'You have no rights but that which I allow you to enjoy’ - every statist authoritarian ever.
'You have no rights but that which is explicitly written in the Constitution (and don’t even think about bringing up the [DEL][COLOR=“Black”]9th Amendment[/DEL][/COLOR] inkblot).’ - every statist authoritarian that’s ever bitched about “activist courts” ever (see esp. Roe v. Wade, Flag Burning, Gay Marriage, et Al.).
CMC fnord!
The conservative manifesto claims the weak, the poor and the dull as the natural prey of the powerful, the rich and the clever. It should come as no surprise that conservatives cry out, “Tyranny!” when government comes between them and their quarry.
Here’s a fantastic article about the blatant partisanship & creeping illegitimacy behind the Court’s decision to hear King in the first place, when, for all intents & purposes, there was no reason (yet) for it to do so.
That’s a remarkable inept summation.
Say boo. But disliking something, or wanting something doesn’t make it a right. A right is something that is enforced. Otherwise it’s not really anything at all.
NK citizens have few if any rights. And well-thinking folk should want to head-shot KJU and save those people from being shat upon by their government. That doesn’t mean that NK citizens have a right to free speech, since no one, or nothing protects them when they speak freely.
You appear to share with Bone the idea that something that you want is a right. That’s horseshit. Rights are what we, as a culture, agree to extend each other.
Not “I”, but the culture that protects them.
You living in a shack in the woods, under no jurisdiction of man, may claim the right to life. But it means nothing if some guy can come over and kill you and take your stuff without any penalty put upon him.
In the jungle, where is your right to life? Who enforces it? What effect does it have? How is the universe we live in any different at all from a universe without natural rights?
Any answers? All I seem to be getting is blanket assertions and deflections. Please answer some questions, bring some evidence.
How do you explain that both you (based on your post “Of course you shouldn’t kill and torture other people.”) and I think killing people is a bad idea?
We’re both members of a species of cooperative primates. We’re both members of a culture that views killing innocent people as wrong. We’re both savvy enough to understand the concept of enlightened self interest.
Most humans don’t kill others needlessly. This is because the tribes we lived in wouldn’t last long if that were the norm. It’s not some law writ on the cosmos that makes this so, it’s impulses coded in our DNA, and the slow creep of society into being a more gentle and compassionate one.
Now mind you, I’m all for some binding agreement of universal rights that’s enforceable. But until we can punish NK for treating its citizens worse than dogs, I don’t think it’s reasonable to say they have rights in any meaningful sense.
So basically, you do believe in the concept of natural rights, but you’ll be damned if you’ll call it natural rights. Sort of like Limbaugh saying the Democrat party.
No, I believe in evolution, game theory and empathy.
Presumably a natural right would exist without those things.
Leaving aside the fact you seem to be saying that career Army NCOs aren’t smart, you are definitely assuming they are all competent. Which is not true any more than it is of any one in any other career. And the fact that someone is a competent NCO, of any of the services, does not mean they would be competent at running a government.
We could use people that are competent at running governments. Unfortunately, what our system chooses for is people that are competent at running for office. The 2 skill sets do not overlap very often from the looks of it.
We could get overlapping skills if we went back to a time when elected officials were held accountable by voters when the government failed to do its job well. Now we get excuses that the government is too big to be managed by elected officials and so it’s not their fault when things go wrong.
Even if that was true, it means we’ve basically given up on democracy. We’re just electing figureheads, with the real power lying with career bureaucrats.
On the bright side, Open Enrollment 2 began today & HC.Gov worked swimmingly the whole time. I guess the near-death experience from last year was sobering enough for the administration that they got their ducks in a row ahead of time this year.
Yes, it’s gone very well. Color me impressed. The President just may have had his best week of his Presidency in terms of a lot of things going right. Maybe his last two years will be his best.
They just used to whole damn country for beta-testing. And why not? Worked for Windows 95.
It’d be nice if something could be done for the people in the states that have a Medicaid “Republigap© Blackhole” where they make too much money to qualify for Medicaid and not enough for ACA.
Win an election and pass appropriate laws. This time, laws that don’t get you booted out the very next election.
States have an especially easy solution: they can elect Democrats who will expand Medicaid. So, which states that didn’t expand Medicaid will be doing it after the 2014 election? By my count, one.
The people have spoken.
So why won’t the Republicans do it, please explain? :dubious:
I think you are the first to offer up that particular sanctimonious bloviation. The rest were too embarrassed, I guess. Stick around, they’ll speak again.
Hopefully more than 36.4% of them will speak.