Lonestar_logic
Republic of Texas
- May 13, 2009
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Natural rights?
Show me one that any idiot with a gun cannot take away from YOU.
Religious freedom.
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Natural rights?
Show me one that any idiot with a gun cannot take away from YOU.
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.
Although inalienable, our rights are not absolute, and are subject to reasonable restrictions by government (see, e.g., Clark v. Community for Creative Non-Violence (1984), restricting the right to freedom of assembly.)
In the United States the Constitution codifies our rights in the context of its case law, placing limits on the extent to which government may indeed restrict our rights.
It is this balance between the rights of the individual and the authority of government, both subject to the rule of law, which safeguards our civil liberties.
The Constitution clearly affords Congress powers both enumerated and implied (McCulloch v. Maryland (1819)), and the people clearly intended and authorized government to form a more perfect Union, through laws and measures enacted pursuant to the Constitution and its case law.
The issue, therefore, is not “[g]overnment is supposed to leave our rights alone,” rather, it’s the doctrine of judicial review which acknowledges the right of the people to petition the government for a redress of grievances by filing suit in Federal court and compelling government to justify its efforts to place restrictions on citizens’ civil liberties, and when the government fails to justify those restrictions, the restrictions are invalidated.
The ‘the proper role of government,' consequently, is whatever the people and the courts determine it to be, through the democratic process and elections, or through the process of judicial review in the courts, and often times and ideally, both.
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.
Although inalienable, our rights are not absolute, and are subject to reasonable restrictions by government (see, e.g., Clark v. Community for Creative Non-Violence (1984), restricting the right to freedom of assembly.)
In the United States the Constitution codifies our rights in the context of its case law, placing limits on the extent to which government may indeed restrict our rights.
It is this balance between the rights of the individual and the authority of government, both subject to the rule of law, which safeguards our civil liberties.
The Constitution clearly affords Congress powers both enumerated and implied (McCulloch v. Maryland (1819)), and the people clearly intended and authorized government to form a more perfect Union, through laws and measures enacted pursuant to the Constitution and its case law.
The issue, therefore, is not [g]overnment is supposed to leave our rights alone, rather, its the doctrine of judicial review which acknowledges the right of the people to petition the government for a redress of grievances by filing suit in Federal court and compelling government to justify its efforts to place restrictions on citizens civil liberties, and when the government fails to justify those restrictions, the restrictions are invalidated.
The the proper role of government,' consequently, is whatever the people and the courts determine it to be, through the democratic process and elections, or through the process of judicial review in the courts, and often times and ideally, both.
The proper role of government was determined by God from the beginning. Once again, you can be counted on to make academic baby talk with no real understanding about the realities of human nature and the imperatives of liberty.
This government is teetering on the brink of fascism because of thugs like you. Any human being with an IQ above that of a gnat and a respectable sense of morality can see that. And besides, you're a liar. Every classical liberal--conservative and libertarian--on this board knows you have absolutely no respect for the construct of inalienable rights anyway. And certainly I have shown time and time again how you routinely and recklessly confound the distinction between ratio decidendi and mere obiter dicta in case law, curiously enough, in favor of increasing government power in new and startling ways that would utterly destroy the entire enterprise of the Bill of Rights . . . except for leftists.
You're especially hostile to the inalienable rights of Christians; indeed, you're quite the fanatic in that regard, always imagining that the free exercise of the Christian's religion constitutes some kind of imposition on you and your ilk. You're quite unhinged, intellectually and morally. You're a bootlicking statist itchin' to get your Sieg Heil! on.
Although inalienable, our rights are not absolute, and are subject to reasonable restrictions by government (see, e.g., Clark v. Community for Creative Non-Violence (1984), restricting the right to freedom of assembly.)
In the United States the Constitution codifies our rights in the context of its case law, placing limits on the extent to which government may indeed restrict our rights.
It is this balance between the rights of the individual and the authority of government, both subject to the rule of law, which safeguards our civil liberties.
The Constitution clearly affords Congress powers both enumerated and implied (McCulloch v. Maryland (1819)), and the people clearly intended and authorized government to form a more perfect Union, through laws and measures enacted pursuant to the Constitution and its case law.
The issue, therefore, is not [g]overnment is supposed to leave our rights alone, rather, its the doctrine of judicial review which acknowledges the right of the people to petition the government for a redress of grievances by filing suit in Federal court and compelling government to justify its efforts to place restrictions on citizens civil liberties, and when the government fails to justify those restrictions, the restrictions are invalidated.
The the proper role of government,' consequently, is whatever the people and the courts determine it to be, through the democratic process and elections, or through the process of judicial review in the courts, and often times and ideally, both.
The proper role of government was determined by God from the beginning. Once again, you can be counted on to make academic baby talk with no real understanding about the realities of human nature and the imperatives of liberty.
This government is teetering on the brink of fascism because of thugs like you. Any human being with an IQ above that of a gnat and a respectable sense of morality can see that. And besides, you're a liar. Every classical liberal--conservative and libertarian--on this board knows you have absolutely no respect for the construct of inalienable rights anyway. And certainly I have shown time and time again how you routinely and recklessly confound the distinction between ratio decidendi and mere obiter dicta in case law, curiously enough, in favor of increasing government power in new and startling ways that would utterly destroy the entire enterprise of the Bill of Rights . . . except for leftists.
You're especially hostile to the inalienable rights of Christians; indeed, you're quite the fanatic in that regard, always imagining that the free exercise of the Christian's religion constitutes some kind of imposition on you and your ilk. You're quite unhinged, intellectually and morally. You're a bootlicking statist itchin' to get your Sieg Heil! on.
And if God isn't real then................................
napkin
The proper role of government was determined by God from the beginning. Once again, you can be counted on to make academic baby talk with no real understanding about the realities of human nature and the imperatives of liberty.
This government is teetering on the brink of fascism because of thugs like you. Any human being with an IQ above that of a gnat and a respectable sense of morality can see that. And besides, you're a liar. Every classical liberal--conservative and libertarian--on this board knows you have absolutely no respect for the construct of inalienable rights anyway. And certainly I have shown time and time again how you routinely and recklessly confound the distinction between ratio decidendi and mere obiter dicta in case law, curiously enough, in favor of increasing government power in new and startling ways that would utterly destroy the entire enterprise of the Bill of Rights . . . except for leftists.
You're especially hostile to the inalienable rights of Christians; indeed, you're quite the fanatic in that regard, always imagining that the free exercise of the Christian's religion constitutes some kind of imposition on you and your ilk. You're quite unhinged, intellectually and morally. You're a bootlicking statist itchin' to get your Sieg Heil! on.
And if God isn't real then................................
napkin
Oh, but God does exist, and only fools doubt that obvious and first fact of reality................................
judgment
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.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.
]
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.
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.
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.
Why is it unprovable? Can you show me one example of a government ever giving anyone life?
Huh?
What is unprovable is that such rights exist at all.
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.
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.
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If that were true, no one ever had to leave England.
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.One natural right people have is the right to self defense. This right exist with or without government.
Natural rights?
Show me one that any idiot with a gun cannot take away from YOU.
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.
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.
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.
If they are impossible to quantify and list then they effectively do not exist. Anyone can claim anything is a right and there is nothing to say it isn't.
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.
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Why is it unprovable? Can you show me one example of a government ever giving anyone life?
Huh?
What is unprovable is that such rights exist at all.
Except that life, obviously, does exist. In order for anyone to prove that such a life is not inherent in an individual you will have to demonstrate that the source of that life is in the control of an entity outside that individual. That is pretty easy if you assume that God is the source of all rights, but that still puts the source outside the control of man, society, or government.
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.
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Please explain what we don't get.
I was asking the question in the OP....
My question, and it certainly seems to be a point of disagreement, is.....
If I have rights, but can't exercise them (i.e. if I were living in China), then do I really have them ? To say they are natural is only to demand that government not touch them (and I do agree with this position...the problem is that once a majority of people don't agree...it no longer matters....look at Obamacare) and to be prepared to revolt if they do.
If we say that rights come from God, then what is God doing to secure them ?
If God is relying on us to put the right government in place, then he is saying they are only in place as long as you care for them.
It does become something of a circular argument.
My feeling is that people need to establish, for themselves, where they believe they come from and then act accordingly.
You might say that both sides converge once the air clears, but on this I disagree. If you are a conservative, then you absolutely believe that you have to allow maximum freedoms at the proper level of government even if you don't agree with peoples choices.
I will accept the rules that you feel necessary to your freedom. I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.
When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know, the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything -- you can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him.
Huh?
What is unprovable is that such rights exist at all.
Except that life, obviously, does exist. In order for anyone to prove that such a life is not inherent in an individual you will have to demonstrate that the source of that life is in the control of an entity outside that individual. That is pretty easy if you assume that God is the source of all rights, but that still puts the source outside the control of man, society, or government.
Life certainly exists. Life certainly is inherent in the individual. But life itself grants no rights to anyone and people have their lives taken away all the time, sometimes in the most unjust, egregious or even random manner.
God is not the source of rights. How could it be? Where are those rights communicated? How?
Seriously? That's your answer? I'll just take that as a "I really have no idea what I mean as I never considered it before."Except that life, obviously, does exist. In order for anyone to prove that such a life is not inherent in an individual you will have to demonstrate that the source of that life is in the control of an entity outside that individual. That is pretty easy if you assume that God is the source of all rights, but that still puts the source outside the control of man, society, or government.
Life certainly exists. Life certainly is inherent in the individual. But life itself grants no rights to anyone and people have their lives taken away all the time, sometimes in the most unjust, egregious or even random manner.
God is not the source of rights. How could it be? Where are those rights communicated? How?
The fact that everyone dies in no way changes the fact that they live. In fact, life is part of death because, without death, we would all be screwed.
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.