start a revolution, expecting to receive government permission to do so is ludicrous and not necessary...you're getting rid of the government. What do you care what they say.? So I side strongly with the right to own certain weapons to protect myself and my family from robbers, cheaters, thugs, rapists, and murderers. Nothing more. And that's good enough for me.

 

The true source of rights is man as man. Our brains are ours, we need them to live, so we have the right of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In other words, we have rights because we are men and would eventually perish without them. Anthem by Ayn Rand is a good portrayal of this, as well as We the Living. BTW: Its proper name is Individualism as in contrast to collectivism, or the one against the many, the independent thinker against the conformist society, the free man against the state, the individual against the tribe, and many others.

Nothing is more sacred than sovereignty of an individual's soul. And to violate it is to commit the unforgivable sin.

 

There are NO natural rights. But life, since we all have it and defense of it. That's it.

 

No. It is your confusion. Those defeating your list weren't doing it in self defense. But those fighting from within certainly were. And yes self defense could be a natural right.

Self defense, if won, is no doubt might equals right. If won.

 

You never said it was a misquote. And it isn't the 1st time you or another has tried to change the word to 'the'.

 

It is not my opinion.
No evidence of exodus, flood, or talking snakes.

If you make claims, prove them without using the fables as tbe only proof. Its a circular argument on your part.

 

If there were a true "source" of rights, it would be mother nature- but even she does not grant such things. The entire idea of rights is a construction of man's thinking- created in order to obtain some effect. Some are for very good purpose, such as those detailed in the Constitution. These are not entitlements, they are saying we shall be free from things like imposed religions. They address freedoms from, not obligations to as entitlements are. Thus by any rational comparison, rights that impose costs or conditions on people for their own good or the benefit of a few- are not rights of any kind, they are abuses promoted by people that either wish to control others or use their money or property. There are a lot of names appropriate to that kind of actions and people, but "rights" is not one of them.

 

I suppose I would fight because I want to live my life as I see fit and preserve my ideology if it ever became "mainstream". Sorry, I don't mean to sound rude, I just don't understand what the need for any kind of natural right would be. I would want to defend myself whether I am entitled to self-defense or not. Maybe it's my fault for not fully understanding your question?

 

And your reason for disagreeing with the Founders on this point is..what, exactly?

 

Rights materialize from nature...specifically, our natural and inherent yearnings to be free... and they preexisted 'government'....which can only recognize and endeavor to protect them, or infringe upon them.

 

I disagree.

I agree completely!

 

I think JFK answered this question in his inaugural speech in 1961, when he said : "The rights of man do not come from the hands of government, but rather the hands of God."

 

No rights then. If god is the one who brought the flood and created hell.