Do Natural Rights Exist Without Government ?

[Abatis]

While I believe in God, I have struggled with the idea that Thomas Jefferson put forth:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Unalienable means (from the net): incapable of being repudiated or transferred to another.

Now, if China chooses to be communist....and forbids your rights, what difference does it make if they can't "repudiate" them (refuse to accept that they exist) ? You still don't get to exercise them....and, in effect, they have been removed.

Can someone explain to me how we don't have secure rights without government ?

I just don't see it.

You really need to read Locke and Sidney (and the oppositional, absolutist treatises of Hobbes and Filmer and Bodin) . . .

Natural rights are those unencumbered freedoms humans posses when they are in a "state of nature", before they enter society. These are absolute and without restriction because there is no authority entity to constrain the exercise of those rights.

Humans, being social animals like to be together and humans understand that with combination, benefits are realized, like security, division of work, stability. To realize these benefits each member must surrender some of his own absolute freedoms to the social compact because now, one's absolute natural rights, to act in any manner he wishes, are limited by the rights of others.

This is the fundamental premise for the governmental model established on legitimacy . . . the principle that government cannot be arbitrary over the lives and fortunes of the people because a legitimate government only emanates from consent of the governed; government's power is only the sum of that limited amount of power each member of the society gives up to the legislative assembly.

The power vested in the assembly can be no greater than that which the people had before they entered into that society because no person can transfer to another, more power than he possesses himself, and nobody has an absolute arbitrary power over any other, to destroy or take away, the life or property of another.

Under these principles, government only keeps that power with the consent of the governed and the citizens retained all interests not delegated to the government. Our rights were understood to be inherent (as we possessed all powers and rights in a state of nature and brought them to the compact) and among those inherent rights a subset, called un/inalienable rights, were deemed to be of such intrinsic value to being human that a person, even willingly, cannot confer them to the care and control of another person.

Inalienable is a term focused on legitimacy; a person cannot legitimately confer to government the care of his life, liberty or fruits of his labor. Inalienable also denotes legitimacy of action for government because no legitimate government would ever accept such a surrender by a citizen.

"Inalienable rights" is a concept of importance primarily at the genesis of the social compact / contract. Once the foundational principles have been agreed upon and the government's powers have been set-out and limited by that enumeration (in a constitution), inalienable rights become relatively moot because their status has unalterably been codified. The only concern is whether they are being violated and the only enforcers of violations are the people . . .

Inalienable really has nothing to do with whether a particular right can be violated by government . . . Of course it can, that's a given. The term again is centered on legitimacy; when an inalienable right is violated, that government is no longer operating according to the principles of its establishment, thus it has lost its legitimacy to govern. It is then subject to the people's original right to rescind their consent to be governed and retake the powers originally conferred (employing the right of original self defense, never surrendered).

In the final analysis, one must understand that "inalienable rights" is a meaningless concept if there is not a government being established to NOT surrender rights to.

It makes no sense to apply the term or use it in the context of people living under say, a monarchy or a dictatorship or a theocracy. . . It is at its core, a refutation of monarchy and all authoritarian rule.

Even more nonsensical is a modern enlightened socialist/communitarian/anarchist discussing the term only to deny the existence of inalienable rights (well DUH).

 

[Abatis]

A concept that even conservatives get wrong is that government is supposed to secure our rights. That is wrong. Government is supposed to leave our rights alone.

With that derogatory claim, this statement is nonsensical.

According to you, in the context of the above, what the heck do liberals get right?

To me, the modern US left is all about denigrating / dismissing negative rights and promoting second and third generation positive rights.

That's neither "leaving rights alone" nor "securing them" . . .

 

[Abatis]

Nobody seems to get this. Jefferson was describing a particular kind of rights, namely innate freedoms that are simply byproducts of our capacity for volition. He was doing this deliberately to distinguish them from privileges that must be granted, that require the service of others. In his view, we don't create government to grant us any rights we don't already have; we create it to protect those we possess naturally as thinking creatures.

An accurate understanding of this concept would go a long way toward clearing up the confusion that leads to incoherent conceptions like a "right" to health care, or other services.

Sent from my GT-P7510 using Tapatalk

But Jefferson was full of shit. It wasn't him, of course. He was a product of his times. But it is instructive that no society ever produced the notion of "rights" as understood by the Founders until the Enlightenment.

So what?

Locke and Sidney arguing for "inherent rights" challenged the then controlling doctrine of the "divine right" of a King to rule however he desired . . .

Are you saying that humans should have just stuck with absolutism?

 

[Delta4Embassy]

While I believe in God, I have struggled with the idea that Thomas Jefferson put forth:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Unalienable means (from the net): incapable of being repudiated or transferred to another.

Now, if China chooses to be communist....and forbids your rights, what difference does it make if they can't "repudiate" them (refuse to accept that they exist) ? You still don't get to exercise them....and, in effect, they have been removed.

While recently reading Ezra Taft Benson's talk on the proper role of goverment, he states that the most important function of government is to secure the rights and freedoms of individuals.

Can someone explain to me how we don't have secure rights without government ?

I just don't see it.

Without government informing us what our rights might be, or not be, the only law in effect is the law of the jungle. We're animals, and if you have something I want, I might opt to simply take it, and if you resist me you do so at your peril (purely a hypothetical.) Can't imagine many like government of any stripe telling you what you can or can't do, but they do protect us well from the alternative.

As mere animals, we don't have any 'inalienable rights.' Since without a government to write them down they simply don't exist in nature. Big fish eat little fish is what it boils down to. But no fish are backing away from an easy meal out of some observance of the little fish's right to exist and be happy (and not be eaten.) Even WITH religion that right doesn't exist.

 

[Luddly Neddite]

Nobody seems to get this. Jefferson was describing a particular kind of rights, namely innate freedoms that are simply byproducts of our capacity for volition. He was doing this deliberately to distinguish them from privileges that must be granted, that require the service of others. In his view, we don't create government to grant us any rights we don't already have; we create it to protect those we possess naturally as thinking creatures.

An accurate understanding of this concept would go a long way toward clearing up the confusion that leads to incoherent conceptions like a "right" to health care, or other services.

Sent from my GT-P7510 using Tapatalk

If that were true, no one ever had to leave England.

One natural right people have is the right to self defense. This right exist with or without government.

If self defense is a right, so is the fear of falling. You're confusing law with the drives we're born with. Self defense is a drive, an instinct.

 

[Abatis]

As said, rights are a construct of society. Jefferson could not say that without giving the entire rebellion a philosophical flat tire. The Founders claimed George III trod on some heretofore unknown set of natural rights. They had to because George had not violated any rights that Englishmen commonly enjoyed.

You're missing the point. The rights we choose to protect with government are, more or less arbitrarily chosen by society, sure. But his point was that the rights we're most concerned with protecting aren't granted to us, they're ours by default. We employ government to protect them, not to "give" them to us.

It's an important distinction, not because it designates some rights as sacrosanct or some similar nonsense. But because it puts government in the proper perspective as a tool to protect our freedom, rather than the source of that freedom.

Yeah but that is unproved and unprovable proposition.
What are the source for these rights?
What do they consist of?
How do we know what they are?
No one can give a credible account of these questions. Thus they do not exist.

That a governmental model is based on the existence of philosophical constructs and the government's powers are structured to recognize and respect those philosophical constructs makes those philosophical constructs "real"

The US government is contractually bound to recognize and respect the rights of the citizen; how can you question / deny this?

Apparently, your personal political allegiances (no doubt to some 20th century philosophical construct that has zero bearing on the foundational principles of the USA) force you to deny the existence of inherent rights . . . But that has no real bearing on how the US government operates or what it recognizes.

 

[The Rabbi]

You're missing the point. The rights we choose to protect with government are, more or less arbitrarily chosen by society, sure. But his point was that the rights we're most concerned with protecting aren't granted to us, they're ours by default. We employ government to protect them, not to "give" them to us.

It's an important distinction, not because it designates some rights as sacrosanct or some similar nonsense. But because it puts government in the proper perspective as a tool to protect our freedom, rather than the source of that freedom.

Yeah but that is unproved and unprovable proposition.
What are the source for these rights?
What do they consist of?
How do we know what they are?
No one can give a credible account of these questions. Thus they do not exist.

That a governmental model is based on the existence of philosophical constructs and the government's powers are structured to recognize and respect those philosophical constructs makes those philosophical constructs "real"

The US government is contractually bound to recognize and respect the rights of the citizen; how can you question / deny this?

Apparently, your personal political allegiances (no doubt to some 20th century philosophical construct that has zero bearing on the foundational principles of the USA) force you to deny the existence of inherent rights . . . But that has no real bearing on how the US government operates or what it recognizes.

It doesnt make them real. It makes them some kind of principle. But the basic idea that there are some body of rights that adhere to a person just because is nonsensical. It is unfounded and non existent.

 

[editec]

Natural rights?

Show me one that any idiot with a gun cannot take away from YOU.

 

[G.T.]

It's better off that us humans assert these rights; however, they're not magically vested in us they are a construct of the human mind. A great one, at that.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

A concept that even conservatives get wrong is that government is supposed to secure our rights. That is wrong. Government is supposed to leave our rights alone.

Armed citizens retain their natural rights, unarmed citizens become slaves to a Progressive government

 

[Luddly Neddite]

A concept that even conservatives get wrong is that government is supposed to secure our rights. That is wrong. Government is supposed to leave our rights alone.

Armed citizens retain their natural rights, unarmed citizens become slaves to a Progressive government

That's a nice platitude. Empty and meaningless but fits nicely on a tee potty bumper sticker.

 

[dblack]

Yeah but that is unproved and unprovable proposition.
What are the source for these rights?
What do they consist of?
How do we know what they are?
No one can give a credible account of these questions. Thus they do not exist.

That a governmental model is based on the existence of philosophical constructs and the government's powers are structured to recognize and respect those philosophical constructs makes those philosophical constructs "real"

The US government is contractually bound to recognize and respect the rights of the citizen; how can you question / deny this?

Apparently, your personal political allegiances (no doubt to some 20th century philosophical construct that has zero bearing on the foundational principles of the USA) force you to deny the existence of inherent rights . . . But that has no real bearing on how the US government operates or what it recognizes.

It doesnt make them real. It makes them some kind of principle. But the basic idea that there are some body of rights that adhere to a person just because is nonsensical. It is unfounded and non existent.

That's because you're misconstruing the concept. Nothing else.

 

[Abatis]

Yeah but that is unproved and unprovable proposition.
What are the source for these rights?
What do they consist of?
How do we know what they are?
No one can give a credible account of these questions. Thus they do not exist.

That a governmental model is based on the existence of philosophical constructs and the government's powers are structured to recognize and respect those philosophical constructs makes those philosophical constructs "real"

The US government is contractually bound to recognize and respect the rights of the citizen; how can you question / deny this?

Apparently, your personal political allegiances (no doubt to some 20th century philosophical construct that has zero bearing on the foundational principles of the USA) force you to deny the existence of inherent rights . . . But that has no real bearing on how the US government operates or what it recognizes.

It doesnt make them real. It makes them some kind of principle. But the basic idea that there are some body of rights that adhere to a person just because is nonsensical. It is unfounded and non existent.

Real like what, a coin or a bar of gold to be bartered or sold / bought?

"Rights", residing in the philosophical, in the reasoning of humans, makes them intangible, but rights, like you recognize, are a principle that a government is duty bound to honor and conform all its operations to, thus, they certainly are real.

The constitution expressly declares, that the right of acquiring, possessing, and protecting property is natural, inherent, and unalienable. It is a right not ex gratia from the legislature, but ex debito from the constitution. . . VANHORNE'S LESSEE v. DORRANCE, 2 U.S. 304 (1795)



"The rights of life and personal liberty are natural rights of man. 'To secure these rights,' says the Declaration of Independence, 'governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.' The very highest duty of the States, when they entered into the Union under the Constitution, was to protect all persons within their boundaries in the enjoyment of these 'unalienable rights with which they were endowed by their Creator.' " -- U S v. CRUIKSHANK, 92 U.S. 542 (1875)



Men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,-'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness;' and to 'secure,' not grant or create, these rights, governments are instituted. BUDD v. PEOPLE OF STATE OF NEW YORK, 143 U.S. 517 (1892)



The first ten amendments to the Constitution, adopted as they were soon after the adoption of the Constitution, are in the nature of a bill of rights, and were adopted in order to quiet the apprehension of many, that without some such declaration of rights the government would assume, and might be held to possess, the power to trespass upon those rights of persons and property which by the Declaration of Independence were affirmed to be unalienable rights. UNITED STATES v. TWIN CITY POWER CO., 350 U.S. 222 (1956)



"Neither the Bill of Rights nor the specific practices of States at the time of the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment marks the outer limits of the substantive sphere of liberty which the Fourteenth Amendment protects. See U.S. Const., Amdt. 9. As the second Justice Harlan recognized:

'[T]he full scope of the liberty guaranteed by the Due Process Clause cannot be found in or limited by the precise terms of the specific guarantees elsewhere provided in the Constitution. This `liberty´ is not a series of isolated points pricked out in terms of the taking of property; the freedom of speech, press, and religion; the right to keep and bear arms; the freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures; and so on. It is a rational continuum which, broadly speaking, includes a freedom from all substantial arbitrary impositions and purposeless restraints, . . . and which also recognizes, what a reasonable and sensitive judgment must, that certain interests require particularly careful scrutiny of the state needs asserted to justify their abridgment.'" -- CASEY v. PLANNED PARENTHOOD, 505 U.S. 833, 848 (1992)​

"[N]either the Bill of Rights nor the laws of sovereign States create the liberty which the Due Process Clause protects. The relevant constitutional provisions are limitations on the power of the sovereign to infringe on the liberty of the citizen. . . . Of course, law is essential to the exercise and enjoyment of individual liberty in a complex society. But it is not the source of liberty, . . ." -- DENNIS C. VACCO, ATTORNEY GENERAL OF NEW YORK, et al., PETITIONERS v. TIMOTHY E. QUILL et al. No. 95-1858, (1997)



". . . it has always been widely understood that the Second Amendment , like the First and Fourth Amendment s, codified a pre-existing right. The very text of the Second Amendment implicitly recognizes the pre-existence of the right and declares only that it “shall not be infringed.” As we said in United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U. S. 542, 553 (1876) , “[t]his is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The Second amendment declares that it shall not be infringed … .” -- DC V HELLER, 554 U.S. 570 (2008)
​

 

[CrusaderFrank]

A concept that even conservatives get wrong is that government is supposed to secure our rights. That is wrong. Government is supposed to leave our rights alone.

Armed citizens retain their natural rights, unarmed citizens become slaves to a Progressive government

That's a nice platitude. Empty and meaningless but fits nicely on a tee potty bumper sticker.

It's backed up by the past 4,000 years of human history. Every time, no exceptions

 

[Crystalclear]

One natural right people have is the right to self defense. This right exist with or without government.

Totally agree with this one.

Nonsense. In Europe there is no such thing. They hold by the ancient Christian precept that killing is murder. Thus there is no right of self defense as we understand it.
Further, what are the parameters of that right? In America if you know someone is plotting to hurt or kill you you cannot go and hunt that person down. That is considered murder. But in biblical law that is appropriate.

That is one of the only things I do not like about Europe. If you kill people who take you hostage or rob you, you can just be punished as hard as the people who originally committed the crime. What the hell, stand your ground laws have to be created here in Europe. And sorry Christians, but I don't care about Biblical rules. To me is the right to defend yourself one of the most important.

 

[The Rabbi]

That a governmental model is based on the existence of philosophical constructs and the government's powers are structured to recognize and respect those philosophical constructs makes those philosophical constructs "real"

The US government is contractually bound to recognize and respect the rights of the citizen; how can you question / deny this?

Apparently, your personal political allegiances (no doubt to some 20th century philosophical construct that has zero bearing on the foundational principles of the USA) force you to deny the existence of inherent rights . . . But that has no real bearing on how the US government operates or what it recognizes.

It doesnt make them real. It makes them some kind of principle. But the basic idea that there are some body of rights that adhere to a person just because is nonsensical. It is unfounded and non existent.

Real like what, a coin or a bar of gold to be bartered or sold / bought?

"Rights", residing in the philosophical, in the reasoning of humans, makes them intangible, but rights, like you recognize, are a principle that a government is duty bound to honor and conform all its operations to, thus, they certainly are real.



]

No, real is something like, oh patent laws. I can explain what patent laws are. I can show where they come from and what the parameters are.
I cannot do the same with "natural rights." It is fairies and unicorns.

 

[Abatis]

It doesnt make them real. It makes them some kind of principle. But the basic idea that there are some body of rights that adhere to a person just because is nonsensical. It is unfounded and non existent.

Real like what, a coin or a bar of gold to be bartered or sold / bought?

"Rights", residing in the philosophical, in the reasoning of humans, makes them intangible, but rights, like you recognize, are a principle that a government is duty bound to honor and conform all its operations to, thus, they certainly are real.



]

No, real is something like, oh patent laws. I can explain what patent laws are. I can show where they come from and what the parameters are.
I cannot do the same with "natural rights." It is fairies and unicorns.

Rights are everything We the People did not confer to government.

You don't examine the charter through which powers are granted to learn what rights have been excepted out of that contract.

You are merely noting now, (some 226 years late) one of the reasons that adding a bill of rights to the Constitution was so vehemently resisted and argued against as being unnecessary, dangerous and absurd, because the rights of the citizen are impossible to quantify and list.

 

[Wake]

I don't think so. They're not self-evident in nature like apples and crickets. Should humans on Earth all cease to exist, do rights still exist? They don't exist under the scientific microscope, much like religion or concepts. They are all created and perpetuated by humans.

 

[TakeAStepBack]

While I believe in God, I have struggled with the idea that Thomas Jefferson put forth:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Unalienable means (from the net): incapable of being repudiated or transferred to another.

Now, if China chooses to be communist....and forbids your rights, what difference does it make if they can't "repudiate" them (refuse to accept that they exist) ? You still don't get to exercise them....and, in effect, they have been removed.

While recently reading Ezra Taft Benson's talk on the proper role of goverment, he states that the most important function of government is to secure the rights and freedoms of individuals.

Can someone explain to me how we don't have secure rights without government ?

I just don't see it.

That a right is infringed upon doesn't mean they aren't in natural existence. The government's role is not to secure them, they aren't in need of securing from anyone but government, who may take them away. Which is different than infringing upon them. Government's role, then, is to protect the individuals rights WHEN infringement occurs.

 

[TakeAStepBack]

Nobody seems to get this. Jefferson was describing a particular kind of rights, namely innate freedoms that are simply byproducts of our capacity for volition. He was doing this deliberately to distinguish them from privileges that must be granted, that require the service of others. In his view, we don't create government to grant us any rights we don't already have; we create it to protect those we possess naturally as thinking creatures.

An accurate understanding of this concept would go a long way toward clearing up the confusion that leads to incoherent conceptions like a "right" to health care, or other services.

Sent from my GT-P7510 using Tapatalk

If that were true, no one ever had to leave England.

One natural right people have is the right to self defense. This right exist with or without government.

If self defense is a right, so is the fear of falling. You're confusing law with the drives we're born with. Self defense is a drive, an instinct.

I realize you're about as deep as a sidewalk puddle, but what you describe lacks fundamental understanding. The difference between the right to fear of falling, and the right to self defense is in action. IN defense, one is using force to combat the initiation of force for self preservation purposes. Being afraid of falling, as a right, takes no other individual into consideration. It's not even a comparable analogy. Not shocking, of course, Duddley.