Natural/inherent rights

Natural rights are not given to us by government. They’re given to us by God. They are our “God-given” rights. This is in our founding documents.

All government can do is try to ensure our natural rights are not infringed upon, by government or anyone else. But we don’t get our natural rights from government.

 

Your posts to this forum do not make sense. I stand by my prior post exactly as posted.

 

Look - you do not know what strawman fallacy is - there is no such fallacy committed by the OP.

Second your comments in relation to natural rights do not make sense as written.

 

1) God did not give anything to anyone - at least nothing that can be proven.
2) The point of invoking the term "creator" - a term specifically chosen not to invoke the Christian God - in the DOI - is to put essential liberty "Above" the legitimate authority of Gov't.

While these rights are assumed to be intrinsic - as per the law of nature -and "natures God" - this concept comes from Man - not God.

These natural rights come from the Social Contract between "we the people" and the authority that we have given power (Gov't).

This construct - states that authority of Gov't is to come from "consent of the Governed" - but, this authority is to be limited - only to what "we the people" consent to - and that Gov't is not to have any power - of its own volition - to make laws that mess with essential liberty.

It is through this construct - the Social Contract- that these rights are awarded - not from God.

 

Without really reading Hobbes and Locke you really cannot discuss natural rights as it pertains to our Constitution and to western thought. It is like trying to discuss the communist manifesto without having read any Marx or hegel. or to put it into laymen terms speaking about color as a blind man.

 

The very second I adopt your position here, every right can then be undone. Is that something that is important to you? Do you suppose that your view of this then is the only authoritative version? So, because you would willingly submit your rights to government does that mean that everyone else has to as well?

 

The same applies to the United States, we just don't consider running away to be reasonable to require of a person being feloniously assaulted.

And what if it does? Popular speech doesn't need to be protected. For an idea of the concepts behind that, read the Phelps case where westboro baptist church's vile screeds were deemed protected speech. And rightly so, though they disgust me and I hope they'll all die in a fire soon.

Because I cannot waive a magic wand and make the world a safe place, hence I take modest precautions.
Except even in Aussie land people have guns, even people barred from ownership. FFS your gangs are some of the best homemade submachinegun craftsmen the world has even seen.

 

OP postures against and demands some prospective "list" of specific, concrete "natural rights." None exist because all such rights are generalized abstractions. That is a textbook straw man regardless of whether you understand that or not.

As stated prior, the notion of "natural rights" is not posited towards a "list," of said rights, nor towards a metaphysical "source" of said rights, but towards a distinction of rights one is -awarded- or -bestowed- by a king, church, other institution, or other people externally (and potentially arbitrarily granted and removed), known as "privileges," "licenses," "permits," etc., and -inherent- rights that preexist the STATE and attach to human beings based on their individual humanity alone. It is an abstract, not a concrete distinction, and so expecting a list of natural rights or confusing those with statutory or Constitutional rights is silly. You seem to understand this part at least.

The notion of natural rights goes hand-in-hand with and partially grounds the notion of "rule of law" (as opposed to rule of men) in the way that whatever codified rights and regulations exist in a Constitutional Republic, they are a function of operation of law that protects all equally, affords due process, and are changed relatively slowly by representatives, and not human caprice. It is an ideal abstraction, not meant to be a concrete category of things.

EDIT: Incidentally, "We the people" is not the actual source of ANY U.S. laws, rights or whatever, the specific operations of the Constitutional Republic are. It is a common error by those seeking, ignorantly or purposefully, to conflate the Constitutional Republic with some kind of bastardized Democracy. "We the people" is just a preamble, introduction, nothing more, has never been anything but.

 

I do not submit my rights to Gov't. That is not what the social contract is about. The social contract is all about limitations to Gov't power.

The whole point of what the Enlightenment thinkers were doing was to come up with a justification for Gov't authority that was not on the basis of "GOD". The whole point of authority of Gov't coming from "we the people" rather than "Divine Right"/God .. was to get away from that justification.

The purpose was separation of Church and State - not unification of Church and state.

We take this for granted now but, at the time of the founders - the source of Gov't authority being from "We the people" - while not new - was relatively new to Europe. Nor did the founders want direct democracy as this lends itself to what is referred to in both Republicanism and Classical Liberalism as "Tyranny of the Majority".

So Yes - we can analyze the "State of Nature" and derive human rights from this analysis - and I can tell you how these rights were derived if you are interested - having written Poly Sci term papers on the topic - and it is very cool and insightful.

What we can't do is give these rights to humans without human intervention. God does not give anyone rights .. humans give humans rights .. and they build structures intended to safeguard these rights. This was what the founders did. They set up a system whereby there were safeguards to essential liberty.

I one does not understand what these human safeguards are - there exists a very real danger of Gov't removing those safeguards .. as that is what Gov'ts are wont to do - and standing around claiming "God gave me these rights" will not help.

One of the main safeguards is the requirement for overwhelming consent - at least 2/3rd majority consent - for Law messing with essential liberty to be considered legitimate.

If I ask you - "Should the power of Gov't be limited" - Yes Yes you respond ... Great - now tell me what the power of Gov't should be limited to as per the founders. This is where people get stumped.

The legitimate authority of Gov't is protection from direct harm - one citizen against another - murder rape theft and so on. Essential liberty ends where the nose of another begins - this is where Gov't power is supposed to begin and end.

The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.
-- Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, 1781-82

Back in the day- people knew about these concepts - just like today people know about Stormy Daniels.
They knew what - essential liberty being endowed by the creator - meant.

Average Joe understood very well the horrible things that could happen due to mixing Church and State -and the abuses of Gov't authority on this basis. They wanted to take this authority out of the hands of Gov't and put it - somewhere else.

That somewhere else was in the hands of we the people - "Consent of the Governed" not in the hands of God.

Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch toward uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one-half the world fools and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth.
-- Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, 1781-82

Thirteen governments [of the original states] thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, and which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind.
-- John Adams, "A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America" (1787-88 ) , from Adrienne Koch, ed, The American Enlightenment: The Shaping of the American Experiment and a Free Society (1965) p. 258

As I understand the Christian religion, it was, and is, a revelation. But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends, have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed?-- John Adams, letter to FA Van der Kamp, December 27, 1816

When philosophic reason is clear and certain by intuition or necessary induction, no subsequent revelation supported by prophecies or miracles can supersede it.-- John Adams, from Rufus K Noyes, Views of Religion, quoted from from James A Haught, ed, 2000 Years of Disbelief

 

Except in our constitutional republic the government is to protect your natural rights from being diminished by a next door neighbor, or anybody else for that matter.

 

No Sanskrit - Textbook strawman is putting words in the mouth of your opponent.

This is not to say that falsehoods is not part of the OP - it is just not strawman fallacy.
That said - your claim that all such rights are generalized abstractions is simply not true.

One of the falsehoods in the OP is the claim that natural rights (hereto referred to as essential liberty) refer to actions such as rape. In general - essential liberty ends where the nose of another begins.

The whole thrust of the enlightenment thinkers was to come up with a secular justification for Gov't authority. This authority was however to be extremely limited - only for the protection of direct harm - one person on another - murder, rape, theft and so on.

The Gov't was to have no legitimate authority beyond this - as per the Social Contract - construct by which the people give some authority power to punish violations of specific codes of conduct.

This is not a generalized abstraction. This specifically outlines the limitations to Gov't authority - with respect to essential liberty.

 

Here is the initial straw man (compound) from the OP. Not going to explain it in great detail, as it leaps right off the page. To summarize, the first straw man is "natural rights theory is used in the U.S. in defense of gun laws and the 2d Amendment (without any evidence of that arguable, likely incorrect claim). Then the second straw man is "if one can't list natural rights back to 'cave man days' then one can't use natural rights to argue for the 2d Amendment." Then, if two aren't enough, a -third- straw man:

WHO claimed that the validity of the 2A rests on natural rights? No one. and WHERE? Nowhere. WHY is it assumed that one must list out -all- possible natural rights "since cave man days?" For NO reason. Finally WHY must ALL natural rights be codified in the Constitution "otherwise there goes the defense of the 2A?" They needn't be. Of the several kinds of BAD reasoning in the OP, straw man is just the most obvious.

But the whole OP is an extended straw man.

Yes, all "natural rights" are generalized abstractions, not concrete, specific rights. For just one example, though one has a general, abstract right to life, that does not imply or require that anyone, including the state, keep someone alive, which would be a concrete, positive right.

 

Please post the verses in the bible stating those rights.
And then prove this god actually exists.
Natural rights are from Nature.
There is not 1 thing in the founding documents about any god.
Your right to property is NO Where in the bible. And only a gov't can grant you property rights.

 

I can easily discuss.
I know what Nature is and Natural.
And Natural rights are what would be afforded every human on earth equally.
And the only thing that every human has a right to is life.

 

Which is a gov't given right, granted by men and our constitutional republic.
And that is why you need a gov't to protects rights, men decide they want. Which is really just an entitlement.
Without a gov't or other enforcing body, anyone could take your property.

 

Our Declaration of Independence refers to God given rights.

These rights do not emanate from government. Government can only assist in guaranteeing these rights are not taken away.

 

Can you cite the part?

 

This might make sense if natural rights were, like communism, a human contrivance; things being what they are, not so much.

 

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive if these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new Government”

1) The rights come from God.

2) Government is established to secure, guarantee, and protect these rights.

3) When government fails to protect our God-given rights, the people are expected to alter or abolish the government.

 

As I knew. No god is mentioned.
god was not the word used, for a very specific reason, IMO. Because not all have the or a god.

Now, how about a bible passage or 2, of what you say your god gave as rights.

 

The ability to take what you want doesn't give you the RIGHT. We have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, but our rights end at violating the rights of others. I'm sure you can point out the sins of anybody, because we are all guilty of them.

 

Please explain what a creator is?

 

Many here have stated that the 2nd Amendment simply codifies what already existed and that the right did not come from the Constitution. They assert that the right was inherent, natural or inalienable. Not a strawman at all.

 

G'day Texan.

Maybe Sanskrit ought to read that. My issue is that the Clause starts with 'We......' being (so my point goes) mortal men assuming and claiming as self evident that....blah blah blah etc. But...that is patently untrue. That very same "We" did not extend those truths and rights to people who were not white. As somebody here has posted....yes, those not whites, were just savages and they did NOT enjoy those rights claimed by 'We' ~ i.e. whitey.

 

Keeping and bearing arms ownership is part of the means that uses the "freedom from fear" mandate. Article 3 of the UDHR provides that "Everyone has the right to life, liberty and the security of person." If I need arms to keep my right of security of person, and "freedom from fear" protection, then arms are simply Private Property and are covered by Article 17.

UDHR provides that "as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law". What happens when the practical means of defense, and more importantly the rule of law, breaks down? Does tyranny and oppression take over?

The UDHR doesn't say, it is just a pledge, and a very weak one. Unlike the UDHR, the Second Amendment does reinforce the rule of law and anti-tyranny structure of the US Constitution by ensuring the government cannot disarm the people. Too bad other governments won't/can't follow the Second Amendment. There are only three countries (used to be more) that have a constitutional right to keep and bear arms.