YOU have NO RIGHTS!

in this country, and by this country i mean the untied states, "innate" rights are ostensibly god-given, though the government is actually under no obligation to grant these rights and likely wouldn't were they not written into the constitution. which is not to say that the constitution holds any power to grant rights, but rather that the people may well revolt if their enumerated "innate" rights were stripped of them all at once. in actuality, the truth is that you have rights only insofar as you are yourself able to defend them. anyway, i'm tired and i can't type...blah.

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Untrue, you have the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that was first preposed in 1948 in an attempt to generate a globablised form of equality where all may have the very basic of rights, without prejudice to Race, Colour or personal beliefs.

It's sad that any Civillian in any country isn't taught of such rights in their education system since they aren't just important to know in the act of someone breaking one of the Articles, but are in fact important in the development of all individuals to understand that those rights available to them should also not just be available to others but protected for all.

 

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Ah ha, so I have the right, even though the gov didn't grant it to me. Laws can take away rights, even ones you feel are innate. The idea of innateness confers the justification to fight unjust laws. In the words of GG Allin, fuck authority. You are limited only so much as you accept the power of the gov to curtail your actions. In fact, most laws don't prevent unlawful behavior at all, only punish it after the fact.

 

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i think the point was more "nobody is stopping you" rather than admitting you have some right to do it. to say that you have a right to do so would mean that your neighbor, say, couldn't stop you from painting yourself purple, even if he wanted to. "innate" rights would imply that the government couldn't stop you from doing it even if it wanted to. thoughts?

 

Yes. This is more of a semantic debate. A "right" is something guaranteed and conferred by a society. It has no meaning outside of a society. The concept of "innate" rights is just a globally accepted extension of this.

 

You have NO RIGHT to post such a silly link!

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I think it's more than something granted by society, it is part of our conception as individuals. It is unaffected by how society reacts to our actions. Personally I think people have the innate right to use psychoactive substances like LSD if they wish, and this is unaffected by the fact that gov agents would object to it's possession.

 

I think that rights are things that must be claimed and defended. They don't exist as inherent features of humanity.

 

it is more than semantics, i think. generally, rights are things you are allowed to do by your government. in this example, if your neighbor runs into your house with a water hose to wash the purple paint off of you, you could call the police to intervene [assuming the receptionist ever stopped laughing at you and you could operate an electric telephone while being sprayed with a hose]. therefore, these rights are protected by force, namely, the police and/or the military. "innate" rights are something else entirely. an "innate" right is one that must be granted regardless of how much power you personally have to defend it. the question then is from whence the defense of such rights stems, and there lays the reason some say they do not exist. :m:

 

The theory of Inalienable Rights stems from Enlightenment era philosophy and the postulation, of various writers of different viewpoints on the matter, that morality is objective and enshrines certain things in natural order. Thomas Hobbes, asserted this as the first of nature's laws in "Leviathan":

“ […] That every man, ought to endeavour Peace, as farre as he has hope of obtaining it; and when he cannot obtain it, that he may seek, and use, all helps, and all advantages of Warre. The first branch of which Rule, containeth the first, and Fundamentall Law of Nature; which is, to seek Peace and Follow it. The Second, the summe of the Right of Nature; which is, By all means we can, to defend ourselves.”

That is, that a man has a right to defend himself and that is nature's first right, whereas his first obligation is to seek peace.

That "might makes right" in this tradition in so far as that, whereas right may make what is -real-, it has no power to decide that which is -right-, nor the power to take away from a man anything, but through the cruelities of injustice. That is, natural law can be violated, but natural law still exists.

Now, you are of the opinion that a governmental entity can rob us of even this right, and in so far as clearly they can, you are right. But as to whether they'd be just in doing so, or whether we'd not still have a -right- which had simply been trod upon, is a matter all together different.

I postulate that indeed, a government is but an arbitrary entity, and cannot desginate what we can or cannot do, beyond our consent. It is only through superior force that a government can sway us to a different path, yes, but truly has no power to do anything to us if we do not give it the power, and if we do not care for our lives which it could threaten. In as much as this is so, we have rights, rights which we have made for ourselves, and which as all indeed have those rights but choose to push them away, are natural and engrained within our being.

A government can no more given an individual the right to do something, than an elephant can fly. It can only ignore what an individual is doing, or attempt to stop it, but never to say he can do such or he cannot, for he can do what he please, despite the consequences.

 

Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html

Can't find info on which nations subscribe to this. Did read that the Soviet bloc (as of 1948), Saudi Arabia and South Africa

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abstained. Most other nations ratified it.

Article 30: Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.

 

Redarmy11:

The UN has no more power than any other organization - that is, none whatsoever - to delineate which rights people have. In fact, I would argue even less so, as the UN isn't a government, nor can it force anything amongst governments.

 

The Declaration holds for those nations that subscribed to it in 1948 - including the USA.

 

Redarmy11:

Try to enforce it.

 

We are born with rights. We are born with the right to do anything, even kill. The governement takes a lot of those rights away. And then, what rights we cannot use to harms ourselves or interfere with someone else's rights, we get to keep.

 

It's irrelevant in the present context whether they're enforceable or not. The fact is that the people of the nations that signed the declaration have the rights contained within it from birth. Enforcing them is another matter.

 

Redarmy11:

And who gave the UN the power to make up rights? Since when can rights be given by any entity?

 

All of the nations that subscribed to the declaration. Most of them, of course, represent governments that were voted in democratically. When we vote for a party we hand over to them the right to represent us. So, indirectly, the people of the world gave the UN the power to enshrine those rights on our behalf.

 

TheoryofR:

That's very perceptive of you. As you stress, in today's society we have no rights, only privileges granted to us by the governing body. It can strip you of such privileges if it feels it is convenient to do so.

You have no right to property ownership. If the government wishes to build an airport on your property, it will dispossess you.

You have no inherent right to freedom. If the government feels it convenient, it can detain you without charge or trial (eg. Guantanamo).

You have no right to seek restitution for harm inflicted upon you. If the individual or corporation who inflicted harm upon you has money and connections, you will never get justice.