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Status:
"81 Years, NOT 91 Felonies"
(set 24 days ago)
Location: Dallas, TX
5,790 posts, read 3,595,865 times
Reputation: 5696
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I have to agree rights do come from nature - namely because of the following
(1) All human beings have a capacity to feel hurt, harm or degradation by another.
(2) Each person has an equal right to dignified treatment by others unless and until he or she shows a strong tendency to deliberately hurt, harm, or degrade the dignity, life, or quality of life of others.
(3) Even in the latter case (last part of pt 2), the punishment must be the lesser of the following - no more than necessary to make the guilty person think twice before repeating the wrongdoing OR be no more painful or degrading to the guilty than the pain or degradation they inflict onto others.
*Capacity to be hurt, harmed, or degraded -- if punches to the face did not tend to emotionally disturb me to a non-trivial extent, it would be difficult to justify laws against assault, battery, etc.
*If we may initiate certain acts against a person who hasn't committed a significant wrongful act, then we may initiate those said acts against all other people in similar circumstances.
*The punishment must be in proportion to the offense. Otherwise, why not give a 13 year old a 20 year sentence for stealing a candy bar?
There's much more to my idea about where rights come from than this, but these are the brief rundown.
Im old enough to remember that we used to have rights. If someone insulted you, you had the right to break their nose. No one would prosecute you. If someone robbed you or was causing you problems, you had the right to rectify the situation as long as the damage wasent permanent.
The main problem is that out beliefs, country and society is based on the assumption of individual rights. These rights are being replaced with general rights which arent rights at all. Just political nonsense designed to separate and exclude.
Bull toddy. The actions you cite may have been tolerated, but were not admirable or legal.
Im old enough to remember that we used to have rights. If someone insulted you, you had the right to break their nose. No one would prosecute you. If someone robbed you or was causing you problems, you had the right to rectify the situation as long as the damage wasent permanent.
The main problem is that out beliefs, country and society is based on the assumption of individual rights. These rights are being replaced with general rights which arent rights at all. Just political nonsense designed to separate and exclude.
And who gave you the rights to do that. I guess the guy who insulted you needed rights....you break his nose cause you can't take an insult...then you pay for it.
In other words, the government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to take it all away.
Yep
Quote:
Originally Posted by Loveshiscountry
Rights have absolutely nothing to do with morals. I'm sure there were plenty of people who thought Jim Crow was moral.
It is considered immoral to not serve someone based on the sex, skin color, religion and so on imo.
However it is factually immoral for government to force the private sector to serve anyone.
Using force and coercion to get what you want is immoral.
I'm not sure if you're actually disagreeing with me here (outside of the first sentence). People can think a wrong is a right, but that just means that they're mistaken. A right is something you can do morally - meaning you shouldn't be punished for it.
People have competing ideas of what's moral, but people also have competing ideas on scientific theory. That doesn't change what the right answer is. The whole subjective morality vs. objective morality is always a long discussion so I'll try to avoid that, but I'm actually more convinced by the objective natural law argument - that we need to use logic and reason to discover what is moral or immoral, not just make it up based on our whims. Seems like you might agree on that.
I would say certainly when it addresses the free rider problem . Government's legitimate purposes must be financed and few like paying taxes. The very instrument used to protect our natural rights pretty much always ends up infringing on our natural rights in one manner or the other in other areas also. It is the price we pay in order to sleep with both eyes closed. There are also other common goods, such as airwaves, rivers and streams, roadways where government regulation is required and government has to enforce private property rights partially in order to protect the pursuit of happiness which may conflict with the liberty of someone who wishes to trespass.
In our imperfect world there is seldom a solution to a problem, only trade offs.
Would you say that if it were possible to have those goods and services provided without violating people's individual rights, that you would prefer that? That's where I was right before I came across voluntaryists/anarcho-capitalists (I never know what label to use) like Rothbard, Hoppe, Tom Woods, Larken Rose, Jeffrey Tucker, etc. and then I started listening to their ideas on how it actually is possible.
I usually agree with most of what you have to say, so the principles are mostly there already. You're so close...
And who gave you the rights to do that. I guess the guy who insulted you needed rights....you break his nose cause you can't take an insult...then you pay for it.
No one GAVE you the rights. You are born with them. The reality is that the nose breaking rarely happened. Only in extreme cases. However because it was assumed that that would be the results of your insult, people were much more polite. Unfortunately these days the attacker is empowered to attack and the defender is encouraged to walk away.
No one GAVE you the rights. You are born with them. The reality is that the nose breaking rarely happened. Only in extreme cases. However because it was assumed that that would be the results of your insult, people were much more polite. Unfortunately these days the attacker is empowered to attack and the defender is encouraged to walk away.
What rights are we born with. The fact is no one is born with rights.
Status:
"81 Years, NOT 91 Felonies"
(set 24 days ago)
Location: Dallas, TX
5,790 posts, read 3,595,865 times
Reputation: 5696
Quote:
Originally Posted by natalie469
What rights are we born with. The fact is no one is born with rights.
In that case, how about the right to not have others initiate against you torture, rape, assault with a deadly weapon, or be waterboarded by your parents as a four year old child (back when you were that age). If you fiercely object to people initiating these acts against you, that implies you do indeed are born with rights to not experience such things. And if you have a right to not experience such things, then why not others? Apparently, merely being human does entitle us to at least a few rights - namely the just-mentioned ones.
More generally, we have a right to not have others initiate against us in a spirit of intentional malice hurt, harm, and degradation of our basic dignity, especially if we had not done anything reasonably regarded as an intent a hurt, harm, or degradation against others.
It has been widely held as fact since the 300 AD in Sub sahara east africa, since the 800's in Scandinavia, and since the 1200's in Europe. and all encompass the rights to life, liberty and property.
In that case, how about the right to not have others initiate against you torture, rape, assault with a deadly weapon, or be waterboarded by your parents as a four year old child (back when you were that age). If you fiercely object to people initiating these acts against you, that implies you do indeed are born with rights to not experience such things. And if you have a right to not experience such things, then why not others? Apparently, merely being human does entitle us to at least a few rights - namely the just-mentioned ones.
More generally, we have a right to not have others initiate against us in a spirit of intentional malice hurt, harm, and degradation of our basic dignity, especially if we had not done anything reasonably regarded as an intent a hurt, harm, or degradation against others.
What if the state has a view of your rights that are different from what you believe? If you were born with certain rights, how can a state simply ignore them and impose it's own rights code onto you?
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