If rights, whither from?

[Smartt33]

So one's right to live can never be infringed, but so be it if the State decides they should die...

So, ever single person here who claims 'natural rights' exist has to base them on metaphysics and superstition; not a single one can meet the OP's challenge.

If they exist, why can't anyone show it?

OK, I'll play the game. Lets say that after death there is nothing. We are all going to die one way or another, and after that we don't need any rights, right? So that means that while we are alive we still have every right that I said we have, including the ones in the DOI. And all of them are inalienable rights.

Our right to life would naturally only last as long as we are alive, and we will all die, so none of us have a right to eternal life right? The person doesn't take our right to life away from us, they just take out life, let's just stay out of the way of idiot's bullets.

 

[JBeukema]

after that we don't need any rights, right?

So says you.

The vast majority of humanity disagrees- hence the social contract and the emergence of legal rights.

So that means that while we are alive we still have every right that I said we have

In no way does that follow from the previous statement.

 

[Intense]

They always end up back at religion...

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRGCuvrXr9Q]YouTube - THE ALLMAN BROTHERS [ BACK TO WHERE ALL BEGINS ] LIVE.[/ame]

 

[editec]

Naturally a mythical beleif in rights requires a mythical believe in the supernatural to support that argument.

This debate leads to nothing other than that.

 

[Intense]

Naturally a mythical beleif in rights requires a mythical believe in the supernatural to support that argument.

This debate leads to nothing other than that.

The Inalienable Right to Reason, Thought, Vision, Imagination. You are starting to get it!

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWyeVfuolT4]YouTube - Mr. Mister - Broken Wings[/ame]

 

[Intense]

Thomas Jefferson on Politics & Government





1. Inalienable Rights


The government of the United States is the result of a revolution in thought. It was founded on the principle that all persons have equal rights, and that government is responsible to, and derives its powers from, a free people. To Jefferson and the other Founding Fathers, these ideas were not just a passing intellectual fad, but a recognition of something inherent in the nature of man itself. The very foundation of government, therefore, rests on the inalienable rights of the people and of each individual composing their mass. The Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson, is the fundamental statement of what government is and from what source it derives its powers. It begins with a summary of those inalienable rights that are the self-evident basis for a free society and for all the powers to protect those rights that a just government exercises.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with inherent and inalienable rights; that among these, are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness." --Declaration of Independence as originally written by Thomas Jefferson, 1776. ME 1:29, Papers 1:315
"[Our] principles [are] founded on the immovable basis of equal right and reason." --Thomas Jefferson to James Sullivan, 1797. ME 9:379

"An equal application of law to every condition of man is fundamental." --Thomas Jefferson to George Hay, 1807. ME 11:341

"The most sacred of the duties of a government [is] to do equal and impartial justice to all its citizens." --Thomas Jefferson: Note in Destutt de Tracy, "Political Economy," 1816. ME 14:465

"To unequal privileges among members of the same society the spirit of our nation is, with one accord, adverse." --Thomas Jefferson to Hugh White, 1801. ME 10:258

"In America, no other distinction between man and man had ever been known but that of persons in office exercising powers by authority of the laws, and private individuals. Among these last, the poorest laborer stood on equal ground with the wealthiest millionaire, and generally on a more favored one whenever their rights seem to jar." --Thomas Jefferson: Answers to de Meusnier Questions, 1786. ME 17:8

"Of distinction by birth or badge, [Americans] had no more idea than they had of the mode of existence in the moon or planets. They had heard only that there were such, and knew that they must be wrong." --Thomas Jefferson: Answers to de Meusnier Questions, 1786. ME 17:89

"[The] best principles [of our republic] secure to all its citizens a perfect equality of rights." --Thomas Jefferson: Reply to the Citizens of Wilmington, 1809. ME 16:336


The Nature and Source of Our Rights
"The principles on which we engaged, of which the charter of our independence is the record, were sanctioned by the laws of our being, and we but obeyed them in pursuing undeviatingly the course they called for. It issued finally in that inestimable state of freedom which alone can ensure to man the enjoyment of his equal rights." --Thomas Jefferson to Georgetown Republicans, 1809. ME 16:349

"Man [is] a rational animal, endowed by nature with rights and with an innate sense of justice." --Thomas Jefferson to William Johnson, 1823. ME 15:441

"A free people [claim] their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate." --Thomas Jefferson: Rights of British America, 1774. ME 1:209, Papers 1:134

"Under the law of nature, all men are born free, every one comes into the world with a right to his own person, which includes the liberty of moving and using it at his own will. This is what is called personal liberty, and is given him by the Author of nature, because necessary for his own sustenance." --Thomas Jefferson: Legal Argument, 1770. FE 1:376

"What is true of every member of the society, individually, is true of them all collectively; since the rights of the whole can be no more than the sum of the rights of the individuals." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1789. ME 7:455, Papers 15:393

"Nothing... is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man." --Thomas Jefferson to John Cartwright, 1824. ME 16:48

"The evidence of [the] natural right [of expatriation], like that of our right to life, liberty, the use of our faculties, the pursuit of happiness, is not left to the feeble and sophistical investigations of reason, but is impressed on the sense of every man. We do not claim these under the charters of kings or legislators, but under the King of Kings." --Thomas Jefferson to John Manners, 1817. ME 15:124

"Natural rights [are] the objects for the protection of which society is formed and municipal laws established." --Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 1797. ME 9:422

"Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath?" --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia Q.XVIII, 1782. ME 2:227

"Questions of natural right are triable by their conformity with the moral sense and reason of man." --Thomas Jefferson: Opinion on French Treaties, 1793. ME 3:235

"It is a principle that the right to a thing gives a right to the means without which it could not be used, that is to say, that the means follow their end." --Thomas Jefferson: --Thomas Jefferson: Report on Navigation of the Mississippi, 1792. ME 3:180

"The right to use a thing comprehends a right to the means necessary to its use, and without which it would be useless." --Thomas Jefferson to William Carmichael, 1790. ME 8:72

"The Declaration of Independence... [is the] declaratory charter of our rights, and of the rights of man." --Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Adams Wells, 1819. ME 15:200

"Some other natural rights... [have] not yet entered into any declaration of rights." --Thomas Jefferson to John W. Eppes, 1813. ME 13:272

"I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties." --Thomas Jefferson: Reply to Danbury Baptists, 1802. ME 16:282


The Right to Life and Liberty
"The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time; the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them." --Thomas Jefferson: Rights of British America, 1774. ME 1:211, Papers 1:135

"Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plenitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law,' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual." --Thomas Jefferson to Isaac H. Tiffany, 1819.

"That liberty [is pure] which is to go to all, and not to the few or the rich alone." --Thomas Jefferson to Horatio Gates, 1798. ME 9:441

"In a government bottomed on the will of all, the life and liberty of every individual citizen becomes interesting to all." --Thomas Jefferson: 5th Annual Message, 1805. ME 3:390

"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it." --Thomas Jefferson to Archibald Stuart, 1791. ME 8:276

"Being myself a warm zealot for the attainment and enjoyment by all mankind of as much liberty as each may exercise without injury to the equal liberty of his fellow citizens, I have lamented that... the endeavors to obtain this should have been attended with the effusion of so much blood." --Thomas Jefferson to Jean Nicholas Demeunier, 1795. FE 7:13


The Pursuit of Happiness
"The Giver of life gave it for happiness and not for wretchedness." --Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 1782. ME 4:196, Papers 6:186

"If [God] has made it a law in the nature of man to pursue his own happiness, He has left him free in the choice of place as well as mode, and we may safely call on the whole body of English jurists to produce the map on which nature has traced for each individual the geographical line which she forbids him to cross in pursuit of happiness." --Thomas Jefferson to John Manners, 1817. ME 15:124

"Perfect happiness, I believe, was never intended by the Deity to be the lot of one of his creatures in this world; but that he has very much put in our power the nearness of our approaches to it, is what I as steadfastly believe." --Thomas Jefferson to John Page, 1763. ME 4:10, Papers 1:10

"The freedom and happiness of man... [are] the sole objects of all legitimate government." --Thomas Jefferson to Thaddeus Kosciusko, 1810. ME 12:369

"[It is a] great truth that industry, commerce and security are the surest roads to the happiness and prosperity of [a] people." --Thomas Jefferson to Francisco Chiappe, 1789. Papers 15:405

"The only orthodox object of the institution of government is to secure the greatest degree of happiness possible to the general mass of those associated under it." --Thomas Jefferson to M. van der Kemp, 1812. ME 13:135

"I sincerely pray that all the members of the human family may, in the time prescribed by the Father of us all, find themselves securely established in the enjoyment of life, liberty, and happiness." --Thomas Jefferson: Reply to Ellicot Thomas, et al., 1807. ME 16:290

Jefferson on Politics & Government: Inalienable Rights

 

[konradv]

... legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property... Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions or property in geometrical progression as they rise. Whenever there are in any country uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right.
Thomas Jefferson (in a letter to James Madison), 1785

While it is a moot question whether the origin of any kind of property is derived from Nature at all ... it is considered by those who have seriously considered the subject, that no one has, of natural right, a separate property in an acre of land ... Stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is given late in the progress of society.
Thomas Jefferson

 

[Intense]

... legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property... Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions or property in geometrical progression as they rise. Whenever there are in any country uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right.
Thomas Jefferson (in a letter to James Madison), 1785

While it is a moot question whether the origin of any kind of property is derived from Nature at all ... it is considered by those who have seriously considered the subject, that no one has, of natural right, a separate property in an acre of land ... Stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is given late in the progress of society.
Thomas Jefferson

The Second Treatise of Civil Government
1690

John Locke
1632-1704


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Introduction
CHAP. I.
CHAP. II. Of the State of Nature.
CHAP. III. Of the State of War.
CHAP. IV. Of Slavery.
CHAP. V. Of Property.
CHAP. VI. Of Paternal Power.
CHAP. VII. Of Political or Civil Society.
CHAP. VIII. Of the Beginning of Political Societies.
CHAP. IX. Of the Ends of Political Society and Government.
CHAP. X. Of the Forms of a Common-wealth.
CHAP. XI. Of the Extent of the Legislative Power.
CHAP. XII. Of the Legislative, Executive, and Federative Power of the Common-wealth.
CHAP. XIII. Of the Subordination of the Powers of the Common-wealth.
CHAP. XIV. Of Prerogative.
CHAP. XV. Of Paternal, Political, and Despotical Power, considered together.
CHAP. XVI. Of Conquest.
CHAP. XVII. Of Usurpation.
CHAP. XVIII. Of Tyranny.
CHAP. XIX. Of the Dissolution of Government.

John Locke: Second Treatise of Civil Government

 

[Intense]

Should Our Government ever decide to protect Us from All Enemies, Foreign and Domestic, including both Corporate and Government Interest, deciding to put the Principle and reason for It's being, above the Mechanism Itself, We will All be better off.

 

[antagon]

the real world has kept me out of this discussion....

Actually, if self-determination is a condition and creatures possessing it will have to make the types of actions conditional to it of their own volition, then they cannot be forced to act. At all. It's not possible.

that's right, but this logic to follow is absolutely shocking. it might offer some insight into your issues understanding natural rights:

Else, if they can be forced to act, then they did not act in accordance with their free will, thereby refuting the claim that elf-determination is a condition and creatures possessing it will have to make the types of actions conditional to it of their own volition.

describe a natural circumstance (precluding fantastical concepts like mind control) where action which we can be certain is not autonomous - say tilling a field - can be done by way of this 'forced to act'.

actions are their say, their right, their natural right

To assert that x necessarily does something in accordance with its nature (that such is a trait of x) doesn't demonstrate x's 'right' to do such a thing. It merely means x will do it as a necessary aspect of its character.

X will do what it does because it is necessarily a part of its nature, of what makes it x.

but that is what i've described above. natural - by way its nature. a right because rather than merely being able to take an action - which digresses to your failed argument on ability - that that action can't be determined naturally by any other party than the actor, if it is a non-autonomous action.

Nice job highlighting the social contract. But showing that it [is a slave's] decision to accept his lot rather than be shot does not demonstrate his 'natural right'.

yes it does, fundamentally. accepting his lot entails action to comply with his master which requires his free will - not the master's alone. like i said, a master that fails to recognize the fragility of his 'control' or the fleeting nature of coersion of natural rights in his contract is naive.

Or maybe you've forgotten that even under the systems you people craft, there is still the need for coercion and the maintaining of order.

c'mon, buddy; keep up. that has been the point of natural rights as a concept for hundreds of years and the point that i have made on this thread. perhaps you're just coming around to notice as much?

"the systems you people craft"

 

[antagon]

Here are our unalienable rights (along with life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness) which are only mentioned in the DOI.

what about hate, anger, war, etc.... i believe we have natural rights to actions far beyond our feelings alone, and that there are degrees of alienability which can impact all of them to varied extents. i certainly disagree that our rights are all rose-tinted as your list indicates.

I am glad you asked. We do have a right to those things, and we can harbor them in our hearts. However, rather than being rights, and unlike the Fruit of the Spirit, many discover that hate, anger, and the craving for war are more like masters in our life than freedoms. We become slaved to them.

i'll accept that. the challenge of our world is our free will and how we use it as individuals and a society, and how we qualify good and evil for those purposes.

something tells me, perhaps history and wisdom itself, that characterizing love as liberating and anger as enslaving is errant. there is far more granular detail to the decisions that individuals and societies have to make which could put war and love, peace and hate on either side of good and evil. ultimately, i dont think we should endeavor to eat Fruit all day, just as i'd not advise we eat fruit all day.

 

[JBeukema]

the real world has kept me out of this discussion....

Actually, if self-determination is a condition and creatures possessing it will have to make the types of actions conditional to it of their own volition, then they cannot be forced to act. At all. It's not possible.

that's right, but this logic to follow is absolutely shocking. it might offer some insight into your issues understanding natural rights

That I'm right offers incite into my being right?

It's 'shocking'? So was the existence of germs to some people. But you just said yourself that it's right.

Still going on about one's natural right to be chattle?

 

[Liberty]

Rights come from a creator. This is because humans can not give rights to other humans, it must be inalienable. Whether it is christian god, muslim god, or whoever, it doesnt matter because a belief that human rights are above human power to ordain, means they are also above human power to remove, which is the foundation for locke's definition of liberty.

 

[JBeukema]

Rights come from a creator. This is because humans can not give rights to other humans, it must be inalienable.

They can't?


So when rights were given to women and blacks...?

 

[antagon]

the real world has kept me out of this discussion....

Actually, if self-determination is a condition and creatures possessing it will have to make the types of actions conditional to it of their own volition, then they cannot be forced to act. At all. It's not possible.

that's right, but this logic to follow is absolutely shocking. it might offer some insight into your issues understanding natural rights

That I'm right offers incite into my being right?

It's 'shocking'? So was the existence of germs to some people. But you just said yourself that it's right.

Still going on about one's natural right to be chattle?

its been a while so i'll give you a pass. here is the original context. i'm 'right', you were attempting to make a lame argument to the contrary:

the philosophy around natural rights dictates that self-determination is a condition. creatures possessing it will have to make the types of actions conditional to it of their own volition. by virtue of that, they cant be made to do anything but through coercion or threat of force, etc.

Actually, if self-determination is a condition and creatures possessing it will have to make the types of actions conditional to it of their own volition, then they cannot be forced to act. At all. It's not possible. Else, if they can be forced to act, then they did not act in accordance with their free will, thereby refuting the claim that elf-determination is a condition and creatures possessing it will have to make the types of actions conditional to it of their own volition.

shocking in the brit sense, beukema, ie horrible, not 'surprising'. 'to follow' in the logical sense, beukema, like after, not directly preceding.

well, can you propose a scenario for this 'forced to act' bit or is this yet another argument of yours which has seen an early demise?

 

[JBeukema]

You destroyed your own argument by talking about someone being forced to do something then admitting that they can't be forced to do anything- then you tried to once again conflate ability and rights- and now you're climing victory?





21 pages and you still keep going back in circles. How much bandwidth do you intend to waste?

 

[antagon]

no, dummy, i've spent this whole time indicating that acting under threat of force is still exercising free will. i've said that self-determined action must be determined by the actor by nature - a right to act which nothing or nobody could intercept.

i guess you forfeit your argument opposing this condition which is fundamental to natural rights philosophy?