# What are our Rights? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 6, 2017, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-our-rights/776465 "2017-01-06T17:47:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2017, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-our-rights/776465/101 "2017-01-22T18:07:26Z")
> [@Latro](#): > > They are outdated in the sense that these people, from the period of enlightenment, still tried to make it out as if someone or something higher gave the these rights they came up with. > > I’m _not_ saying individual rights are outdated, just that they are ‘nice to haves’ for a comfortable and just society to live in. They exist by grace of this society not by a god or some natural law. Under this theory, the governments of Pol Pot or Hitler were not objectively better or worse than the modern United States or Great Britain. If there is no higher law and merely the “grace of …society” then we cannot look down our noses at Rwanda just because they make different choices than us. If your state attempted to legalize child rape, would you view that as simply one choice that you disagree with, or would you rightfully be indignant and call it an evil. IOW, if there is no higher law, there is no meaning to anything and we should all rape, kill, pillage, and steal if we can get away with it for our own personal betterment because we only have so long before we die. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2017, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-our-rights/776465/102 "2017-01-22T20:30:20Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > Yes, but not because they aren’t human, but rather instead because they can’t indicate a desire or interest in participating on those processes. If that somehow changed, and they could, they would have the right to do so. (re antelope and spruce trees having rights) I mostly agree, although I would require more than desire or interest in participating, but also the ability to make a promise that was meaningful. The ability to swear an oath, or sign a contract. However, yes, definitely, if some process of “uplift” produced abstract intelligence, rights should automatically follow. Same for AI computers and robots. (Which is scary, given that some factory could mass-produce voters. Talk about your “political machine!”) ETA: The web-comic “Freefall” has been dealing with that issue! ---
**Author:** ![HumbleThinker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/5daacb/32.png) [@HumbleThinker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HumbleThinker)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2017, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-our-rights/776465/103 "2017-01-23T15:32:28Z")
> [@HumbleThinker](#): > > We hear about all the rights this or that group has or this or that person has, so what rights do you all think exist? Of course this will also dovetail into what everyone thinks the definition of “rights” is. > > The obvious seem to be everyone’s right to their life and safety, their property, and their right to act however they wish without infringing others’ rights. > > I have been looking into Locke’s idea of a “right of sustenance,” which as far as I can tell is the right for all people to have a way to meet their basic needs available to him and the freedom to act to sustain themselves. > > Does everything think that we have these rights? Do you think there are other rights? Was gonna make a new thread, but felt that my question was too close to this one, so I’ll just post a follow-up question here. What “rights,” however you define it, are worth protesting for? Which are worth violently protesting for? Starting on the one extreme, I think we would agree that a supposed right to be given a luxury car would not be worth protesting over, much less violently. On the other extreme, being enslaved and having that slavery promoted or sanctioned by the government would definitely be worth violently protesting over if there ever was something worth violently protesting over. But what about everything in the middle such as adequate health care, equal, non-lethal treatment by authorities, discrimination by private or public entities, social assistance for escaping entrenched poverty, etc.? ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2017, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-our-rights/776465/104 "2017-01-23T21:08:35Z")
Freedom of, and from, religion is worth fighting for, violently if necessary. (Europe has a long history of religious wars. Let’s not start doing that here!) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-our-rights/776465.md?page=5)