# RE:My view on Rights. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 14, 2004, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-my-view-on-rights/234231 "2004-03-14T14:21:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![netscape\_6](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/8c91f0/32.png) [@netscape\_6](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/netscape_6)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2004, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-my-view-on-rights/234231/1 "2004-03-14T14:21:14Z")
This is in response to a pit thread. The thread was pretty charged, and I think this would fall under a serperate issue. Although I admit it could be argued one has a barring on the other. The thread is at: [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=244504&page=1&pp=40](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=244504&page=1&pp=40) The relevent bits for context out of that thread are: > [@1920s Style Death Ray](#): > > ’ > > You can roll your eyes all you like but it doesn’t change the fact that it is seriously wrong (morally) to force someone to undertake a medical procedure. The circumstances are irrelevant. > [@netscape 6](#): > > I’m sorry but all morals are based on unprovable axioms. By definition all morals are opinions. That does not neccesarily mean you should’nt fight what you consider wrong. I think it’s wrong to claim your opinion is fact, and I am confronting you on this, for example. I am not disputing your post in any other way. I just have a pet peeve about people claiming there opinions to be fact. > [@1920s Style Death Ray](#): > > Coming back to the issue of morals. **Netscape 6** , are you an American and if so, how do you view your country’s “rights”? Are they merely a reflection of the majority opinion in the same way that morals are, or are they somehow more concrete? If so, why? > [@netscape 6](#): > > Yes I am an American. Ideally I feel rights should be a reflection of the desiers of the majority. I feel this because one of my strongest political beliefs is the goverment should be a servent of the governed. I also believe some rights need alot more consideration before tampering with them. The Bill of Rights on our Constitution is the best example. This has put me in the position of not liking guns all that much but being progun because of the Second Amendment. Some rights I consider more important then my own life. > > This is one of those things I think about alot. Usually When I’m driving. Now that history is known here is the post I am responding too and my response: > [@TeaElle](#): > > So it was correct and appropriate that blacks had no rights, then had only limited rights, and then had their “rights” exercised under official separation because it reflected the desires of the majority? > > It was correct and appropriate that women were effectively the property of their fathers, then their husbands, because it reflected the desires of the majority? > > It was correct and appropriate that mentally competent adults be denied the ability to marry one another based upon their races because it reflected the desires of the majority? > > It’s correct and appropriate that mentally competent adults continue to denied the ability to marry one another based upon their genders because it reflects the current desires of the majority? > > You’re an American. Take a look at the foundational documents of your nation. Rights do not come from the consent or will of the majority. Rights are endowed in each of us from birth as an extension of our humanity. Your “ideal” is nothing but an endorsement of the most oppressive and self-serving brand of tyranny. You want to know what I think? I agree there are rights men and women are born with. Problem is how do you define them? We’re not born with slips of paper saying what rights can’t justly be taken away. Super just unable to err rights defining while they wash your car cyborgs that join togather for the Power Rangers to fight evil in have not been invented yet. Just like hover cars I bet there always 20 years away. A human rights dictator is an obviose no no. A Roman style republic for defining inalianable rights might work but what would prevent them from declaring them selves better then everyone else and deserving of more rights? So I think that leaves us with either a democratic republic like we have or maybe a true democracy. Either way the majority has control whether direct or indirect. The Constitution contains the Bill of Rights. I think the Bill of Rights is a good start for a list of inalianable rights. I would rather die then live in a place where I don’t have those rights. I don’t think anybody should be denied those rights and many other rights. How ever think the Constitution is part of the goverment and therefore I feel it should be subject to governed (directly or indrectly) just like the rest of the goverment. And it is, by way of Amendments. Amendments are what has modified the Constitution to give the vote to people everyone over 18 and not just white males over 21. I think the original version of the Constitution was unjust as most of the governed had no say in the goverment. I would not call anything the goverment did until everyone could vote the will of the governed. Now to post this and notice all the typos I missed proof reading. ---
**Author:** ![TeaElle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8491ac/32.png) [@TeaElle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TeaElle)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2004, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-my-view-on-rights/234231/2 "2004-03-14T15:10:18Z")
That’s all fine and good, but you’ve failed to answer a single one of my questions. 😕 ---
**Author:** ![netscape\_6](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/8c91f0/32.png) [@netscape\_6](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/netscape_6)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2004, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-my-view-on-rights/234231/3 "2004-03-14T15:44:52Z")
> [@TeaElle](#): > > That’s all fine and good, but you’ve failed to answer a single one of my questions. 😕 I thought I did. Okay here we go. > [@](#): > > So it was correct and appropriate that blacks had no rights, then had only limited rights, and then had their “rights” exercised under official separation because it reflected the desires of the majority? > > It was correct and appropriate that women were effectively the property of their fathers, then their husbands, because it reflected the desires of the majority? No I don’t think either of those things was morally right. Both groups were denied cival rights including the right to vote. However since they had no say in the goverment that was not an example of of the goverment serving the governed. > [@](#): > > It was correct and appropriate that mentally competent adults be denied the ability to marry one another based upon their races because it reflected the desires of the majority? > > It’s correct and appropriate that mentally competent adults continue to denied the ability to marry one another based upon their genders because it reflects the current desires of the majority? Yes I think that is unfair. Please give me an example of goverment system where there would be no chance of that. You know what there is none. All forms of goverment are ultimatly ruled by humans. The cyborgs are always 20 years off you know. People always have the jerk potential. ---
**Author:** ![jymjim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/45deac/32.png) [@jymjim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jymjim)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2004, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-my-view-on-rights/234231/4 "2004-03-14T18:02:33Z")
> [@](#): > > No I don’t think either of those things was morally right. Both groups were denied cival rights including the right to vote. However since they had no say in the goverment that was not an example of of the goverment serving the governed. But surely the right to have a say in the government is also defined by the majority? Therefore, since it was not desired by the majority that women or blacks had those rights…they didn’t. That is what happens in majority rule, and its rather scary if you ask me, because it doesn’t take much for a majority to be influenced. ---
**Author:** ![rjciii](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ecae2f/32.png) [@rjciii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjciii)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2004, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-my-view-on-rights/234231/5 "2004-03-14T18:17:03Z")
> [@jymjim](#): > > That is what happens in majority rule, and its rather scary if you ask me, because it doesn’t take much for a majority to be influenced. Which is why Thomas Jefferson and many other founders took steps to try and protect the minority. > [@](#): > > Bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will, to be rightful, must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal laws must protect, and to violate would be oppression." --Thomas Jefferson: 1st Inaugural, 1801. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2004, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-my-view-on-rights/234231/6 "2004-03-14T18:51:50Z")
Thing is, if society gives rights, then implicit in the assertion is that those members of society who give have a right to give. Where did they get it from? Next thing you know, society will be posited to be eternal and derived from mystical Branes. ---
**Author:** ![netscape\_6](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/8c91f0/32.png) [@netscape\_6](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/netscape_6)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2004, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-my-view-on-rights/234231/7 "2004-03-15T00:22:26Z")
> [@jymjim](#): > > But surely the right to have a say in the government is also defined by the majority? I think any example of someone being subject to goverment they have no control over is evil. I should point the majority happened to be nonwhite and/or female and still is. A functional democracy is reflective of the society it governs. > [@jymjim](#): > > That is what happens in majority rule, and its rather scary if you ask me, because it doesn’t take much for a majority to be influenced. Scares the crap out of my too. Which is why we must always be vigilant and not complacent. Speake out when the goverment is wrong, and not be arfraid to stand up for our beliefs. Rule of the voters might be scary but the alternatives are far more terrifying. > [@Libertarian](#): > > Thing is, if society gives rights, then implicit in the assertion is that those members of society who give have a right to give. Where did they get it from? Next thing you know, society will be posited to be eternal and derived from mystical Branes. I don’t think society gives inalianble rights. You can’t give someone something they already owned. However I think rule of vote, whether direct or indirect, is the best mechonism for defining them. As I said before we’re not born with a slip of paper outlining our liberty. ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2004, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-my-view-on-rights/234231/8 "2004-03-15T01:58:29Z")
> [@netscape 6](#): > > I don’t think society gives inalianble rights. You can’t give someone something they already owned. However I think rule of vote, whether direct or indirect, is the best mechonism for defining them. As I said before we’re not born with a slip of paper outlining our liberty. The problem with this is that throughout most of human history, and including the present most human endeavors, we have consistently created privilege. Sure, our government is ostensibly a vehicle of egalitarianism in rights, but laws are not the whole of our interactions. Outside of government, we have a ton of little dictatorships called companies. We have classes based on skill and available wealth (which are not necessarily correlated). This is not to say that’s a bad thing, nor would this be the place to say so even if I felt that way, but it is to point out that rights demand more than definition, they demand practice, and it is hard to remove privilege–which is exactly what equal rights do. Remove privilege. Maybe we could explain it by suggesting that people like to be special. I don’t know. > [@](#): > > _From_: “Information Aggregation, Rationality, and the Condorcet Jury Theorem” > > The Condorcet Jury Theorem states that majorities are more likely than any single individual to select the “better” of two alternatives when there exists uncertainty about which of the two alternatives is in fact preferred. Most extant proofs of this theorem implicitly make the behavioral assumption that individuals vote “sincerely” in the collective decision making, a seemingly innocuous assumption, given that individuals are taken to possess a common preference for selecting the better alternative. However, in the model analyzed here we find that sincere behavior by all individuals is not reational even when individuals have such a common preference. In particular, sincere voting does not constitute a Nash equilibrium. **A satisfactory rational choice foundation for the claim that majorities invariably “do better” than individuals, therefore, has yet to be derived.** Now, that certainly says a mouthful, and the rest of the paper is even more terse. I won’t attempt to summarize it here other than to point out that it is hard to create a model where it is in all people’s best interest to vote sincerely, _or even where that is the desirable outcome_. This article is from 1996 so perhaps there have been advancements in the meantime. I don’t know. Don’t take this as the final word on the matter. And of course, just because it hasn’t been mathematically formalized doesn’t mean it isn’t the case–but it should cause us to be a little more skeptical until the formulation (or the reason why it can’t be formulated) is fully fleshed out. It does bring to mind some questions about majority rule, most of which have been debated time and time again. I think the best form of rule would be an enlightened republic, but for the corruption that easily occurs in it. Privilege is part and parcel of human existence, and equality of rights consistently acts against it. I think this is a very real tension that we have witnessed even under democracy with the oppression of various minorities. Once equal rights are granted, they are pretty hard to remove because no one wants to give them up. On the other hand, granting equal rights is sometimes difficult because it involves people giving up what they have–privilege. I think this is indicative of human interactions–we loathe to give up what we have if we aren’t required to do so, often to the point where we will go out of our way to make sure we aren’t required to do so. And it isn’t a matter of suggesting that the rights are always there, intrinsic to man, or that they may or may not be intrinsic but they certainly are prior to government–I think it is true, but it is hard to use this as a persuasive tool unless people already agree with you (in which case it can motivate them). Most people feel that the rights they have are not “granted” by the government, but any rights not currently in effect but which may be (gay marriage) would be granted and are not there intrinsically. It would then, in principle, be incumbent on those who sought egalitarianism to make the case why. But this is not historically how rights have been granted. They’ve been seized, as in the American revolution, or they’ve been fought for, as in the civil rights movement, or they’ve been pounded into our minds, as in universal suffrage. The reason why is fairly clear for those of us who feel rights are in some way prior to government: they cannot be justified inside a legal framework, they are part of the framework. I think I’ve managed to stray. I’ll close this post out now. Allow me to summarize my opinion here. First, majority rule is probably the best selective tool but it should not be the only one available. Second, rights per se are prior to government, though they needn’t be intrinsic. Third, the struggle of rights is the struggle against privilege, and when the majority is privileged this is a very difficult battle indeed, but that does not mean it is necessarily the duty of the minority to explain why they deserve the right, but for those in privilege to explain why they deserve to be privileged. Because that’s what inequality means: privileged, and unprivileged.