Do Natural Rights Exist Without Government ?

[M.D. Rawlings]

what's with the imperative BS ? Is this Star Trek ?

We are free to do whatever we like.

Never said we weren't. But violate the imperatives, i.e., cross the constraints of Ought, and watch what happens. You shall have to fight, flee or submit. There's your freedom.

Next?

LOL I never said we were free from dealing with the natural consequences of being alive.

So why are you laughing? Among other things pertinent to natural law and innate rights, that's what the imperatives are, namely, the consequences.

Dude.

As everyone can see, you doubted or questioned.

I answered.

You now concede the fact of them . . . yet you laugh.

I don't know where you come from, but where I come from the laughter would be all about you.

Look, I find this game of got ya to be a little boorish, but make no mistake about, you tangle with me, and you'll be the one got every time.

 

[dilloduck]

Never said we weren't. But violate the imperatives, i.e., cross the constraints of Ought, and watch what happens. You shall have to fight, flee or submit. There's your freedom.

Next?

LOL I never said we were free from dealing with the natural consequences of being alive.

So why are you laughing? Among other things pertinent to natural law and innate rights, that's what the imperatives are, namely, the consequences.

Dude.

As everyone can see, you doubted or questioned.

I answered.

You now concede the fact of them . . . yet you laugh.

I don't know where you come from, but where I come from the laughter would be all about you.

Look, I find this game of got ya to be a little boorish, but make no mistake about, you tangle with me, and you'll be the one got every time.

Why don't you just very plainly tell us what the natural imperative is and how it came to be. ? I'd like to hear one innate right that we have too if I could please.

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

Why the modifier 'legitimate'? Who decides that? You?

Tracing the evolution of the human species will show that social structures developed from the natural rights. The lone wolf is a viable, all be it inefficient, social structure. These human structures became more complex over time, eventually evolving into things called civilized societies, but the quid pro quo was always the same. The governing social structure protected the individual rights in exchange for a degree of co-operation.

Are you denying that evolution ever occured?

Because you inserted the qualifier that "[g]overnment was invented to protect existing individual natural rights". Hitler or Stalin certainly wouldn't have agreed with that. I don't believe that Hitler's or Stalin's concept of government is legitimate or congruent with the form of government that would affect the protection of "existing individual natural rights". Do you?

As for the rest of your post, shifting to the pertinent dichotomic terms thereof, you're still confounding a similar ontological distinction: the difference between mechanism and agency.

Actually, that was not a qualifier. It was a statement, backed by millennia of evolutionary change. Your assertion of a dichotomy of ontological distinction would benefit if you could provide an example. There was no conflation at all. I have provided the 'lone wolf' example as being before the 'we are all a team' example. The agency came later. You get the next 'at bat'.

Actually, it occurred to me the other night that what I said in regard to your alleged qualifier is all wrong. I agree with you. Bad M.D.! Wrong term. To be fair, I left it for you to smash. Good eye. Brain fart on my part. Had you not smashed it, I would have brought it to your attention in this post and acknowledge the error anyway.

Sorry for the delay. As you might note, I'm smashing egregiously systemic error in the above.

However, the intended criticism is still valid: you said that government was invented to do such and such, but the only sense in which that's universally true goes to the fundamentals of human existence and consciousness, precisely the things that refute your assertion and substantiate mine. (See my response to Sallow in the above: http://www.usmessageboard.com/showthread.php?p=8888817#post8888817 )

All I'm saying is that there is a difference between agency (sentience/cause), and mechanism (means/process). Sentience is the agent that creates government; it cannot be the other way around. Nature precedes politically organized society.

Sallow's claim is so obviously wrong at a glance, the refutation of it is redundant.

Hence, your observation concerning the mechanism of evolution is to no avail.

I'm not sure what's going on here. . . .

Your contention is that the "lone wolf" (agent, right?) precedes "we are all a team" (the formal bonds of civil government, right?). It appears that we agree, but then you write: "[t]he agency [agent or "lone wolf"?] came later.

To be fair to you, it appears you weren't clear on what I meant by agency/agent.

No biggy.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

you pompous ass....he thought restrictions against using words was silly and inconsistent....I dont think he said "right" in that context,....... he also thought all the whining about rights was too.

at about the 4.00 minute mark he talks about "rights"
George Carlin -Rights and Privileges - YouTube

You do know that I was pointing out his inconsistent position, don't you? He actually went to jail over that 7 words routine because it violated local laws, not just the FCC regulations. He also took the fight about the words all the way to the Supreme Court.
Like I said, interesting.

no i didnt get that from your post,.......just read some about it on wikipedia and I dont think it was him that took it all the way to the supreme court.

He maybe was being a bit inconsistent, but I think hes mainly pointing to idea that rights are dependent on governments and I would like to think he agrees with Jefferson in what he says in the picture I posted previously.

You are free to believe whatever you want, just don't expect the world to change simply because you believe something that isn't true.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

The ability to do something does not equal the right to do something. Ability and right are not synonyms. That's not how logic works. "I can murder my mom. You cannot stop me from murdering my mom. Therefore I have the right to murder my mom" is just one glaring example of why this doesn't work.


Same thing. Ability = right is all you're positing. that's a leap of logic. Unless of course the WORD right has a new definition as created by q.w.b. --> Right = anything you have the ability to do.

Sorry, that's not what right means.

You asked for a logical proof of my position. I delivered one. If you think my premises are wrong, feel free to provide something other than your assertion that they are wrong to back up your claim.

Wait, that would actually require you to debate the issues, which is work, whereas you prefer to declare yourself the winner by acclamation, which isn't.



Except that it is. In fact logic is defined by the ability to reach a conclusion that is supported by two, or more, premises that may, or may not, be true.

But, please, keep pretending you understand logic.



What, exactly, is logical backing? I only ask because, outside of your head, I never heard of it.



How does it not?

The neat thing about logical premises is that the rules of logic require you to assume they are true. Funny how a guy that claims that I don't have a logical backing, whatever that is, for my conclusions doesn't understand that simple rule.

By the way, the above is one reason why I prefer to make arguments based on things other than logic.



No, that is what you are posting. I never once said anything even remotely like that.

I will, however, admit that your conclusion is completely logical, which is another reason I rarely use logic in arguments.

Funny how the guy that insisted on seeing logic suddenly discovers that he doesn't actually like logic, isn't it?

And I'll correct you on how GT's logic works, let the man show you how it's done:

GT says that:

Natural rights are not proven
He is seeking logical proof
none has been provided

I gave you logical proof, and your brain failed to process it because it doesn't understand the terms you are using.

Establishing What the Inalienable Rights of Man Are

(I started to post this the other day, but realized that the rationale might not be readily accessible to those who do not have my background in the history of law. The post directly underneath this one drives the facts home: http://www.usmessageboard.com/clean...-exist-without-government-57.html#post8888602 . I've been busy with other things and haven't had the time to complete the standard apology for natural law.)

Please carefully consider the following. I know what I'm talking about.

Quantum, I really wish you hadn't made the Ability = Rights argument. While inalienable natural rights would necessarily be things that are at the very least embedded in nature, not afforded by government: abilities, even those as seemingly fundamental as the ability to think and speak, are not synonymous to rights. G.T. is right. No matter how you configure your syllogism or express its respective constituents, you're not going to make that work. The expressions of any given innate ability must be related to/weighted against their effects on others.

I did not say that ability is equal to rights, I argued that ability is evidence of rights.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Wow---still talking about something that doesn't exist except in the fairy tales that men tell themselves ?

Wow, still waiting for a single example of any government granting people a natural right.

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

I'll try again. This whole thread is just stupid equivocation. Civil rights, those freedoms protected by government, are indeed "invented", in the sense that they are designated by the state. But the inalienable freedoms, those we are empowered to exercise as an innate property of volition and consciousness, exist whether they are protected or not. It's just a matter of how you're defining "rights".

False, dblack, on all counts. Sophomoric gibberish.

Natural rights go to the imperatives of the human condition.

Did I say anything about "natural" rights?

Further, your talk about civil rights is that of the unlearned laymen.

Yes, if I was "learned" I'd have access to asinine insults for rhetoric, rather than rational argument.

But it's okay for you to make fallacious arguments and tout falsehoods as if they were objective facts--making it up as you go along. Jefferson? The Declaration of Independence? Ring a bell?

No. You didn't learn any of the stuff your spouting from the actual history of natural law, and you've never read or thought much beyond the basics of political science 101. You have no idea how evident that is to one of my learning.

For example, take your conflation of freedoms and rights (also, freedoms vs. liberties, innate freedoms vs. innate rights, or in the formal terms of civil government as opposed to those of the state of nature, civil rights vs. civil liberties). But what is most telling is the fact that you apparently think that just because the terms civil rights and civil liberties are often or commonly used interchangeably, they necessarily and comprehensively denote the same thing.

False.

Two things are going here that you know nothing about.

One, it is in fact the agenda of the left to expunge the term civil liberties from the lexicon of political science in academia and has been for decades, as the term denotes the inalienable natural rights of man as translated from the state of nature into the respective designations of civil government, namely, with regard to the Constitution of the Republic, The Bill of Rights, dblack, against which Congress shall make no law.

Hello!

These things go to the construct of individual liberty, hated by the left who favor the living Constitution of a systematically subverted notion of the Bill of Rights that would accommodate the construct of a collectivist democracy.

Currently, in case law, due to decisions handed down by leftist Courts, the federal government reckons certain crimes, including murder, in terms of civil rights violations depending on the circumstances, when, ultimately, what is really being violated in terms of natural law is more at violations of civil liberties.

Hello!

Two, when the convention is not being intentionally abused, the context tells us what kind of rights are actually being considered relative to this distinction, though more often than not in those instances the classical liberal will make the distinction emphatic, using the terms civil rights or civil liberties respectively.

Digging a little deeper, the distinction goes to that between positive rights and negative rights.

But you don't have to take my word for any of this.

Civil liberties - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Civil and political rights - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Difference between Civil Rights and Civil Liberties

https://journals.law.stanford.edu/s...sjcrcl/online/civil-rights-vs-civil-liberties

What Is the Difference Between Civil Rights and Civil Liberties?

Negative and positive rights - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

But you won't be taught, will you? And apparently you're not going to stop pretending that your personal musings regarding matters that are subject to empirical falsification are objective facts . . . when in fact they're not.

That's insulting the intelligence of everyone here and pissing on the truth.

I don't know why you're complaining, I gave you several warnings.

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

LOL I never said we were free from dealing with the natural consequences of being alive.

So why are you laughing? Among other things pertinent to natural law and innate rights, that's what the imperatives are, namely, the consequences.

Dude.

As everyone can see, you doubted or questioned.

I answered.

You now concede the fact of them . . . yet you laugh.

I don't know where you come from, but where I come from the laughter would be all about you.

Look, I find this game of got ya to be a little boorish, but make no mistake about, you tangle with me, and you'll be the one got every time.

Why don't you just very plainly tell us what the natural imperative is and how it came to be. ? I'd like to hear one innate right that we have too if I could please.

Did read the exegetical posts I put up today, starting here: http://www.usmessageboard.com/clean...tural-rights-exist-without-government-56.html

Also: http://www.usmessageboard.com/clean...-exist-without-government-19.html#post8868367


They are directly derived from nature. They are ultimately derived from God.

 

[dblack]

False, dblack, on all counts. Sophomoric gibberish.

Natural rights go to the imperatives of the human condition.

Did I say anything about "natural" rights?

Further, your talk about civil rights is that of the unlearned laymen.

Yes, if I was "learned" I'd have access to asinine insults for rhetoric, rather than rational argument.

But it's okay for you to make fallacious arguments and tout falsehoods as if they were objective facts--making it up as you go along. Jefferson? The Declaration of Independence? Ring a bell?

No. You didn't learn any of the stuff your spouting from the actual history of natural law, and you've never read or thought much beyond the basics of political science 101. You have no idea how evident that is to one of my learning.

For example, take your conflation of freedoms and rights (also, freedoms vs. liberties, innate freedoms vs. innate rights, or in the formal terms of civil government as opposed to those of the state of nature, civil rights vs. civil liberties). But what is most telling is the fact that you apparently think that just because the terms civil rights and civil liberties are often or commonly used interchangeably, they necessarily and comprehensively denote the same thing.

False.

Two things are going here that you know nothing about.

One, it is in fact the agenda of the left to expunge the term civil liberties from the lexicon of political science in academia and has been for decades, as the term denotes the inalienable natural rights of man as translated from the state of nature into the respective designations of civil government, namely, with regard to the Constitution of the Republic, The Bill of Rights, dblack, against which Congress shall make no law.

Hello!

These things go to the construct of individual liberty, hated by the left who favor the living Constitution of a systematically subverted notion of the Bill of Rights that would accommodate the construct of a collectivist democracy.

Currently, in case law, due to decisions handed down by leftist Courts, the federal government reckons certain crimes, including murder, in terms of civil rights violations depending on the circumstances, when, ultimately, what is really being violated in terms of natural law is more at violations of civil liberties.

Hello!

Two, when the convention is not being intentionally abused, the context tells us what kind of rights are actually being considered relative to this distinction, though more often than not in those instances the classical liberal will make the distinction emphatic, using the terms civil rights or civil liberties respectively.

Digging a little deeper, the distinction goes to that between positive rights and negative rights.

But you don't have to take my word for any of this.

Civil liberties - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Civil and political rights - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Difference between Civil Rights and Civil Liberties

https://journals.law.stanford.edu/s...sjcrcl/online/civil-rights-vs-civil-liberties

What Is the Difference Between Civil Rights and Civil Liberties?

Negative and positive rights - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

But you won't be taught, will you? And apparently you're not going to stop pretending that your personal musings regarding matters that are subject to empirical falsification are objective facts . . . when in fact they're not.

That's insulting the intelligence of everyone here and pissing on the truth.

I don't know why you're complaining, I gave you several warnings.

Hell, me neither. It's not like you're making any sense. Just equivocating on definitions like almost everybody else in the thread, and then strutting around like Foghorn Leghorn taking a "victory lap". It's a shame too, because it's a pretty interesting topic.

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

You asked for a logical proof of my position. I delivered one. If you think my premises are wrong, feel free to provide something other than your assertion that they are wrong to back up your claim.

Wait, that would actually require you to debate the issues, which is work, whereas you prefer to declare yourself the winner by acclamation, which isn't.



Except that it is. In fact logic is defined by the ability to reach a conclusion that is supported by two, or more, premises that may, or may not, be true.

But, please, keep pretending you understand logic.



What, exactly, is logical backing? I only ask because, outside of your head, I never heard of it.



How does it not?

The neat thing about logical premises is that the rules of logic require you to assume they are true. Funny how a guy that claims that I don't have a logical backing, whatever that is, for my conclusions doesn't understand that simple rule.

By the way, the above is one reason why I prefer to make arguments based on things other than logic.



No, that is what you are posting. I never once said anything even remotely like that.

I will, however, admit that your conclusion is completely logical, which is another reason I rarely use logic in arguments.

Funny how the guy that insisted on seeing logic suddenly discovers that he doesn't actually like logic, isn't it?



I gave you logical proof, and your brain failed to process it because it doesn't understand the terms you are using.

Establishing What the Inalienable Rights of Man Are

(I started to post this the other day, but realized that the rationale might not be readily accessible to those who do not have my background in the history of law. The post directly underneath this one drives the facts home: http://www.usmessageboard.com/clean...-exist-without-government-57.html#post8888602 . I've been busy with other things and haven't had the time to complete the standard apology for natural law.)

Please carefully consider the following. I know what I'm talking about.

Quantum, I really wish you hadn't made the Ability = Rights argument. While inalienable natural rights would necessarily be things that are at the very least embedded in nature, not afforded by government: abilities, even those as seemingly fundamental as the ability to think and speak, are not synonymous to rights. G.T. is right. No matter how you configure your syllogism or express its respective constituents, you're not going to make that work. The expressions of any given innate ability must be related to/weighted against their effects on others.

I did not say that ability is equal to rights, I argued that ability is evidence of rights.

Well, okay, it appeared that you were arguing both. I will go back tomorrow and reread your posts and will withdraw the first charge should that be the case. What I mean to say, Quantum, as I'm not questioning your integrity, is that sometimes folks might mean one thing but express in a way that is confusing.

If the fault is mine I will happily take the blame, for indeed, they are not synonymous as you say here.

However, ability is not the evidence of rights either, and that should never be asserted as a cardinal rule of natural law. That contention also implies something untoward.

Ability is an inherent trait in all things, human and nonhuman, living and nonliving in terms of rational, behavioral and chemical properties. Ability is the fallacious principle argue by animal rights activists on both counts: equal to and evidence of.

Just a tip. Otherwise, your innate brilliance is quite evident to me. I meant no disrespect.

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

Gentlemen:

Things like ability and free will, on the very face of them, are clearly not synonymous with rights of any kind.

Quantum, has clarified his position here; he apparently does not equate the two.

On the other hand, G.T. et. al., hey, listen up, if, as you say, things like ability or free will are not synonymous to or evidence of rights, and right you are, then how do you figure that knocking down these straw men lays even so much as a finger on the actuality of inalienable natural rights?

*crickets chirping*

But more to the point, what causes you to apprehend these fallacies of predication, if, as you say, no rights exist in any concrete sense prior to the abstractions of social constructs or the political rights afforded by government?

*crickets chirping*

And regarding the last question, yeah, I know, you're thinking, "What in the hell is he talking about?"

Make no mistake about it, that question wouldn't have mystified Hammurabi, Moses, Aristotle, Christ, Paul, Cicero, Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin, Sidney, Burk, Locke and others; or for that matter, it wouldn't have mystified Copernicus, Kepler, Bacon or Newton, all of whom were theologians, as well as great scientists, who grappled with the natural sociopolitical ramifications of divine law.

And it doesn't mystify me because I've read the history of law, and have been thinking and writing about the matter for nearly three decades. I know the nuts and bolts of natural law and the real arguments for the same, those that utterly destroy the post-modern, pseudo-intellectual claptrap of relativism, which is all the likes of Rabbi and G.T. et. al. are spouting as if they were smarter than the absolutists listed in the above or smarter than the Founders who for the most part certainly did believe that the imperatives of natural law were absolute and that the existence of inalienable natural rights was self-evident, and rightly so.

But, by all means, go on playing with straw men, if you must, as if you were doing something more than mental masturbation.

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

Did I say anything about "natural" rights?


Yes, if I was "learned" I'd have access to asinine insults for rhetoric, rather than rational argument.

But it's okay for you to make fallacious arguments and tout falsehoods as if they were objective facts--making it up as you go along. Jefferson? The Declaration of Independence? Ring a bell?

No. You didn't learn any of the stuff your spouting from the actual history of natural law, and you've never read or thought much beyond the basics of political science 101. You have no idea how evident that is to one of my learning.

For example, take your conflation of freedoms and rights (also, freedoms vs. liberties, innate freedoms vs. innate rights, or in the formal terms of civil government as opposed to those of the state of nature, civil rights vs. civil liberties). But what is most telling is the fact that you apparently think that just because the terms civil rights and civil liberties are often or commonly used interchangeably, they necessarily and comprehensively denote the same thing.

False.

Two things are going here that you know nothing about.

One, it is in fact the agenda of the left to expunge the term civil liberties from the lexicon of political science in academia and has been for decades, as the term denotes the inalienable natural rights of man as translated from the state of nature into the respective designations of civil government, namely, with regard to the Constitution of the Republic, The Bill of Rights, dblack, against which Congress shall make no law.

Hello!

These things go to the construct of individual liberty, hated by the left who favor the living Constitution of a systematically subverted notion of the Bill of Rights that would accommodate the construct of a collectivist democracy.

Currently, in case law, due to decisions handed down by leftist Courts, the federal government reckons certain crimes, including murder, in terms of civil rights violations depending on the circumstances, when, ultimately, what is really being violated in terms of natural law is more at violations of civil liberties.

Hello!

Two, when the convention is not being intentionally abused, the context tells us what kind of rights are actually being considered relative to this distinction, though more often than not in those instances the classical liberal will make the distinction emphatic, using the terms civil rights or civil liberties respectively.

Digging a little deeper, the distinction goes to that between positive rights and negative rights.

But you don't have to take my word for any of this.

Civil liberties - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Civil and political rights - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Difference between Civil Rights and Civil Liberties

https://journals.law.stanford.edu/s...sjcrcl/online/civil-rights-vs-civil-liberties

What Is the Difference Between Civil Rights and Civil Liberties?

Negative and positive rights - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

But you won't be taught, will you? And apparently you're not going to stop pretending that your personal musings regarding matters that are subject to empirical falsification are objective facts . . . when in fact they're not.

That's insulting the intelligence of everyone here and pissing on the truth.

I don't know why you're complaining, I gave you several warnings.

Hell, me neither. It's not like you're making any sense. Just equivocating on definitions like almost everybody else in the thread, and then strutting around like Foghorn Leghorn taking a "victory lap". It's a shame too, because it's a pretty interesting topic.

Oh, it's not like I'm making any sense? That is the most intellectually dishonest thing you said of all, or you simply cannot connect the dots.

No. I am not like everybody else at all on this topic. And that is not to say that solid facts and sound arguments are not being asserted by others. There are one or two others on this thread who know the various distinctions and more or less have them right by the sheer quality of their minds. You were doing just fine, until you conceded things to the relativists that you should have never conceded.

Why? Because their arguments are so obviously wrong and so easily defeated.

But only a fool would not recognize my expertise on the matter. Like I said, you won't be taught, will you?

 

[dblack]

But it's okay for you to make fallacious arguments and tout falsehoods as if they were objective facts--making it up as you go along. Jefferson? The Declaration of Independence? Ring a bell?

No. You didn't learn any of the stuff your spouting from the actual history of natural law, and you've never read or thought much beyond the basics of political science 101. You have no idea how evident that is to one of my learning.

For example, take your conflation of freedoms and rights (also, freedoms vs. liberties, innate freedoms vs. innate rights, or in the formal terms of civil government as opposed to those of the state of nature, civil rights vs. civil liberties). But what is most telling is the fact that you apparently think that just because the terms civil rights and civil liberties are often or commonly used interchangeably, they necessarily and comprehensively denote the same thing.

False.

Two things are going here that you know nothing about.

One, it is in fact the agenda of the left to expunge the term civil liberties from the lexicon of political science in academia and has been for decades, as the term denotes the inalienable natural rights of man as translated from the state of nature into the respective designations of civil government, namely, with regard to the Constitution of the Republic, The Bill of Rights, dblack, against which Congress shall make no law.

Hello!

These things go to the construct of individual liberty, hated by the left who favor the living Constitution of a systematically subverted notion of the Bill of Rights that would accommodate the construct of a collectivist democracy.

Currently, in case law, due to decisions handed down by leftist Courts, the federal government reckons certain crimes, including murder, in terms of civil rights violations depending on the circumstances, when, ultimately, what is really being violated in terms of natural law is more at violations of civil liberties.

Hello!

Two, when the convention is not being intentionally abused, the context tells us what kind of rights are actually being considered relative to this distinction, though more often than not in those instances the classical liberal will make the distinction emphatic, using the terms civil rights or civil liberties respectively.

Digging a little deeper, the distinction goes to that between positive rights and negative rights.

But you don't have to take my word for any of this.

Civil liberties - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Civil and political rights - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Difference between Civil Rights and Civil Liberties

https://journals.law.stanford.edu/s...sjcrcl/online/civil-rights-vs-civil-liberties

What Is the Difference Between Civil Rights and Civil Liberties?

Negative and positive rights - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

But you won't be taught, will you? And apparently you're not going to stop pretending that your personal musings regarding matters that are subject to empirical falsification are objective facts . . . when in fact they're not.

That's insulting the intelligence of everyone here and pissing on the truth.

I don't know why you're complaining, I gave you several warnings.

Hell, me neither. It's not like you're making any sense. Just equivocating on definitions like almost everybody else in the thread, and then strutting around like Foghorn Leghorn taking a "victory lap". It's a shame too, because it's a pretty interesting topic.

Oh, it's not like I'm making any sense? That is the most intellectually dishonest thing you said of all, or you simply cannot connect the dots.

To be fair, I'm not really reading your posts anyway. I mean, I read up until you become obnoxious and rude, but that usually happens right out of the gate, so my critique of your position is, admittedly, not fully informed. You'd probably be more persuasive if you weren't such a dick.

 

[dcraelin]

You do know that I was pointing out his inconsistent position, don't you? He actually went to jail over that 7 words routine because it violated local laws, not just the FCC regulations. He also took the fight about the words all the way to the Supreme Court.
Like I said, interesting.

no i didnt get that from your post,.......just read some about it on wikipedia and I dont think it was him that took it all the way to the supreme court.
He maybe was being a bit inconsistent, but I think hes mainly pointing to idea that rights are dependent on governments and I would like to think he agrees with Jefferson in what he says in the picture I posted previously.

You are free to believe whatever you want, just don't expect the world to change simply because you believe something that isn't true.

So You dont think Carlin agreed with Jefferson...perhaps not,.... I'm not sure I do entirely...but I do agree with him in the picture below....and I agree with Hobbes that life without government would be nasty brutish and short .

http://www.usmessageboard.com/membe...ture5998-jefferson-on-mtrushmore-w-quotes.jpg

 

[dilloduck]

Semantics.

Here's your actual argument in the face of the facts of the imperatives of self-preservation: there are no absolutes, except the absolute that there are no absolutes; hence, the absolute that there are no absolutes is necessarily false.

I don't need to refute you. You refute yourself.

You're dismissed.

Next.

what's with the imperative BS ? Is this Star Trek ?

We are free to do whatever we like.

Never said we weren't. But violate the imperatives, i.e., cross the constraints of Ought, and watch what happens. You shall have to fight, flee or submit. There's your freedom.

Next?

There is an increased need to flee fight or submit when government enters to picture to "help" us.

 

[midcan5]

...Of course, midcan is wrong as he can be, given the centuries-old understanding of their existence, their nature and their actual substance, but you are just as wrong as he....

In one sentence you nullified your argument. Understanding is a human event and thus no natural right would exist without the observer and chronicler. No where in nature is there a natural right and as animals that should be clear. If I believe in the Great Pumpkin there is no way you can prove me wrong, just as you hold on to your security blanket.

An old post but kinda related, change freedom to rights. And yes, DBlack debate must have a grounding in reality or it is meaningless, fun I grant you.

- The paradox of Freedom Is freedom real -

Four woman live in two different countries, one country is a democracy and the second totalitarian. All the woman believe that they live in complete individual freedom. That value is written into the governing documents of each country. One day the two woman from the democracy decide to go on vacation. One woman buys her ticket and gets on a plane to Bermuda. The other woman has limited resources and when she gets to the airport is told she cannot board the plane without a ticket. Finally after much dispute she is arrested and thrown into a state jail.

One day the two woman in the totalitarian state decide to travel abroad. One works in government and gains permission to go to Bermuda. The other woman checks with her local commissar and is told she cannot travel to Bermuda. Travel to Bermuda is not allowed. She disputes the decision and is soon thrown into a state jail. Two woman exercised their freedom two couldn't, yet each held the same value.

If our original premise is they all have equal freedom, why are the results within these two distinct states similar? While the answer is obvious can we then say a person with limited resources is free?

with apologies to Adam Swift

 

[dilloduck]

...Of course, midcan is wrong as he can be, given the centuries-old understanding of their existence, their nature and their actual substance, but you are just as wrong as he....

In one sentence you nullified your argument. Understanding is a human event and thus no natural right would exist without the observer and chronicler. No where in nature is there a natural right and as animals that should be clear. If I believe in the Great Pumpkin there is no way you can prove me wrong, just as you hold on to your security blanket.

An old post but kinda related, change freedom to rights. And yes, DBlack debate must have a grounding in reality or it is meaningless, fun I grant you.

- The paradox of Freedom Is freedom real -

Four woman live in two different countries, one country is a democracy and the second totalitarian. All the woman believe that they live in complete individual freedom. That value is written into the governing documents of each country. One day the two woman from the democracy decide to go on vacation. One woman buys her ticket and gets on a plane to Bermuda. The other woman has limited resources and when she gets to the airport is told she cannot board the plane without a ticket. Finally after much dispute she is arrested and thrown into a state jail.

One day the two woman in the totalitarian state decide to travel abroad. One works in government and gains permission to go to Bermuda. The other woman checks with her local commissar and is told she cannot travel to Bermuda. Travel to Bermuda is not allowed. She disputes the decision and is soon thrown into a state jail. Two woman exercised their freedom two couldn't, yet each held the same value.

If our original premise is they all have equal freedom, why are the results within these two distinct states similar? While the answer is obvious can we then say a person with limited resources is free?

with apologies to Adam Swift

They are all free to obtain the necessary resources. If you chose not to play by the reality scenario that has been established in your environment you will have to use extraordinary means to get to your goal.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

no i didnt get that from your post,.......just read some about it on wikipedia and I dont think it was him that took it all the way to the supreme court.
He maybe was being a bit inconsistent, but I think hes mainly pointing to idea that rights are dependent on governments and I would like to think he agrees with Jefferson in what he says in the picture I posted previously.

You are free to believe whatever you want, just don't expect the world to change simply because you believe something that isn't true.

So You dont think Carlin agreed with Jefferson...perhaps not,.... I'm not sure I do entirely...but I do agree with him in the picture below....and I agree with Hobbes that life without government would be nasty brutish and short .

http://www.usmessageboard.com/membe...ture5998-jefferson-on-mtrushmore-w-quotes.jpg

I don't pretend to know what Carlin believed, I just can see that his actions and his words lead to a different conclusion.

By the way, it always amuses me when I meet a person that thinks quoting other people is actually debating. Debating is defending a position through argument, not quoting. If you read back through the thread you will see that, with one notable exception, you are the only person that thinks quoting other people is debating. Come back when you have enough confidence in your beliefs to actually defend them yourself.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

...Of course, midcan is wrong as he can be, given the centuries-old understanding of their existence, their nature and their actual substance, but you are just as wrong as he....

In one sentence you nullified your argument. Understanding is a human event and thus no natural right would exist without the observer and chronicler. No where in nature is there a natural right and as animals that should be clear. If I believe in the Great Pumpkin there is no way you can prove me wrong, just as you hold on to your security blanket.

An old post but kinda related, change freedom to rights. And yes, DBlack debate must have a grounding in reality or it is meaningless, fun I grant you.

- The paradox of Freedom Is freedom real -

Four woman live in two different countries, one country is a democracy and the second totalitarian. All the woman believe that they live in complete individual freedom. That value is written into the governing documents of each country. One day the two woman from the democracy decide to go on vacation. One woman buys her ticket and gets on a plane to Bermuda. The other woman has limited resources and when she gets to the airport is told she cannot board the plane without a ticket. Finally after much dispute she is arrested and thrown into a state jail.

One day the two woman in the totalitarian state decide to travel abroad. One works in government and gains permission to go to Bermuda. The other woman checks with her local commissar and is told she cannot travel to Bermuda. Travel to Bermuda is not allowed. She disputes the decision and is soon thrown into a state jail. Two woman exercised their freedom two couldn't, yet each held the same value.

If our original premise is they all have equal freedom, why are the results within these two distinct states similar? While the answer is obvious can we then say a person with limited resources is free?

with apologies to Adam Swift

When was our premise that they all have equal freedom? The premise here is that they all have identical natural rights. The evidence of that is the fact that they all decided to travel, despite the fact that they live under different government systems. The fact that rights exist does not mean everyone will get identical results anymore than putting them all on a track to race would mean that they all win.

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

Hell, me neither. It's not like you're making any sense. Just equivocating on definitions like almost everybody else in the thread, and then strutting around like Foghorn Leghorn taking a "victory lap". It's a shame too, because it's a pretty interesting topic.

Oh, it's not like I'm making any sense? That is the most intellectually dishonest thing you said of all, or you simply cannot connect the dots.

To be fair, I'm not really reading your posts anyway. I mean, I read up until you become obnoxious and rude, but that usually happens right out of the gate, so my critique of your position is, admittedly, not fully informed. You'd probably be more persuasive if you weren't such a dick.

Look, dblack, my first post on this thread didn't contain anything but a as brief as possible description of what natural law and natural rights are in the Anglo-American tradition of our nation's founding, a fairly complex topic. Rabbi's response: "babbling nonsense." There's a history here you don't know about. When I first came to this board a few years ago, Rabbi blindsided me on another thread about this very same topic with the same kind of post. I responded by citing historical facts and made a few very simple arguments from them, and I wasn't a dick about it. He flames me again. No consideration of the contents of the post whatsoever.

You think Rabbi's not a dick.

This time around, I simply didn't put with it.

I got the same kind of thing from G.T. on this thread, and you know what post I'm talking about because you and I responded to it. In THAT response I wasn't a dick. I firmly, yet fairly, suggested he actually show us why I'm wrong rather than simply saying I'm wrong. Anyone can do the latter. Prove it.

I can be a dick, I know, but not usually in the way that you mean. If one is actually exchanging ideas with me in good faith, even if I disagree with one, I never flame one. I don’t make fun of one or ridicule one, though I might ridicule an idea or an argument made by one, albeit, backed by a real argument. But when one is attacking the contents of my posts, as G.T. and you did, without actually reading or thinking about them. . . .

How can I tell? Because none of you have ever directly cited anything, just pooh-poohed the contents via some slogan or another.

Ask Sallow if he thinks I'm a dick. Maybe he does, but he also knows that I have always read and thought about his posts, and answered their contents directly and thoroughly.

Perhaps you're a bit biased regarding the manner in which atheists and relativists, in particular, routinely talk about theists/absolutists and their ideas from the jump in this post-modern world of ours all over this board, you know, as if theists/absolutists were idiots, while the former never make any real argument of any kind and never even bother to read or think about anything the theists/absolutists say on this board as they blast them . . . because, after all, everybody knows the theists/absolutists' beliefs are passé, right?

You don't think that's annoying? Consider the fact that I am a theist and an absolutist in a post-modern world who has to deal with persons who routinely talk to me like that.

Come on. Everybody knows that the biggest, most arrogant dicks in the world are atheists. And you want to know why? Because the fact of the matter is that there's really nothing backing their conviction but the veneer of sneer and superiority, so I give it right back at 'em in spades, albeit, backed by real arguments. I don't like bullies, especially when they beat on decent folks who may not know, as I do, where the bodies lie just below the top soil concerning the seemingly cogent but utterly fallacious arguments of atheists.

Atheistic leftists are an especially vicious breed, or haven't you noticed?

But anyone who's entire worldview is prefaced on the notion that there are no absolutes, except the absolute that there are no absolutes; therefore, the absolute that there are no absolutes is necessarily false, has got a real problem that he's utterly unaware of. Where does such an idiot get off making those of us who know better out to be fools?

You want to know why the typical leftist's thought processes are so crazy? Because that's what they're ultimately based on, something crazy, inherently contradictory and self-negating.

How else do you get the fool's attention but unman, as it were, his vanity.

Yeah. Lots of folks think I'm a dick. Believe me. I know that. But there's rhyme to the reason of my dickness.

And by the way, there are two other side exchanges I'm involved in on this thread where there is no rancor at all, though there be disagreement, because the persons with whom I'm speaking make direct arguments regarding the contents of my posts and vice versa. You want to know how often I give rep to those with whom I disagree and even to those, like you, whom I know do not read me because they think I'm a dick? All the time, every time I see a well executed argument made in good faith, whether I agree with it or not. I've even given Sallow rep before, at least twice, and we've never agreed on anything that I know of.

I give Rabbi rep all the time too, because more often than not, he makes good sense, though I know he dislikes me. LOL!

Good faith.

You want to know how much of that is on this board or in the world? Very little.

Notwithstanding, I do regret the way in which I spoke to you in that last post; I actually felt that way a few hours after posting it. It was unnecessarily harsh. I apologize.