Do Natural Rights Exist Without Government ?

[The Rabbi]

We haven't gone anywhere, we have always been talking about free will. I made that argument really early in the thread, and it was dismissed by you, and others.

Yes because free will no more equals rights than an elephant equals a mouse.

Poop.

About the level of discourse this has come to. I think it's time the adults left the room.

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

What do you see infringing as? What is the difference between a right infringed upon and a right that doesn't exist?

What's the difference between being taxed on wages and not being paid at all?

What's the difference between a cheeseburger and a toilet bowl?
Why don't you answer the question instead of making stupid comparisons?

Now, I know you're not going to answer me, but. . . .

Rabbi, the point that Quantum is making is profound, one that ultimately goes to the difference between reckoning innate rights to be absolute or subject to revision.

The Sixteenth Amendment, for example, is an abomination. As I have said before, the Constitution is not perfect and should have contained a clause enumerating a handful of things that it could never be amended to allow. By the way, such a motion was discussed at the constitutional convention, and one of the things that a number a the delegates wanted at the top of that list was the prohibition of ever allowing the federal government to directly tax income. If only I had a time machine. I'd got back and show them the headlines regarding our out-of-control entitlement state and our $17-trillion national debt.

Mere freedoms are negotiable.

Inalienable rights are not.

Hence, the inherent contradiction of dblack's assertion in which he reckons innate rights to be inalienable, yet not sacrosanct at the same time.

Inalienable, sacrosanct, absolute, inviolable: these terms all carry the same meaning! If innate rights are not sacrosanct, they are negotiable and inevitably subject to the arbitrary whims of the collective. They're subject to being reduced to mere civil rights or voted out of existence altogether via a democratic majority.

When Jefferson said inalienable, he meant inalienable, sacrosanct, absolute, inviolable. Period. End of discussion. The Framers, who wisely understood, like Locke and Sidney before them, that human nature was inherently corrupt, did not erect a democracy, but a democratic republic of explicitly limited powers relative to the paramount concerns of the inalienable rights of man, which are, by the way, directly related to the construct of individual liberty in terms of the prerogatives of free-association and private property!

You are mistaken. Individual liberty is the heart and soul of the Anglo-American tradition of natural law.

The Declaration of Independence is the annotated version of Locke's Two Treatises of Civil Government and Sidney's Discourses Concerning Government. No Hobbes or Rousseau there.

Of course, you assert no discernible absolutes at all in this regard, which makes your position, as far as upholding liberty goes, even more tenuous: an arbitrary, fuzzy-wuzzy arrangement between the supposed social constructs of human culture and the political rights afforded by civil government.

Your Hamiltonian conservatism is showing. You might want to zip that up.

 

[dblack]

Yes because free will no more equals rights than an elephant equals a mouse.

Poop.

About the level of discourse this has come to. I think it's time the adults left the room.

Heh.... I guess that means there's no hope you're leaving, eh?

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

Yes because free will no more equals rights than an elephant equals a mouse.

Poop.

About the level of discourse this has come to. I think it's time the adults left the room.

Well, that wouldn't be you given the fit you threw after the "babbling nonsense" episode . . . and making a report. You do recall the first time this issue came up between you and me when I first came to this board. You blindsighted me in the same way and then ran, as you have here. Anytime you want to engage the tough arguments, just click on my statists from this thread.

 

[dblack]

Hence, the inherent contradiction of dblack's assertion in which he reckons innate rights to be inalienable, yet not sacrosanct at the same time.

Inalienable, sacrosanct, absolute, inviolable: these terms all carry the same meaning!

Nope.

 

[emilynghiem]

So we've gone from "rights" to "freedom" to "free will"?
Plenty of people have been enslaved and/or persecuted in history. If they had rights that wouldn't be possible in any long term sense.

We haven't gone anywhere, we have always been talking about free will. I made that argument really early in the thread, and it was dismissed by you, and others.

Yes because free will no more equals rights than an elephant equals a mouse.

Yes, correct I agree.
Freedom and Rights are different.

The same natural laws that describe the balance in human relations
between freedom and peace to maintain justice,
include BOTH principles of freedoms and rights to describe these relations.

Of course they are not the same.
But they are both concepts within the same set of rules or patterns
governing human behavior that we are trying to discuss.

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

Our rights are inalienable in that they manifest as a consequence of our humanity; they are innate, neither taken nor bestowed by any government, constitution, or man.

That a given government elects to ignore the innate nature of one’s rights does not mitigate the fact that inalienable rights do indeed exist.

And while our rights exist absent government, whether recognized by the state or not, government is nonetheless necessary to provide a structure in which rights might be protected and expressed.

This, then, illustrates the genius of the American Constitutional Republic, far superior to democracy or any other form of government, as the Republic’s citizens’ civil liberties are acknowledge and codified by the Constitution, and subject only to the rule of law.

Nonsense, all of it.
Rights are obviously alienable. People are deprived of rights all the time. Rights do not exist absent government.
Did you read any part of this thread?

LOL! Your obtuseness knows no bounds. Whether you think innate rights actually exist or not, whether you believe there actually exists any rights that are inalienable or not, Jones' summary of the founding sociopolitical philosophy of our nation and the subsequent formulations of our constitutional Republic relative to the Lockean construct of natural law and the inalienable rights thereof are academically and empirically demonstrable facts of historical reality! Typically, the only boneheads who deny this are leftists.

When you wrote, "Nonsense, all of it", did you really mean all of it or just the part about the actuality of inalienable rights in and of themselves? That was a bit careless of you. Yes? Might we expect a clarification from you for the sake of historical accuracy?

Has he read any part of this thread, you ask. Have you?

You've been utterly routed on every point, and you are decidedly in the minority here.

On the other hand, given the frequency of Jones' reckless handling of case law and the fact that he doesn't universally extend the principles of the Republic to orthodox Jews and Christians (public accommodation claptrap in the face of homofascism, for example) or comprehensively grasp these principles beyond this purely academic rendition of them: the fact that I am compelled to agree with him for once is really quite astonishing.

*Shudder*

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

We haven't gone anywhere, we have always been talking about free will. I made that argument really early in the thread, and it was dismissed by you, and others.

Yes because free will no more equals rights than an elephant equals a mouse.

Yes, correct I agree.
Freedom and Rights are different.

The same natural laws that describe the balance in human relations
between freedom and peace to maintain justice,
include BOTH principles of freedoms and rights to describe these relations.

Of course they are not the same.
But they are both concepts within the same set of rules or patterns
governing human behavior that we are trying to discuss.

Indeed. You're correct, and Rabbi gets this much right, of course. But it's all academic for him because he refuses to engage the themes and principles of real natural law from its actual premises.

Further clarification for those who still may not see it.

Free will is merely an inherent fact of sentient life. It falls under the header of innate freedoms, not innate rights, let alone inalienable rights. It is the impetuous of exercising rights, or it can be the impetuous of excising tyranny. Volition. Choice. Obviously, while one may will to take another's life, liberty or property sans any provocation, one cannot do so legitimately. Free will and rights are categorically different things, though, as you rightfully point out, they both reside within the same realm of things.

What's funny about that is that Rabbi correctly apprehends the difference, yet he absurdly pooh-poohs the essence of their connection with regard to the incontrovertible fact that the mutual obligations of morality is a central and indispensable theme in natural law. Again, it's the same error of confounding his personal beliefs with the academic, empirically demonstrable facts concerning the historical content of the Anglo-American tradition of natural law.

Rabbi habitually argues against things he doesn't perfectly understand or accurately portray. Bad faith.

It's not right. It's not decent. It's cheating.

 

[Listening]

Good Grief...

You guys fill up pages in a hurry !!!

I can't follow this the way I would like and I am the OP. I've tried to scan as much as I can and I am seeing some very interesting discussion.

Thanks for the efforts from all of you.

 

[Listening]

You know... I was glib with you earlier, but this really is very frustrating, because it's not even a real debate. It's just a confusion, a category error. The 'inalienable rights' that Jefferson references are an entirely different sort of thing than the concept most people are referring to here when they discuss 'rights'. Most people, Rabbi and the rest who insist rights are state creations, are thinking of rights as those freedoms we designate for protection - and that protection certainly isn't 'inalienable'. As soon as there isn't a government around to provide the protection, it goes away. But the freedom itself is simply a by product of free will.

The key thing about the inalienable rights is that no one needs to do anything for you to have them - all they need to do is leave you alone. That's what makes them different than nonsense like the 'right to health care' or other imagined rights that require others to serve you. Again, inalienable doesn't mean 'sacrosanct' or 'off-limits' - it just means 'innate', essentially something that is an extrapolation of the ability to think for yourself.

I understand your frustration as it seems most disagreement is generally at the level of "definitions". Your comments above have helped me to better narrow what you are referencing. I can see an extension of that thought spilling over into what many others are pointing at.

The problem is that even within the libertarian/conservative camp such differences exist.

As an example, the "right" to the pursuit of happiness is something I find difficult to envision as being inalienable.

On the one hand I think of Steven Covey's description of Victor Frankle's experience in the death camps. Frankle found he could chose to not be pulled down by his experiences. In Covey's words Frankle had more liberty while he did not have freedom. So, in a sense he had that inalienable right to pursue happiness within his circumstances.

However, that is really a stretch to me. He was still in a frigging Nazi death camp.

dblack asserts there are some kind of rights that people have, even while they are being deprived of them. That runs into what I claimed earlier: that no one can distinguish any difference between rights that are denied and rights that don't exist.

It is pretty clear to me that this is where some concrete examples would be meaningful. I understand your point of view and tend to index that way myself. However, I also understand the other side to an extent. The only question in my mind is if it is worth worrying about the differences.

As I said earlier, if we believe rights come from God, then our accountability is one thing. If we believe they come from the government, then it is something else.

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

Hence, the inherent contradiction of dblack's assertion in which he reckons innate rights to be inalienable, yet not sacrosanct at the same time.

Inalienable, sacrosanct, absolute, inviolable: these terms all carry the same meaning!

Nope.

But, dblack, like I said, it's the difference between mobocracy, er, democracy and republicanism. You're confounding the innate freedoms that are limited with the inalienable rights that are promoted within the confines of a legitimate social contract under the state of civil government. This does not mean that conflicts won't arise, for example, like the existential threats to inalienable rights posed by ObamaCare.

Ultimately, it's the imposition of innate freedoms of some in the name of civil rights that is the ever-present threat to the inalienable rights of others.

Now say, yes, because you know I'm right; after all, how can something be inalienable, as you concede, and not be sacrosanct at the same time? Come on! That's manifestly contradictory, and the only reason you uttered that, I suspect, is because you conceded something to Rabbi that you never should have conceded to him in the first place.

 

[TemplarKormac]

Well, natural rights cannot be guaranteed by government. That's one thing. It is a person's responsibility to ensure their own natural rights.

"The United States Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself."

-Benjamin Franklin

 

[GreenBean]

There is no such thing as a natural right.

http://www.usmessageboard.com/clean-debate-zone/239966-listening-to-paul-ryan.html
http://www.usmessageboard.com/clean-debate-zone/239966-listening-to-paul-ryan-2.html#post5796207
http://www.usmessageboard.com/clean-debate-zone/239966-listening-to-paul-ryan-4.html#post5799892
http://www.usmessageboard.com/clean-debate-zone/239966-listening-to-paul-ryan-5.html#post5805092
http://www.usmessageboard.com/clean-debate-zone/239966-listening-to-paul-ryan-7.html#post5806946
http://www.usmessageboard.com/clean-debate-zone/239966-listening-to-paul-ryan-8.html#post5814461
http://www.usmessageboard.com/clean-debate-zone/239966-listening-to-paul-ryan-8.html#post5818474
http://www.usmessageboard.com/clean-debate-zone/239966-listening-to-paul-ryan-8.html#post5824790
http://www.usmessageboard.com/clean-debate-zone/239966-listening-to-paul-ryan-8.html#post5950608
http://www.usmessageboard.com/clean-debate-zone/239966-listening-to-paul-ryan-9.html#post5977824
http://www.usmessageboard.com/clean-debate-zone/239966-listening-to-paul-ryan-9.html#post5997532

Then you should have no problem addressing the actual arguments in this thread instead of trying to prove you are smart by linking to another thread.

Windbag - I've read your posts in the past, you're not the sharpest tool in the shed, but you're certainly not as dumb as your performance on this thread would have people believe - either explain your point more eloquently or just give it up .

 

[Katzndogz]

That old thing? Srsly?

Anyway... would y'all love to hear Jefferson's take on all this? I suspect he'd have quite the belly laugh.

It would be a fascinating conversation to be sure. First question for me - however uncomfortable, would have to be - Dude, slavery? WTF???

Yea, I don't know how an enlightened or supposedly enlightened being who is attempting to dictate the human condition to society doesn't make a

HUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGGGGE KABOOOOOOM STINK

about slavery.

It's a fascinating question (sorry 'bout the off-topic). But I visited Moniticello a couple of years ago, and couldn't quite get it out of mind. How someone who did so much to advance the ideas that would eventually kill the practice of slavery, actively indulged it.

I suppose there's context and social norms etc... Maybe 200 years from now, eating animals will be outlawed and those of us eating meat now will be viewed, historically, as barbaric. Certainly some of the arguments for the vegetarian diet make sense, even if I can't bring myself to commit to them. Maybe that's where Jefferson and his kin were at the time.

The industrial revolution hadn't happened yet. Slavery was an established institution and had been for thousands of years. Even someone opposed to slavery couldn't find something to replace it. Slavery couldn't end until the concept of using slaves for menial labor ended.

 

[gnarlylove]

dblacks position that inalienable rights exist has no framework. He has no noncircular justification for them. Do you reference God, dblack?

They sound good in order to protect private property and individual desire but they are purely subjective opinions (that happen to be held by an overwhelming majority so it fools you into universality). The fact that you pick and choose what rights people have demonstrates you're not using reason, rather you are rationalizing your massively hackneyed ideology that emphasizes private everything. So naturally you think rights sound good when they free one up to do nothing, having nill responsibility. That's why you think "rights to life" (e.g. right to health care) makes no sense....because they are "freedoms to something" (like the right to exist) rather than "freedoms from something." You think you can pick and choose. But without one, you cannot have the other. Life is the need for food, health care etc. Without those a person is not existing in society but is treated as an animal. Natural rights are about civility, society and yet you refuse to ideologically grant certain rights because you think life does not entail the right to life (the right to food etc.).

Sadly your massive head trauma sustained months back has left you incapable of carrying a conversation deeply rooted in reality. You prefer fantasy and ideology over reality and refuse to believe anything can contradict your highly deficient worldview. No one can work with such a hackneyed trial-version philosopher where you expire beyond your programmed set of beliefs and shut down upon fundamental demurs. Nothing personal, just describing your behavior as I've seen it.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

So we've gone from "rights" to "freedom" to "free will"?
Plenty of people have been enslaved and/or persecuted in history. If they had rights that wouldn't be possible in any long term sense.

We haven't gone anywhere, we have always been talking about free will. I made that argument really early in the thread, and it was dismissed by you, and others.

Yes because free will no more equals rights than an elephant equals a mouse.

Nevertheless, you were wrong, the debate has always centered around free will.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

There is no such thing as a natural right.

http://www.usmessageboard.com/clean-debate-zone/239966-listening-to-paul-ryan.html
http://www.usmessageboard.com/clean-debate-zone/239966-listening-to-paul-ryan-2.html#post5796207
http://www.usmessageboard.com/clean-debate-zone/239966-listening-to-paul-ryan-4.html#post5799892
http://www.usmessageboard.com/clean-debate-zone/239966-listening-to-paul-ryan-5.html#post5805092
http://www.usmessageboard.com/clean-debate-zone/239966-listening-to-paul-ryan-7.html#post5806946
http://www.usmessageboard.com/clean-debate-zone/239966-listening-to-paul-ryan-8.html#post5814461
http://www.usmessageboard.com/clean-debate-zone/239966-listening-to-paul-ryan-8.html#post5818474
http://www.usmessageboard.com/clean-debate-zone/239966-listening-to-paul-ryan-8.html#post5824790
http://www.usmessageboard.com/clean-debate-zone/239966-listening-to-paul-ryan-8.html#post5950608
http://www.usmessageboard.com/clean-debate-zone/239966-listening-to-paul-ryan-9.html#post5977824
http://www.usmessageboard.com/clean-debate-zone/239966-listening-to-paul-ryan-9.html#post5997532

Then you should have no problem addressing the actual arguments in this thread instead of trying to prove you are smart by linking to another thread.

Windbag - I've read your posts in the past, you're not the sharpest tool in the shed, but you're certainly not as dumb as your performance on this thread would have people believe - either explain your point more eloquently or just give it up .

Your argument might make more sense if you actually addressed my replies to your posts rather than throwing out an insult when I challenge another poster to actually back up his claims. On the other hand, doing it this way does relieve you of the requirement of actually thinking.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Yea, I don't know how an enlightened or supposedly enlightened being who is attempting to dictate the human condition to society doesn't make a

HUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGGGGE KABOOOOOOM STINK

about slavery.

It's a fascinating question (sorry 'bout the off-topic). But I visited Moniticello a couple of years ago, and couldn't quite get it out of mind. How someone who did so much to advance the ideas that would eventually kill the practice of slavery, actively indulged it.

I suppose there's context and social norms etc... Maybe 200 years from now, eating animals will be outlawed and those of us eating meat now will be viewed, historically, as barbaric. Certainly some of the arguments for the vegetarian diet make sense, even if I can't bring myself to commit to them. Maybe that's where Jefferson and his kin were at the time.

The industrial revolution hadn't happened yet. Slavery was an established institution and had been for thousands of years. Even someone opposed to slavery couldn't find something to replace it. Slavery couldn't end until the concept of using slaves for menial labor ended.

Slavery has never been economically feasible.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

dblacks position that inalienable rights exist has no framework. He has no noncircular justification for them. Do you reference God, dblack?

The framework is that they come from nature. Unless you are tryng to insist that God is nature there is no real need to bring Him into the discussion.

They sound good in order to protect private property and individual desire but they are purely subjective opinions (that happen to be held by an overwhelming majority so it fools you into universality). The fact that you pick and choose what rights people have demonstrates you're not using reason, rather you are rationalizing your massively hackneyed ideology that emphasizes private everything. So naturally you think rights sound good when they free one up to do nothing, having nill responsibility. That's why you think "rights to life" (e.g. right to health care) makes no sense....because they are "freedoms to something" (like the right to exist) rather than "freedoms from something." You think you can pick and choose. But without one, you cannot have the other. Life is the need for food, health care etc. Without those a person is not existing in society but is treated as an animal. Natural rights are about civility, society and yet you refuse to ideologically grant certain rights because you think life does not entail the right to life (the right to food etc.).

N one is picking and choosing anything. We are arguing that rights are innate, not granted by government. In order to make that argument we have to be able to demonstrate that the rights we are referring to actually exist in nature or that they are natural extensions of things that exist in nature. Hence, the right to free speech, but not the right to vote.

Sadly your massive head trauma sustained months back has left you incapable of carrying a conversation deeply rooted in reality. You prefer fantasy and ideology over reality and refuse to believe anything can contradict your highly deficient worldview. No one can work with such a hackneyed trial-version philosopher where you expire beyond your programmed set of beliefs and shut down upon fundamental demurs. Nothing personal, just describing your behavior as I've seen it.

Which explains why you resort to insults instead of actually dealing with the logical fallacies in your own position.

 

[gnarlylove]

So you're saying these rights exist naturally, in nature? So is physics or biology going to eventually discover them? When you say they are innate, are they hard wired code of ethics? Or when you say innate do you mean they exist independent of subjects, that they are objective notions that transcend time and space? If you mean the latter, you are invoking a god figure.

And don't pretend you have any room to evaluate insults as a logical fallacy. Last month you had no concept of how to respectfully reply. I see that has changed but don't act like you have any credibility as a person concerned with cold hard logic when you become hostile at a moments notice.