What are rights? Are rights, generically, different from civil rights? How do we justify rights, if indeed they exist?

Does there have to be a Supreme Being to justify rights, or can they be justified by our nature as thinking beings?

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Never moon a werewolf.

To me, rights equal all our abilities reduced by all laws, morals, fears and inhibitions that wall us in. I think of rights as the space we are allowed to play in without getting in trouble. When we are able to see 'outside the box', it's easier to see that we are easily controlled through our fear of harm or rejection. It's also easier to see what is really going on in the social control game.

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At least we have each other to talk to.

You need to be more specific. Rights in the generic sense would be all encompassing. Civil rights, religious rights, natural rights, et al. would all fall under "generic" rights.

But that is in part what I am asking here. Is there any difference between civil rights and natural rights, and if so what are they. Are religious rights a subset of rights in general, or do they mean something different.

Do we have any rights in the political sense. Or are rights just a convenient fiction?

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Never moon a werewolf.

...the individual's rights ('generic', natural, social, intrinsic, whatever) are tempered in so far as they may conflict with another individual's rights; this is social order. All legal 'rights', of individuals and nations derive from this reciprocal premise - one can not lay claim to rights for oneself that you would withold from another.

That is why it is wrong to invade another person's country; because they should not invade yours. Rights! (even Arabs have them).

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"A man's work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened."

I like that phrase.

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Never moon a werewolf.

but y'know what? you have forced me to take a critical look at it...and it is flawed. I would prefer (now!) if it read, 'one can not legitimately lay claim to rights for oneself that one would withold from another.'

A bit better?

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"A man's work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened."

I forced you? Ah, no, say not that I did violence on you. Say that my words caused you to look at the statement. I abjure force.



I accept your alteration, but wonder if it is not just gilding the lily. I can't legitimately claim a right to myself and reject the same right for another. My objection is not in terms of content, but of using the fewest words to get the point across. I hate to insult the reader's intelligence.

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Never moon a werewolf.

...I felt compelled (through no external pressures), say?

I would share with you the aim of being as concise as possible. But I do think that the inclusion of the qualification "legitimately" is vital to the proper sense of the sentence. I could, conceivably, claim any right to myself; the right to butter your toast and eat it while you starved - but I could not legitimately do so if I lay claim to a right for human sustenance for myself.

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"A man's work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened."

Then we can agree.

But now I find another thing bothering me.

one can not legitimately lay claim to rights for oneself that one would withhold from another

Does that mean I can claim anything as a right, as long as I grant you the same right?

???

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Never moon a werewolf.