I’m so deeply sorry that this thread got hijacked into Libertopia – I’m interested in the people who may or may not have rights that are or are not secured by a government. Whether or not they have property, and what claim some government may or may not have on that property, is to me secondary to their selves, their persons, and whether or not they are allowed to be free.
We protect certain basic rights not because it’s A Good Thing, but because failing to do so is a Very Bad Thing ™.
Yes it does, because once you have declared that everything that is your right is completely dependent upon what the government gives you, anything becomes possible. Yes invoking Godwin was harsh, but in this case neccesary to expose where your line of thinking ultimately ends.
What rights belong to you are not soley dictated on what the government allows. That’s all I’m saying.
I didn’t claim that it was like the law of fucking gravity, did I? Yes these rights can be broken. But they shouldn’t be. It doesn’t have to actually be enforced to be something you are entitled to.
It doesn’t have to exist on some lofty theological plane for it to be innate. We all (or at least the vast majority of us) have an instinct of self preservation, and we all want to avoid torture. None of us want to be killed or tortured by our government. We all want the means to change things if they are wrong (freedom of speech, assembly, petition). Ergo, it is an innate principle that murder and torture are wrong, and we can petition the government for a redress of grievances, Q.E.D.
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Sorry, but your sarcasm is wasted. In order to be effectively sarcastic, you have to be making an actual point. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was posted in response to the question,
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So, you see, the UDHR is a perfectly correct answer – plus I get the bonus credit.
What’s this hang-up you’ve got about God? I never brought it up and for good reason. God is not necessary to formulate a coherent ethical system that includes the idea of innate human rights.
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Again with the God thing. This is starting to sound like a personal problem to me.
In any event, you are 100% wrong if all rights are simply a matter of government policy, there is no such things as human rights. If human rights are granted by governments rather than being innate, you have no moral basis whatsoever for criticizing how another country treats its citizens.
“In my country, we believe that blacks are inferior so we enslave them. The government has decided not to grant blacks the right to freedom.”
“But you can’t do that! It’s wrong!” "
“Oh really? Why?”
“Because slavery is A Really Bad Idea.”
“Why?”
“Because, well, we think a society is better without slavery!”
“We disagree, our country thinks slavery is A Really Good Idea. Now go away and mind your own business.”
Well, let’s see. the Universal Declaration of Human Rights passed by representatives of 58 countries from pretty much every region of the globe begins,
How’s that? If you’re so inclined, you might wish to spot-check constitutions from various countries around that world. Most of them contain some reference to “human rights” or “inalienable rights.” For example.
The Armenian constitution:
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The Russian constitution:
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Tom-ay-to, Tom-ah-to.
Cute, but you know full well the poster was asking for a source of metaphysical authority, not some modern-day formulation by a bunch of diplomats.
Plus, my word, are you really going to claim that all of these are innate human rights? Let’s look into a few of the choice tidbits from that UN document:
Soooooo…not just as a matter of policy, but as a fundamental, inalienable right I have the ability to require a country to provide me with social security, to force my employers to give me paid days off, to pay for my food, clothing, housing and medical care, and to comp me if I lose my job. Methinks you ought to rethink this UN thing as a solid enumeration of inalienable rights.**
Call it God, call it nature, call it existence independent of human thought, whatever. I don’t really give a shit about the label you apply. The point is you’re appealing to the metaphysical for your authority.**
The hell you can’t. I don’t have to appeal to the metaphysical to recognize that something violates my own sense of right and wrong, and I don’t need to make such an appeal to get others to agree with me. And if enough agree with me, we can force a change. **
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If you have a point to make, I’d suggest being more verbose.
Or is this just a case of “well, I don’t like THAT right, so it must not be natural”?
Not true at all. If one believes that rights come from the arbitrary will of the government, then when that law is changed, and granted “rights” are removed, then there’s no reason to fight such restriction of rights. After all, if government is the source and arbiter of rights, whatever “rights” they decide to change or remove is up to their discretion.
No matter how many times you make this argument, it still makes no more rational sense to me than (for instance) the divine right of kings.
Dr. Rieux wrote:
What other rights or property would you have if you were not alive? I submit that life is your most fundamental right without which all others are moot. And I submit that your life does not come from the Constitution.
Not at all true. The difference between this right and the other rights the US constitution guarantees are obvious.
First of all, the other rights (freedom of speech, right to a fair trial etc) are all concerned with, essentially, one’s person. They’re saying, “no-one can stop your body saying x,” or “nobody can lock up your body unless you get a trial to make sure it’s fair.”
The second amendment is different. It concerns itself with one’s right to own a particular piece of property, in this case, a firearm. It is a “right” dependent on technology, and it is very specific. The US government can restrict ownership of nearly anything else, but it cannot do so, (or to such an extent) for firearms.
I don’t feel I’ve adequately explained mysefl however. I’ll think about it, and work out how to better give you my feelings on this. In the mean time, hopefully you can gain some insight from what I’ve said.
Another way to look at it is to examine societies that have grossly abused human rights. Assuming the rights guaranteed in the US constitution to be human rights, we find Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, even contemporary China to be obvious offenders. However, continuing the assumption that the second amendment is a human right, we find Australia (and, while I don’t know the specific details, I suspect many European countries) to be an offender as well.
Now, my country is not perfect, but it does have more respect for humanity than the horrific regimes mentioned above. The second amendment is all about what you can own. There are other ones that more properly guarantee what a person should be guaranteed as a human being.
Do you see where I’m coming from?
Am I correct in remembering that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that the death penalty is a gross infringement of those rates? I think that’s the case. In which case the US itself infringes those “inalienable” rights. Not a good sign as to their inalienability, eh?
pan
I’m calling bullshit here. We fight for changes in the law all the time, even for things that everyone agrees aren’t fundamental rights.
Australia? 
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We can quibble about which particular rights are really “human rights.” But that’s a qualitatively different discussion than whether such a thing as innate rights exists in the first place.
You say that like it’s a bad thing. Or perhaps you’re using the word in a sort of loose angels-dancing-on-the-head-of-a-pin sense. There is a large, interesting and closely-reasoned literature on, to borrow a phrase, the “metaphysics of morals” – Rawls and Nozick are hardly new-age gurus.
Everything is politics, eh? Quite the little Marxist, aren’t we, Dewey?
Now we get down to it. The idea of innate human rights stands in direct opposition to the “might makes right” school of moral reasoning you espouse. Your “personal” sense of right and wrong is no more objectively valid than anyone else’s. Under your “philosophy,” you can never say that “X is bad” You can only say “I don’t like X.” You are essentially arguing that slavery is bad only because the South lost the American civil war or, Godwin bless us, that the holocaust was not intrinsically evil but merely bad social policy with which you personally disagree. Do you really believe that?
Well, no, it isn’t. The whole problem with a view of rights as innate is that under that view rights just exist, period, for no underlying logical reason. It makes the determination of “what is a right” a matter ultimately beyond the bounds of human reason.**
Review my posting history, particulary in GD, and then come back here and call me a Marxist with a straight face. :rolleyes:**
The problems with the “rights are innate” view is that it substitues human reason for an appeal to some mystical external authority. The ultimate reason inevitably given for treating any right as “innate” is “because I said so.”
In response to the OP. Amen, Amen and Amen.
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And this one says “The government can’t take away your tools of self defense.”
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Firearms are merely the most effective weapons for self defense. The intent is to protect that - self defense against criminals, invaders, or government. If we start using laser guns in the future, even though they aren’t “firearms”, they’d still be protected under the principles of the Second Amendment.
It’s not a matter of protecting a specific technology.
The Second Amendment is more about the right to self defense than the specific protection of certain types of technology. I see where you’re coming from, but I think you’re looking at this in the wrong way.
Had the Constitution been written without the invention of firearms, swords and spears would be protected. It’s a protection to keep a government from removing effective tools of self defense from the people - what those tools are isn’t the reason for it’s existance.
Ah, but a law against, say, speaking badly about the president, doesn’t infringe on your right to free speech. Because the government is the source of your rights, and if they decide that you no longer have such a right, you don’t anymore. It’s not merely being oppressed, but you simply don’t have it.
Right?
A law preventing me from speaking ill of the president would infringe on my free speech rights in this country because such a law runs afoul of the first amendment.
Absent the first amendment (and similar provisions in state constitutions), it would not infringe on anything. It would, however, be A Really Bad Idea ™. Allowing open criticisms of government officials helps ensure that flaws in government policy will be exposed and corrected. This is why the first amendment is so critical to the American constitutional scheme.
See? I can defend free speech rights without referring to some mythical thing existing out in the ether.
** It seems that you are unfamiliar with the literature in this area.
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But I completely disagree! Speaking badly about the president is a very harmful thing. It is disrespectful, unfairly undermines the people’s faith in goverment and is unproductive. In my country, attacking the intelligence of our Dear Leader is considered to be a very serious crime and is punishable by death.
We also severely restrict many other forms of speech because we find them disruptive to societal harmony. For example, expressing any form of disrespect for the One True Religion is a slap in the face to all right-thinking folk and only someone maliciously bent on splitting society into rival factions would do such a thing. Consequently, in order to promote a harmonious and orderly society, our government has a law requiring every citizen adhere to and practice the state religion on pain of death.
I know some of you in other countries have different views on these topics. However, the government here has sufficient backing to impose these rules on society so I guess it’s OK.
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Well, you know Dewey, a lot of people only realize they’re Marxist later in life. Sometimes, they even register Republican and start businesses before they are forced to admit to themselves that the free market lifestyle just isn’t for them! Some people even try to lead a double life. During the week, they’ll act the role of, say, a corporate lawyer or CEO but on the weekends, they’ll lounge around in natural fibers reading The New Republic. I’ve heard of extreme cases where people with country club memberships have traveled to towns where nobody knows them in order to attend anti-globalization rallies!