Is Democracy Compatible with Natural Rights?

[The T]

You insist natural right exist and then demand someone else demonstrate they exist?

Are you retarded?

They do so to get you to prove your point, which you've FAILED to do in this thread. The poster wants *YOU* to clarify.

Need I explain this to you? All you're doing is backtracking and deflecting because it's ALL you have left.

 

[ihopehefails]

Yes, anyone can declare any right they want for themselves and are garanteed that right will not be violated by someone else.

O Rly?

So no laws exist?

This protects that person from being murdered because they declared they have a right to live

And I can declare the right to kill them. It's a wash.

and anything they declare can never come in conflict with someone elses natural right

I'm older. I declared my right to kill you before you ever declared a right to live. I win.


Care to try again?

You can declare any right you want and that right is inalienable but another person's right to live is just as irremovable as that person's right to murder. These two conflicting inalienable rights can not be removed from either person so how can this act occur if the right to one's own life can't be taken away by anyone else?

 

[JBeukema]

You can declare any right you want and that right is inalienable but another person's right to live is just as irremovable as that person's right to murder.

So the right life and the right to murder are both inalienable?
in your attempt to save yourself, you've rendered your 'rights' totally meaningless.

 

[JBeukema]

You're the one asking what the debates were and when you're given the answer you attack me?



Toro and I are the only two here save possible mattwhatever who've been consistent this whole time.

 

[ihopehefails]

Legal law has not prevented any murders either

Oh? You insist that nobody has every considered the legal ramifications of their actions when deciding not to act on their desire to kill someone? That's a fine argument for doing away with the law altogether (aside from being bullshit). Do you regularly espouse anarchy?

nature can have another meaning as in something in their natural setting like a care salesmen selling cars is more natural to him than a car salesmen selling fishing poles.

Fail. He is a car salesman because he sells cars.

Man in his natural setting is free because he isn't being forced to do things against his free will.

O Rly?

So before complex societies were formed, no man was ever accosted or exploited?

You need to look again at nature. The Natural State is hell, not some magical Eden. That's why Man forms societies in the first place.

Of course not, but those things happen because someone's natural rights were being violated. The natural state is where every person is free of everyone else which keeps him from being exploited by others since he can't be made to do anything against his free will. No one voluteers to be accosted. Its usually done against their free will wich is why some force is used in the process because when is the last time you heard a man volunteering to be robbed by someone else? It simply doesn't happen.

 

[Intense]

Looking at "Natural Rights" from a different perspective, like what is it in Us , pretty much universally, granted with some exception, that is disturbed by certain kinds of behavior. There are limits, boundaries, which when crossed lead to consequence, or at least should. The Individual in society recognizes right and not so right action, through conscience and experience, Society through joint experience, where it agrees on what is acceptable as a whole, and what is not. The Society does not create right and wrong, but recognizes it, sometimes more so than others. Either way consequence is a direct reflection on intent and action, some times in concert with the natural order, sometimes in opposition. You may argue that the natural order is chaos. There are too many pleasant surprises. I think the natural order appears as chaos because of the tangents and distractions we create. Personally I think we miss much more than we get right. What is the balance that we strive for? What is cause and effect? Intuition? Pure Imagination? Projection? Illusion? What does personal experience tell you? Why is it that there are things you know you must do? Why is it that there are things you know you must not do? Society has a part in this, yet so much more so the part each of face every day, conscience.

 

[The T]

So they decided to declare them so?


So they granted rights to those who came after them after they determined which rights to grant/recognize?

So much for your 'natural rights'- you've just described the social contract.

And what IS the Constitution but a *Contract* between the Government -AND- The Governed?

And can you explain WHY the Government violates it when ever they get the chance? Or will you be one of the ones defending them?

So far? Your record is clear by your comments. And YOU aren't on the side of the governed.

How true. Everytime the government goes outside its own powers it is violating the protections we have established for our individual selves in the same way the government would violated our right of free speech when if violates the first amendment.

Thanks. And it IS a contract between the Government and the Governed. The Founders were very precise to the point to where they petitioned those they represented in the Continental Congress before they signed onto it.

And as history shows? The debates were heated, and precarious. Anyone who denies that this IS a contract just doesn't understand, wasn't taught, or is totally twisting what really went on for the form of Government we have to be ratified. It took YEARS to happen even after we kicked the British the Hell outta here.

 

[ihopehefails]

You can declare any right you want and that right is inalienable but another person's right to live is just as irremovable as that person's right to murder.

So the right life and the right to murder are both inalienable?
in your attempt to save yourself, you've rendered your 'rights' totally meaningless.

Yes because what reason is there to say that no person has some rights and not others? There is no limitation placed on him by anything and all things he declares for himself are his. This includes the right to live which blocks a person's right to remove someone's life unless that same person who declares his right to live decides not to live which allows the person who believes they have the right to kill to kill him.

In this transaction, no one's freedom was violated and was probably done as a mercy killing like someone would do in a living will where you assign someone to terminate your life when you are some kind of vegetable. The person signing the living will clearly used his right to live or die as he choose to allow someone else the right to terminate his life. No one considers that immoral or illegal because no one's freedom was being violated so the law has no right to interfere.

 

[The T]

You can declare any right you want and that right is inalienable but another person's right to live is just as irremovable as that person's right to murder.

So the right life and the right to murder are both inalienable?
in your attempt to save yourself, you've rendered your 'rights' totally meaningless.

Yes because what reason is there to say that no person has some rights and not others? There is no limitation placed on him by anything and all things he declares for himself are his. This includes the right to live which blocks a person's right to remove someone's life unless that same person who declares his right to live decides not to live which allows the person who believes they have the right to kill to kill him.

In this transaction, no one's freedom was violated and was probably done as a mercy killing like someone would do in a living will where you assign someone to terminate your life when you are some kind of vegetable. The person signing the living will clearly used his right to live or die as he choose to allow someone else the right to terminate his life. No one considers that immoral or illegal because no one's freedom was being violated so the law has no right to interfere.

And how else can what is emboldened be applied? [other than the fact that it interferes with no one's liberty, just because someone has a burr up their ass and doesn't Like it]?

*This is where we get into the 'true Democracy thingy'...*

 

[Foxfyre]

You don't have to agree that 'natural rights' exist at all. You merely have to come to an agreement regarding the basic liberties and [positive] rights must be protected. Even when dressed up in the rhetoric of 'natural rights', this is the process that occurs and it is motivated by self-interest.

Your assertion of positive rights is in direct conflict with the negative/natural rights.

What you propose is rule by the Mob. Without presupposed fundamental, immutable values, the thugs may assert power and destroy the rights of others.

Fox already pointed out that the FF made up the list of rights after deciding what rights they deemed important. You even thanked him for it.

If the rights did exist, it would change nothing as people's liberties can be infringed either way. 'Natural Rights' is nothing but poetic yet meaningless rhetoric. People don't refrain from murder because some 'natural right' exists and nature prevents them from killing, they abstain from murder out of either their own moral qualms or the social contract that leads to legal or other (eg: you kill me brother, my whole family will kill you) ramifications if they kill someone.

Well I didn't quite say that. What I said is that the FF agreed on the definition or understanding of unalienable rights which nobody would have time to list every application of that in an entire lifetime even if they could think of or identify them all. Then they wrote a Constitution that provided them means to secure, defend, and protect those unalienable rights.

Just a subtle difference there but an important one.

 

[mattskramer]

Let me explain it this way: Assume that natural rights exist. Assume that laws don't exist. Someone breaks the natural right of another and "gets caught". What happens? Nothing. Assume that laws exist. Assume that natural rights don't exist. Someone breaks the law and gets caught. What happens?

Natural rights might or might not exist. It just doesn't matter. It matters what laws exist.

If you mean that people commit crimes--violate the rights of others--and get away with it, you would be right. That is precisely why the Founders, to a man, agreed that the Constitution would not work for other than a moral people. But so long as the large majority of the people accept the consequence of unalienable rights, the ones who violate those rights and get away with it will be fairly rare. The law is necessary within the social contract to define what consequences will be imposed for violating the rights of others.

It is important in the interest of preserving freedom that includes life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to understand what an unalienable right is no matter where it came from. And then it is important to promote laws that promote those rights.

On the proverbial mark.

Oh well. We agree to disagree. I still contend that "rights"is a human invention and that they don't exist in and of themselves outside of imagination. There is even debate about what rights people have. You often speak of liberty. I'll ask again, should people be free to engage in prostitution, smoking marijuana, and gambling? Should people be allowed to consume alcohol and smoke cigarettes? Where do you draw the line - and why?

 

[Toro]

OK, things are great when that trust is maintained but what happens when that trust is broken? Shouldn't we have some protection against the will of the majority in that case? This is the point of my op and that democracy is not the best tool for maintaining freedom.

I prefer the term limited democracy as we are only permitted on voting over a few issues.

For example, I find gay marriage morally repugnant but that is just my personal belief but so far, there is not one power granted to the federal government that says it can regulate the institution of marriage and because of that it forbids the majority, at the federal level, from stepping on what others might think is their rights.

Oh, I agree. I think the concept of rights should be one that is enshrined in law and difficult, if not impossible to change. Changing those rights every four years really aren't rights to me. All I'm arguing is that they don't come from God nor do they come from nature. They come from the reasoned mind on how people should best organize themselves.

But we must also recognize that the concept of rights changes. What seemed reasonable in 1783 - slavery for instance - is an abomination now. Society must adapt to the ideals of the time.

 

[Toro]

The concept of natural rights don't necessarily call for the existence of a Judeo-Christian God.

You and I have a life. So, it only follows that we naturally are within our *ahem* right to preserve that life --and by extension the products and property which spring from that life-- from outside aggression.

No deist "creator" needed.

As I said above, certain rights are critical in the establishment of a civilized society. However, there is no reason why those rights are "natural." They're just "right," or "the best."

There is nothing stopping mankind from brutalizing one another and taking what we need, rights be damned, as we have for most of our existence. Ideals of rights are codified rules from which the law derives, derived from a consensus of society.

Yes, there is a reason: Aggression.

The very idea of self-preservation presumes that someone or something may act as an aggressor against that end. Therefore, we are all within our right to protect and preserve ourselves. The only function for "society" (such as it may be) in this particular area, is to help provide a collective framework to accomplish that which would not be outside of one's right to do individually.

To use that form of collectivized preservationist aggression as the aggressor itself is the absolute antithesis of that just and clearly defined use of force.

What I mean is that these rights are not prevalent in nature. They aren't "natural." They may be just and right, and they may be necessary for the preservation and flourishing of society, but they don't exist in nature, and they cannot be implied to be conferred to us by God, since we don't know God exists. Your argument, which is a good one, is in fact what I am trying to point out. Rights come from the well-reasoned mind.

 

[Intense]

I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and to the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed Constitution, but would even be dangerous. They would contain various exceptions to powers not granted; and, on this very account, would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do? Why, for instance, should it be said that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed? I will not contend that such a provision would confer a regulating power; but it is evident that it would furnish, to men disposed to usurp, a plausible pretense for claiming that power. They might urge with a semblance of reason, that the Constitution ought not to be charged with the absurdity of providing against the abuse of an authority which was not given, and that the provision against restraining the liberty of the press afforded a clear implication, that a power to prescribe proper regulations concerning it was intended to be vested in the national government. This may serve as a specimen of the numerous handles which would be given to the doctrine of constructive powers, by the indulgence of an injudicious zeal for bills of rights.

-Alexander Hamilton, AKA Pre Ratification Hamilton, AKA Dr. Jekyll

Federalist Papers Index

 

[Intense]

OK, things are great when that trust is maintained but what happens when that trust is broken? Shouldn't we have some protection against the will of the majority in that case? This is the point of my op and that democracy is not the best tool for maintaining freedom.

I prefer the term limited democracy as we are only permitted on voting over a few issues.

For example, I find gay marriage morally repugnant but that is just my personal belief but so far, there is not one power granted to the federal government that says it can regulate the institution of marriage and because of that it forbids the majority, at the federal level, from stepping on what others might think is their rights.

Oh, I agree. I think the concept of rights should be one that is enshrined in law and difficult, if not impossible to change. Changing those rights every four years really aren't rights to me. All I'm arguing is that they don't come from God nor do they come from nature. They come from the reasoned mind on how people should best organize themselves.

But we must also recognize that the concept of rights changes. What seemed reasonable in 1783 - slavery for instance - is an abomination now. Society must adapt to the ideals of the time.

I would argue that our minds are a part of nature more than a part of society. How is reason not a part of nature?

 

[Foxfyre]

I agree. And it is why we must live as a nation under the rule of law. The law is strengthened when the foundation of law derives from deeply held beliefs about rights, no matter where those rights come from.

Precisely. You don't have to agree with the origin of the rights--the Founders didn't all agree--but in the American experiment the people all agreed on what the rights were and accepted the definition of natural rights as the foundation for all. And they ratified a Constitution that would defend those rights and assign to government the sole purpose of securing, defending, and protecting those rights.

You don't have to agree that 'natural rights' exist at all. You merely have to come to an agreement regarding the basic liberties and [positive] rights must be protected. Even when dressed up in the rhetoric of 'natural rights', this is the process that occurs and it is motivated by self-interest.

In order for there to be social contract - which you alluded to in a subsequent post - you have to have language including words or terms with definitions on which all can agree. So the Founders agreed on the interchangeable terms of "natural rights' or 'unalienable rights' that the Constitution was designed to secure, protect, and defend.

They didn't decide each individual component that would be included in that term as they knew that would be an impossible task. They simply agreed on the basic concept and then hammered out a document that would make it possible to secure, protect, and defend.

Unalienable rights, in their view, come from God as each understood or defined God. How each defined God was immaterial. They only had to agree that the principle was not one devised by man but had always existed in the grand scheme of all things.

And they agreed on a social contract which, as best as they could accomplish, would secure, defend, and protect those unalienable rights among which were life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

 

[Toro]

OK, things are great when that trust is maintained but what happens when that trust is broken? Shouldn't we have some protection against the will of the majority in that case? This is the point of my op and that democracy is not the best tool for maintaining freedom.

I prefer the term limited democracy as we are only permitted on voting over a few issues.

For example, I find gay marriage morally repugnant but that is just my personal belief but so far, there is not one power granted to the federal government that says it can regulate the institution of marriage and because of that it forbids the majority, at the federal level, from stepping on what others might think is their rights.

Oh, I agree. I think the concept of rights should be one that is enshrined in law and difficult, if not impossible to change. Changing those rights every four years really aren't rights to me. All I'm arguing is that they don't come from God nor do they come from nature. They come from the reasoned mind on how people should best organize themselves.

But we must also recognize that the concept of rights changes. What seemed reasonable in 1783 - slavery for instance - is an abomination now. Society must adapt to the ideals of the time.

I would argue that our minds are a part of nature more than a part of society. How is reason not a part of nature?

I'll give you that.

 

[Oddball]

As I said above, certain rights are critical in the establishment of a civilized society. However, there is no reason why those rights are "natural." They're just "right," or "the best."

There is nothing stopping mankind from brutalizing one another and taking what we need, rights be damned, as we have for most of our existence. Ideals of rights are codified rules from which the law derives, derived from a consensus of society.

Yes, there is a reason: Aggression.

The very idea of self-preservation presumes that someone or something may act as an aggressor against that end. Therefore, we are all within our right to protect and preserve ourselves. The only function for "society" (such as it may be) in this particular area, is to help provide a collective framework to accomplish that which would not be outside of one's right to do individually.

To use that form of collectivized preservationist aggression as the aggressor itself is the absolute antithesis of that just and clearly defined use of force.

What I mean is that these rights are not prevalent in nature. They aren't "natural." They may be just and right, and they may be necessary for the preservation and flourishing of society, but they don't exist in nature, and they cannot be implied to be conferred to us by God, since we don't know God exists. Your argument, which is a good one, is in fact what I am trying to point out. Rights come from the well-reasoned mind.

Interesting that you should inject reason into the situation.

Why would self-preservation and ownership of ourselves and that which we create not be a natural extension, stemming from natural beings of reason?

The converse, according to reason, would be that "rights" per se would be supernatural.

 

[Intense]

Yes, there is a reason: Aggression.

The very idea of self-preservation presumes that someone or something may act as an aggressor against that end. Therefore, we are all within our right to protect and preserve ourselves. The only function for "society" (such as it may be) in this particular area, is to help provide a collective framework to accomplish that which would not be outside of one's right to do individually.

To use that form of collectivized preservationist aggression as the aggressor itself is the absolute antithesis of that just and clearly defined use of force.

What I mean is that these rights are not prevalent in nature. They aren't "natural." They may be just and right, and they may be necessary for the preservation and flourishing of society, but they don't exist in nature, and they cannot be implied to be conferred to us by God, since we don't know God exists. Your argument, which is a good one, is in fact what I am trying to point out. Rights come from the well-reasoned mind.

Interesting that you should inject reason into the situation.

Why would self-preservation and ownership of ourselves and that which we create not be a natural extension, stemming from natural beings of reason?

The converse, according to reason, would be that "rights" per se would be supernatural.

When is reason subservient to the Supernatural?

 

[Foxfyre]

Yes, there is a reason: Aggression.

The very idea of self-preservation presumes that someone or something may act as an aggressor against that end. Therefore, we are all within our right to protect and preserve ourselves. The only function for "society" (such as it may be) in this particular area, is to help provide a collective framework to accomplish that which would not be outside of one's right to do individually.

To use that form of collectivized preservationist aggression as the aggressor itself is the absolute antithesis of that just and clearly defined use of force.

What I mean is that these rights are not prevalent in nature. They aren't "natural." They may be just and right, and they may be necessary for the preservation and flourishing of society, but they don't exist in nature, and they cannot be implied to be conferred to us by God, since we don't know God exists. Your argument, which is a good one, is in fact what I am trying to point out. Rights come from the well-reasoned mind.

Interesting that you should inject reason into the situation.

Why would self-preservation and ownership of ourselves and that which we create not be a natural extension, stemming from natural beings of reason?

The converse, according to reason, would be that "rights" per se would be supernatural.

Natural or supernatural, it makes no difference.

Did humans dream up life? Or did they simply coin a word to refer to it?
Did humans dream up liberty? Or did they come up with a word for it?
Did humans dream up pursuit of happiness? Or did they devise a phrase for it?

Did humans invent these things? Or have they always existed?