There are no human rights, we made that shit up. Like Tinkerbell, they only exist so long as we believe they exist, and only to the extent that we believe. “We hold these truths to be self-evident” is a glorious cop out, an admission that we can’t prove it, and so what?
So, yes, Virginia, human rights exist. You too, North Carolina.
Mostly true. There’s a qualification however. It’s easy to imagine a hypothetical President who continually sees the law purely in terms of an inconvenience, something he hires people to circumvent so that he can get what he wants.
This isn’t especially likely. Those with ties to a major party are likely to be concerned about down ballot losses. Ideologues care about what happens if the opposing party took over and exercised such powers: recall that Nixon believed that he was doing only what others did as well. Most politicians are fairly gregarious and care about what others think about them. All of our Presidents have always held some sort of previous elective office. Many of them have been lawyers. So what’s going to motivate our hypothetical President? Attention? Petulance? C’mon.
But back to my hypothetical. A demagogue could very well see some gain in testing institutions by acting extra-legally following a gun massacre. Especially if terrorism was involved. It would depend upon public opinion. Eventually the demagogue would presumably face impeachment. But that could take time, and would require members of his own party standing up to him and suffering losses in the upcoming election. If the extra-judicial actions involved arresting people for selling guns to those on the terror watch list, impeachment might prove tricky.
When 51% of the people favor something, it’s an interest. When 95% of the people favor something, it’s a right. The only real difference is the level of popularity.
We’ve watched gay interests become gay rights, including the legal right to marry. It’s vaguely possible that the pendulum would swing back again, and gays could be deprived of their rights again. It’s possible that gun rights (or gun interests) would erode as popular opinion shifts.
The President isn’t the one who leads this. It’s we, the people. If enough of us get sick enough of gun violence, the pendulum can start to sway.
Consensus is also a consideration. If 100% of those in power have no public objections, it’s a universal right. I did not say 100.0%.
People used to think that belief in a god was a universal. You can still find polls which say that fewer people would support an atheist for President than any other group. What if I believe that atheism is the most basic of universal rights, because it needs the most protection in the most countries?
That’s why the concept of universal rights is a chimera. You can talk about the beast but you can never pin it down.
I get as nervous when people say there are obvious universal rights as when they say that no new rights can be created. Rights are a consensus concept. We create new rights all the time, just as we throw out old ones. They are specific to time and place, as well. That’s messy enough so that some people will always be caught in the middle. By definition they are not sufficiently numerous to matter.
If a hypothetical President took guns with the backing of 95% of the people, then it’s not gun grabbing. It’s a right. And impeachment could never follow because it’s defined out in that scenario. That’s why hypotheticals are worthless with regard to rights. You have to toss in so many “ifs” that you lose any connection between here and there.
Buh, wuh, you just did:
Universal rights are not created all the time though. If you want an over-expansive list, see the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
While it was being drafted during WWII, the creators wondered whether their task was even possible given the planet’s wide variety of cultures. But in practice this didn’t turn out to be much of an issue. Now awkwardly a lot of economic rights got tacked on. So the document isn’t perfect.
For example the concept of free speech is truly a universal right. We know this because the commies weren’t willing to stand up and say that right isn’t universal. They may have not respected such rights in their country, but they weren’t willing to condemn the concept. This is in contrast to the right to bear arms or rights regarding LGBT. Those aren’t universal. There are world leaders willing to speak out against them.
The interpretation of the right to free speech is another matter though. There is always the matter of adjudicating between conflicting rights. Just because a right is universal, doesn’t mean it automatically trumps a non-universal, locally respected right. But general concepts always have challenges in their application. Few textbooks fit on a single page.
Also, human rights can be derived from first principles: the beast can be rigorously pinned down. Rawls did it. Whether it can be persuasively pinned down is a separate matter. But that just shows the difficulty of arriving at universal truths with purely theoretical tools outside of pure logic or its offshoot mathematics. Nothing new there either.
Separately the concept of rights is well grounded using empirical tools, or so I argued above.
Huh? I certainly didn’t.
Of course it’s polite. It was written by a Canadian.
Universal rights, unlike chimera, exist. They exist as a legal matter, as an empirical/sociological matter, and as a matter of pure logic.
But not all at the same time. The so-called universal rights that are propped up by each line of argument differ in some ways. While most might nod at Rawls’ support for various constitutional rights, when he introduces the Difference Principle using similar logic, most will also balk. Presenting rights as a particular restatement of ordinary moral claims backed by wide consensus strips the conventional view of much of its emotive power. A similar sapping of vitality occurs during discussions of the law: it’s hardly inspiring to say that a right can be discovered or established by forming a coalition of 5 out of 9.
Still. They exist.
The easiest rebuttal to anyone who imagines there are universal moral rights is to sit him in a room with several pro-choicers and several pro-lifers.
They won’t agree on fetus rights, abortion rights, or rights for women to control their bodies. So those aren’t universal rights. They might agree on free speech rights, in a general sense. I argue those are universal.
In other words, the set of universal rights do not provide a comprehensive moral or legal system. Shifting definitions, the universal rights derived by Rawls are endorsed by a minuscule electoral minority.
I’m sorry I don’t have your technical vocabulary. I want to accuse you of acute anti-presentism, but that isn’t the right word, assuming it even exists.
In short, five hundred years ago moral philosophers would have laughed at the notion that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights were actual rights to be enjoyed by the earth’s population as a whole. Five hundred years from now, they undoubtedly will seem equally unfounded.
They may be a nice summary of a strain of modern political thought. That is not the same thing as universal. You might as well say that they were bestowed by our Creator and go on to assume that:
(Found that on Breitbart.)
I spend an unfortunate amount of time reading science fiction that explains what’s happening to the characters in terminology that is exactly magic written with words taken from science and technology. (Research. I can’t read that for pleasure any more.) Analogously, I don’t see how what you are saying differs in essence from what the guy at Breitbart is saying.
Rights are not innate, and not universal. They are current and consensus. For many of them I hope that consensus is widespread and longlasting. That’s all that anyone can say.
Rights can be innate. Rights can be universal. Rights can be temporary. Rights can be based on consensus. They can be all of these.
Because rights are not a monolithic block. Rights can be innate but unrecognized. Rights can be recognized but unenforced. Rights can be universal but limited.
The problem with saying rights are not innate is that it leads to arguments about who gets what rights. By saying rights are innate, we mean everyone gets them. No picking and choosing which favored groups get them and which disfavored groups do not. Rights are not granted by a state or king, they are a part of being human.
The problem with saying rights are not based on consensus is that unprotected rights have little utility. By saying rights are from consensus, we mean we can’t depend on having our rights enforced and protected without constant vigilance. We have to work to keep them and in a democracy that means convincing our fellows.
Oh look - there he goes again:
Sure, Donald. Let’s see what your fans do, now that you’ve spent the last few months inciting them to violence toward your opponent.
See also:
The minute you articulate a second right, you set into motion a scenario where the second could potentially conflict with the first. Once you’ve enumerated a plethora of rights, the potential for conflict grows exponentially.
Bottom line, in a democratic society all rights are balanced. I think the right of individuals to own arsenals has to be balanced against the rights of folks to have neighborhoods that don’t sound like dawn of the third day at Gettysburg.
Trump claims he has a NYC permit to carry a gun and claims he has done so.
Given the near impossibility for the average New Yorker to obtain such a thing, has he done anything to work towards a less restrictive system or is he content to have something no one else can have?
I honestly shudder at the thought of a closely fought election that comes down to a few hundred or few thousand votes in two or three states like New Hampshire, Nevada, or Pennsylvania. The right wing is creating a dynamic that, once set into motion, cannot be pulled back without a clash of violent revolution and counter-revolution. I would say that perhaps we could rely on institutions like federal authorities and the military, but what happens if these institutions become politicized? The right wing in this country is basically threatening to replace the rule of law and order with rule by men – and that is some damn scary stuff. I don’t think anyone in this country is prepared for what truly could happen.
Is that a rhetorical question? 
It’s like Drunk Uncle is running for president. I’m almost ashamed to travel abroad until this is all over!
Well, we’re all depending on you to man the barricades for us. Keep up the good work!
I’m not depending on anybody for that, John, I’m gonna be there. I’ll save you a spot and a pitchfork.
I was always taught that gun permits are for responsible people only; people who take it seriously and don’t “play around”.
A NYC permit is very hard to get I hear.
A NYC carry permit, by extension, is so Extremely hard to get that it would seem that person who is bestowed one had better be a both extremely responsible and a pillar of virtue.
Its my Personal belief that making reckless and loud public analogies which dangerously allude to inciting the assassination of a political candidate, might mean that something has changed with the fitness of that NYC Carry Permit Holder.
Perhaps someone exhibiting such “changes” might need to be re-evaluated for fitness to hold such power of Death over Life on the street in NYC?
Then again, I’m not The Mayor of NYC.
Q: I wonder what he might think of all this?