So have the people of many of the states.
And yet we execute people for their crimes left and right. So it seems those inherent rights can be decided by man after all.
No, my thinking is in line with America. Because I want a list of strong and codified rights written into the backbone of our culture.
You evidently would do well in Somalia. Since these rights of yours are magic.
We are clearly much wealthier and more powerful than all other countries. Is that a result of some sort of inherent exceptionalism in the way we do things or is it merely some quirk of history?
No, you seem perfectly willing to live in a society that could very well decide that you cannot live past 40…as long as it is codified! Any law the government passes can be undone just as quickly. Yours is the thinking of tyranny.
Yeah. That really sucked. So?
How would the universe be any different if you didn’t have an inherent right to life? It would look exactly the same, right? So what possible reason can you have for stating that this right is built into the fabric of reality?
Sure, I want to live and prosper. But any man holding a rock can stop that from happening. It’s only our innate social animal instincts, and society, that softens individuals and provides punishment for going over the line that keeps that from happening.
Natural rights don’t exist. You haven’t justified them and you haven’t shown how the universe would be different if they didn’t exist.
Show me the complete list of natural rights and how you know that it’s complete.
Not at all. I’d fight to change them. Like I fight for the right of gays to marry. Like the previous generations fought for the right of interracial couples to marry.
If America had the Logan’s Run hand crystals, I’d fight to overturn the rule or try to leave.
I’m surprised that dictatorships exist at all, since you have this list of magical rights that apply to all cultures.
What are the complete list of natural rights? What happens if you violate them? Where did you find this list? How would the universe be different if they didn’t exist?
Do you have a quote fro the actual debate that sparked this discussion?
Do you want to talk about this in terms of what the Gingrich Who Stole Christmas had to say, or just US Exceptionalism in general? If the former you really need that quote. If the latter, then that’s cool.
What are we the best in? I’d say we are the best in being an extremely large and successful nation, and keeping some sort of coherent and democratic government going for over 200 years. That’s tough to do when you have a population counted in the hundreds of millions and spanning a continent, don’t you think? Are we ‘the best’ at that? Yeah…I’d say that we are at least in the running for bestest at that.
Yeah…all that nasty exploitation stuff. And making crass lucre…to be sure. Nasty capitalism stuff. Yucko. While I wouldn’t say we are ‘the best’ at this, we are probably the best at doing it on the kinds of scales we are talking about in a nation so large. Doesn’t seem to be buttering your bisquit though, us being good at this aspect. Of course, the reason we ARE such a wealthy country (‘Da bestest’ wrt wealthiest nation on earf) is because we are good at that nasty stuff, so it’s sort of a toss up.
But to say that this is the sole thing that we are good at is, well, sort of silly…don’t you think? You really can’t think of anything that the US as a nation is good at except ‘exploitation of resources’? Not even giving it more than 10 seconds of thought?
Well, it’s not really an either/or type answer. You are both wrong, IMHO. 
-XT
I don’t have any interest in debating the existence of natural rights with you. But you seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of natural rights. Do you think the term “natural rights” implies that God is going to enforce them? You must since you are surprised that dictatorships exist.
I realize that natural rights and morality are slippery concepts for those who do not believe in God and I’m always amazed at how people will twist themselves into a pretzel trying to explain why something like murder is wrong without invoking anything objective or absolute. Even if, as you believe, there is no such thing as natural rights, society is far better off believing there is. The only alternative is the wisdom of your fellow man which, inevitably, leads down the road to tyranny.
I wouldn’t want to debate for it either, since there is no evidence for natural rights and they have no effect on the universe.
If natural rights aren’t enforced, how can you say they exist? There is a natural right to blowjobs. There is a natural right to iPod Nanos. How was the list of natural rights uncovered?
It is a meaningless argument to suggest that natural rights exist, but have zero impact on reality. By that standard, there is an invisible and intangible zombie right behind you. He can’t do anything, and is impossible to detect, but he’s there!
Well, God leads to quite a bit of tyranny Himself. We don’t like murder because we’re social animals gifted with empathy. That said, we’ve decided that some killing is okay with us. But some is not. Societies that restrict murder work better. So it has become the standard.
Pretending that there is a magical anti-murder dictate written into space-time that has zero effect is like arguing for the invisible zombie. I don’t see the reason we should pretend they’re there, just because the notion tickles one.
Any country that doesn’t have the death penalty, does allow gay marriage and isn’t currently occupying a foreign nation is superior to the US.
The natural rights laid out in the DOI are axioms…
So, if the Constitution was amended (properly by 2/3s of each house of Congress and 3/4ths of the state legislatures) mandating lethal injection for all people with brown eyes at age 10, then that would be acceptable since the process was followed?
Or is there an even higher power at work (be that whatever) that says that there is something fundamentally wrong with such an amendment, the wishes of the people be damned?
No, because people wouldn’t like that. The power of the government is ultimately generated by people. I can’t imagine that it would ever be passed, and if it were there would be outrage and rioting.
No higher power. Why would it need one? We’re social animals that don’t like being killed. We have empathy for our social group. Why does the insertion of *magic *explain this any better?
Again, these so-called natural laws, do nothing at all. They explain nothing, they have no ability to modify the universe. They are invisible, intangible and produce no effect. For what possible reason can they be said to exist?
You say that as a truism, but it was one of the natural rights stated by Jefferson in the DOI. Why is this so self-evident?
Surely the Saudi people didn’t vote for their King and Cubans don’t have a say in whether the Castros stay in power.
The only possible way that natural rights exist is if humans were to invent them. In that case they would have no chance of being uniform or natural but instead a misnamed marketing idea.
In my view smoking drugs and premarital sex are rights of mine. I understand that the American social contract I live in has disagreed at times. Herb and sex seem to be more natural than other rights I can think of. But I don’t think for a moment these are natural rights.
So, all rights are derived from authority (social contract, king, state, even parents)
Because governments are made of people. If you get an order to exterminate brown-eyed people, it’s humans that have to make that happen.
Do you think the Saudis weren’t nervous during the Arab spring?
Not enough people disagree strongly enough with the Saudi government for it to be overthrown. Now weapons and power allow a dictator to hold people indefinitely, but I assume that currently our technology isn’t yet unbeatable. Maybe in a few years we’ll have combat robots or other technologies that make it functionally impossible to get out from under the thumb of a dictator. I assume in that case, the government’s power wouldn’t be from the people, it would be from awesome combat robots.
In any case, the government is made up of people and the leaders are people. So to assume that it isn’t people who aren’t the ones who are dictating what rights the governments provide doesn’t seem justified.
Where are the natural rights of the Cubans? What possible difference would there be in the universe if those natural rights didn’t exist?
Whether or not something is acceptable to a given person has nothing to do with whether or not it infringes on a right.
If three quarters of the legislatures and both houses ratified it, apparently it would be acceptable.
The founders thought it was acceptable to own black people. Indeed, many of them thought that was a right granted by their creator.
Thus, we come back to the proposition that rights are an entirely societal construct, and are not inherent.
Person: According to some book written in the Bronze Age. So now we’re basing it on the hearsay of long-dead superstitious people. Until I hear it from God, my point stands, and yours is no more valid than mine.
Didn’t divine right due out centuries ago? Certainly the countries who proclaimed it in less enlightened times no longer believe it. This thread is making me believe that America is the last holdout of medieval concepts in the modern western world.
God didn’t grant Henry VIII a divine right to rule and more than he granted Americans special rights. Rights are what humans agree amongst themselves. No magic man in the sky granted them.
A magic man in the sky dating back 14 billion years said Americans had a divine right to pack a six-shooter? Nonsense. Americans have that right because they agreed amongst themselves that it would be a right. Plenty of perfectly free countries are crammed with people who don’t see that as a right - and don’t want it. But they have the right to drink alcohol at the age of 18.
There is no standard system if rights other than the right for a people to decide what they want to allow and what they don’t. As long as power is invested in the people, what the hell difference does it make what those people decide to grant themselves or not? THAT is their right. Freedom to collectively make those decisions.