Political definitions of rights in the US

[sleestak]

I've read threads about 'rights' and heard a bunch of political people vent about things like 'Americans have the right to affordable health care'.

When I read these type of threads it seems to me that no one has a has defined the term 'rights' in a clear way. I looked up the definition of rights at www.dictionary.com.

Here it is:

1.Conforming with or conformable to justice, law, or morality: do the right thing and confess.
2.In accordance with fact, reason, or truth; correct: the right answer.
3.Fitting, proper, or appropriate: It is not right to leave the party without saying goodbye.
4.Most favorable, desirable, or convenient: the right time to act.
5.In or into a satisfactory state or condition: put things right.
6.In good mental or physical health or order.

My definition of rights is a little bit different. Rights are the actions available to individuals that do not harm or affect other individuals directly. For example, a person has the right to say "I hate this group of people" and that is acceptable. At the same time if the person said "Bring a lot of wood so we can BURN down this persons house and I'll light it." that is not acceptable.

What drives me nuts is when I hear Pols, like Gore, say that "Americans have the right to affordable health care". My first question is who is going to give the health care. What if the Doc doesn't want to give the health care unless he or she is paid? Is Gore going to force the Doc to give the care? If so, isn't that a violation of the Doctors rights?

I believe that all people have a right to act for their own self interest. I do not believe that people have a right to other peoples work.

Discuss.

Slee

[Max Harvey]

Originally posted by sleestak
My definition of rights is a little bit different. Rights are the actions available to individuals that do not harm or affect other individuals directly.

I think this is too vague. Fred Phelps and his followers have the right to protest publicly against homosexuals, and I don't think anyone can argue those protests don't "directly harm or affect" gays and lesbians.

Also, your definition doesn't consider "passive" rights, e.g. the right to not be tortured while in government custody, or the rights of children to not be abused by their parents. There are rights that only require simple existence, and not necessarily conscious actions on the part of the individual.

As far as your health care example, hospitals in the U.S. are required to give emergency treatment to anyone with imminently fatal injuries such as a gunshot wound, even when the victim is not able to pay. Presumably the government reimburses hospitals in these cases. Do you believe this is wrong? If not, isn't it accurate to say that a person has a right to affordable (or even free) health care at least in cases of life or death?

[Liberal]

In case there might be some interest, the libertarian view is that rights are an attribute of property, and that rights accrue to ownership. In many cases, this view results in interpretations that differ from other views.

For example, there is no abstract "right to free speech". Here at Straight Dope, that means that we are not exercising any right of ours by posting here; rather, the site owners, as holders of all rights with respect to the site, have extended us the privilege of posting.

Another example is flag burning. It is not a matter of speech, but of ownership. If it is a flag that you own, you are free to burn it. If it is a flag that I own, you are not.

In this view, "public property" obfuscates the notion of rights. Who is the owner? The people? And yet, I am a people and I cannot build a house in a public park. The fact is that so-called public property is owned by whoever has the most political clout. It is they who claim ownership by calling the shots with respect to the property.

I realize that this is not a popular view here, and I long ago gave up attempting to convince anyone otherwise. I simply offer it here so that your political definitions of rights might not be abridged.

[clairobscur]

Originally posted by Libertarian
In case there might be some interest, the libertarian view is that rights are an attribute of property, and that rights accrue to ownership.


That's actually the main issue. I see no reason why property should be the basis of every other rights. If people only owned things they made themselves from raw materials, one could indeed argue that depriving people from their property amounts to slavery, but it's essentially never the case in our modern world. If you weren't backed by an organized society you would own, at best, some furs and a couple of flint tools. Essentially everything people own is the result of a very complex process, in a highly organized society, and following many arbitrary rules. Taking two very basic examples, inheritance and the private ownership of land are totally arbitrary customs.


I think that "rights" are a mix of pragmatism and arbitrary customs, and that there's no way one could logically derive them from some absolute and indisputable basic premice (in your case "property"). Except perhaps the rule of the strongest, but this is hardly accepted by anybody, nowadays.


I won't debate the OP for now, since it has been done to death, and there was a thread on this exact issue last week, IIRC.

[Liberal]

Well that's arbitrary. I don't know why you equate ownership with "made from scratch". If I labor for wages, the wages are mine. And if I exchange those wages for property, then the property is mine.