What are your rights?

[LoneLaugher]

As I pointed out, "rights" are something you had simply by being human. They aren't something anybody has to work to give you. In fact, they only "work" other people find they have to do, is when they try to violate your rights.

If someone has to do work to "provide you your right" to something, then it probably wasn't a real "right" in the first place.

A notable exception, is the right to trial by jury. There, when you are accused of something, others have to come and sit in judgment of you. This is done so that a remote and uncaring government (the only kind there is) won't have a monopoly on judging you. While criminal pursuit and prosecution is a legitimate government function, final judgment in any important matter is reserved to "We the People", not the government.

But that aside, all people need to do to "provide you your rights", is leave you alone. Anything they "must" participate in, probably isn't a right in the first place.

Gee! It is just so simple! Simple rocks!

 

[Little-Acorn]

All of our rights stem from that fundamental right.

“The right to be left alone—the most comprehensive of rights, and the right most valued by a free people.”—Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, Olmstead v. U.S., 277 U.S. 438 (1928)

 

[thereisnospoon]

As usual? I have between 90 and 100 posts and I think this is the second thread I've seen you on. How can you then say, "as usual."?

I wish this paint my house jerk would start running with scissors.

You wish for a lot of things little friend, and very few of them will happen. Don't say you weren't warned.

You issuing warnings is as amusing as when the kid who got his ass kicked on a daily basis would scream "I'm gonna get you"..
Just to clear up a few things....I am not "little"...And you and will never be friends.
In fact you are my enemy.
Go stick that in your pipe and smoke it.
In fact, just put me on ignore. I'd be devastated.
Here's your scissors.

 

[thereisnospoon]

Then what was I doing?

CR, I suggest you not bother feeding the trolls.

I've been a member of USMB for over seven years. In that time, I've put up slightly more than 2,000 posts. I try to make them thoughtful, relevant, and well-supported.

Little housepainter has been a member for less than 30 days... and has already put up more posts than I have.

His posts invariably support whatever big-govt theme is being discussed at the moment, and mostly consist of less than one line each.

If you're looking for thoughtful discussion... you should probably keep looking.

See http://www.usmessageboard.com/members/paintmyhouse.html , click on "Statistics"

If he wants thoughtful discussion he should read a book. This is Internet Debate. Grab your balls and play, or take your ball and go home to mommy. Got it?

Keep it up, Mr Combative..
You'll screw up and get yourself kicked out of here.

 

[PaintMyHouse]

CR, I suggest you not bother feeding the trolls.

I've been a member of USMB for over seven years. In that time, I've put up slightly more than 2,000 posts. I try to make them thoughtful, relevant, and well-supported.

Little housepainter has been a member for less than 30 days... and has already put up more posts than I have.

His posts invariably support whatever big-govt theme is being discussed at the moment, and mostly consist of less than one line each.

If you're looking for thoughtful discussion... you should probably keep looking.

See http://www.usmessageboard.com/members/paintmyhouse.html , click on "Statistics"

If he wants thoughtful discussion he should read a book. This is Internet Debate. Grab your balls and play, or take your ball and go home to mommy. Got it?

Keep it up, Mr Combative..
You'll screw up and get yourself kicked out of here.

You wish, and I know that you do, but I've been on these boards for more than a decade. Don't worry your pretty little head.

 

[CorvusRexus]

If he wants thoughtful discussion he should read a book. This is Internet Debate. Grab your balls and play, or take your ball and go home to mommy. Got it?

Keep it up, Mr Combative..
You'll screw up and get yourself kicked out of here.

You wish, and I know that you do, but I've been on these boards for more than a decade. Don't worry your pretty little head.

Feb 2014. Has someone been making multiple accounts?

 

[Votto]

What are my rights? I suppose what is given to me. My life was given to me, so existing is a right. Then when I came to understand the world around me, whatever tyrant/leader is above me tells me what the rest of my rights are. I can then either agree or fight them.

 

[PaintMyHouse]

Keep it up, Mr Combative..
You'll screw up and get yourself kicked out of here.

You wish, and I know that you do, but I've been on these boards for more than a decade. Don't worry your pretty little head.

Feb 2014. Has someone been making multiple accounts?

Boards, not this board little moron.

 

[bripat9643]

You wish, and I know that you do, but I've been on these boards for more than a decade. Don't worry your pretty little head.

Feb 2014. Has someone been making multiple accounts?

Boards, not this board little moron.

You've already blown your cover, sock.

 

[PaintMyHouse]

Feb 2014. Has someone been making multiple accounts?

Boards, not this board little moron.

You've already blown your cover, sock.

Even on other boards you were stupid and thought you knew what you didn't. Time hasn't changed you a bit and this board has just as many reactionary morons as the others.

Learn how the Internet works BTW. If I were a sock, the Mods would know. They don't base it on what you think you know, which is less than zero.

 

[Little-Acorn]

Something I wrote years ago. As valid today as it was then.... if not more.

What Are Our "Rights"?

You hear an awful lot about our "rights" these days. And justly so-- our rights, in this country, are our most valuable possession, outside of life itself. And some people say that our basic rights, are even more important than life. When Patrick Henry defiantly told the British government during colonial times, "Give me liberty or give me death!", he was stating that he considered a life without liberty, to be worse than no life at all (death).

So, what are our rights?

The Declaration of Independence mentions a few, and implies that there are others. So does the Constitution-- in fact, it names many, and categorically states that those aren't the only rights people have.

The Declaration says that among our rights, are "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness". It also says that these were given to us "by [our] Creator". Take that as you will, depending on whatever religious outlook you hold. But one of the implications is that, wherever our rights came from, they were NOT granted us by government, or by our fellow men at all. We had them long before government existed. And these various government documents simply say that government cannot take them away or interfere with them.

Here we refer, of course, only to normal law-abiding citizens. The Constitution contains the phrase "except by due course of law" in many places. If you rob someone, assault him, destroy his property, murder him etc., then you can legitimately be deprived of liberty (you go to jail), property (you get fined), or even life in some extreme cases (Death Penalty). Outside of such lawbreaking, your rights are held inviolate.

But today, our "rights" seem to be multiplying without end. This is not necessarily bad-- as we said, rights are extremely valuable. But, are we getting ahead of ourselves, granting to ourselves so many things under the name of "rights"?

"Old Rights"

Some are pretty indisputable, such as the ones mentioned in the Declaration. The ones mentioned in the Constitution, especially in the first ten Amendments (which was even called the "Bill of Rights" by its authors), are similarly vital... though they seem to be undergoing a methodical erosion. Freedom of religion, right to peaceably assemble, freedom of speech and of the press, the right to keep and bear arms, etc. all are very basic, and it is scary to think of trying to exist in a country in which any of these do not exist.

New "rights"

But lately we have heard about other "rights", such as the right to work, the right to decent medical treatment, the right to a decent standard of living. These all sound salutary-- what kind of society would we have, if working for a living were forbidden, decent health care were forbidden, etc.?

But there is a big gap between "forbidden" and "compulsory". The rights found in the country's founding documents, are compulsory, to the extent that we all have them whether we want them or not (who wouldn't want them?), and no one can take them away.

What about, say, the right to decent medical treatment? Those who favor this "right", point out that they don't necessarily mean the rare, exotic, super-expensive treatments; nor "elective" procedures such as cosmetic liposuction or a luxury suite in the hospital. They usually mean that, if you get sick or injured, you have the "right" to have a doctor look at you, make sure the problem isn't unusually dangerous, and administer the routine treatments needed to help you on the way back to good health. An absence of such routine treatment, could occasionally put your life in peril, obviously-- a simple broken bone could lead to infection if untreated, and possibly far more. But there are differences between the "Old Rights", as we've called the ones in the founding documents, and these "New 'Rights'".

Your "right to life" protects something that no man gave you-- you simply had it, from the day you were born. Nobody had to go to extraordinary effort to create it for you, outside of natural processes that move forward on their own without deliberate effort or guidance by humans, government, etc.

Same with the "right to liberty". You were your own man, as it were, the day you were born. Nobody had to go to special effort to create that status for you. In fact, they would have had to go to considerable effort to take those things away, by deliberately coming to you and killing you; or by building a jail and imprisoning you etc. If they leave you alone, you have life and liberty, and can pursue happiness. They have to work at it to deprive you of those things.

The Difference in the "New 'Rights'"

But this isn't the case with what we've called "New 'Rights'". In order for you to get the kind of routine medical treatment its advocates describe, somebody has to stop what he is doing and perform work for you-- the doctor who examines you, the clerk who sets up your appointment, the people who built the office or hospital where you get treatment.

If this routine medical treatment is to be called a "right" on par with our "Old Rights", doesn't that mean that you must be given it when needed? And doesn't it follow, then, that others must be compelled to do the normal things needed to treat you?

Uh-oh.

How does this compulsion upon those others (doctors, clerks etc.) fit in with THEIR rights? They "have" to treat you? What if their schedules are full-- do they have to bump another patient to make room for you? What if they were spending precious quality time with their families-- do they have to abandon their own kids, to fulfill your "right" to treatment that only they can give? Doesn't this fit the description of "involuntary servitude"?

This is an important difference between the rights envisioned by the country's founders, and the new "rights" advocated by more modern pundits. In order to secure your "old rights", people merely had to leave you alone... do nothing to bother you. in fact, they were required to. But these new so-called "rights", required that people go out of their way to actively contribute to you.

And that "requirement", in fact violates THEIR rights-- specifically, their right to liberty. They must be left free to live their lives as THEY chose-- free from compulsion to come and help you out. If they want to help you, that's fine-- often it's the decent and moral thing to do. But they cannot be forced to help you, no matter how much you need the help.

These new "rights", are in fact not rights at all. They are obligations upon others, imposed on them without their agreement or consent.

Beware of announcements that you have the "right" to this or that. Ask yourself if this "right", forces someone else to do something for you, that he didn't previously agree to. If it does, it's not a "right" possessed by you. It's an attempt by the announcer, to force others into servitude... an attempt, in fact, to violate the others' rights.

 

[frigidweirdo]

Seems that the rights of americans amount to the right to insult and play silly little games, seeing as this is mainly what goes on when people talk politics.

 

[CorvusRexus]

You wish, and I know that you do, but I've been on these boards for more than a decade. Don't worry your pretty little head.

Feb 2014. Has someone been making multiple accounts?

Boards, not this board little moron.

My apologies, I misread your post.

 

[KNB]

You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to an attorney.

When the leading GOP candidate states plainly on national television that the USAPATRIOT Act must be repealed in its entirety for serious Constitutional violations, then maybe the GOP can claim to want to restore our rights. The same applies to the Democrats. Obama was supposed to change that garbage, but he just renewed it like Bush 3.

Make that be your campaign this time around, Republicans. "Repeal the PATRIOT Act."

 

[MaryL]

Rights are what the current state's popular opinion allows us to have. There isn't anything transcendent here. Yes? You want the "right" to smoke marijuana or own a firearm. Poof, ya got it, in this fleeting theater of the absurd. You want the "rights" to marry someone of the same sex, coming right up! Like eggs over easy. Sunny side up. Bitch long enough, and buy enough lawyers, you can buy anything . No wonder the Muslims hate us. They hate us. They crash planes into us . Then they want the Sharia law. Yeah. Right. And the gay marriage thing…right. Illegal aliens? How many of people in America are descendants of LEGAL immigrants? They learned English and acclimated to the culture. We are a culture of Immigrants, Yes. Then is American culture attacked by Islam on 9/11. Islam, gays and illegal aliens. Not buying this . It is an attack on America culture. Give it a second thought. It deserves a little thought . My great grand parents from wherever never came here illegally or threaten to hurt anyone or didn’t expect America to change to fit THEM. Nope, never happened.

 

[Little-Acorn]

Something I wrote years ago. As valid today as it was then.... if not more.

What Are Our "Rights"?

You hear an awful lot about our "rights" these days. And justly so-- our rights, in this country, are our most valuable possession, outside of life itself. And some people say that our basic rights, are even more important than life. When Patrick Henry defiantly told the British government during colonial times, "Give me liberty or give me death!", he was stating that he considered a life without liberty, to be worse than no life at all (death).

So, what are our rights?

The Declaration of Independence mentions a few, and implies that there are others. So does the Constitution-- in fact, it names many, and categorically states that those aren't the only rights people have.

The Declaration says that among our rights, are "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness". It also says that these were given to us "by [our] Creator". Take that as you will, depending on whatever religious outlook you hold. But one of the implications is that, wherever our rights came from, they were NOT granted us by government, or by our fellow men at all. We had them long before government existed. And these various government documents simply say that government cannot take them away or interfere with them.

Here we refer, of course, only to normal law-abiding citizens. The Constitution contains the phrase "except by due course of law" in many places. If you rob someone, assault him, destroy his property, murder him etc., then you can legitimately be deprived of liberty (you go to jail), property (you get fined), or even life in some extreme cases (Death Penalty). Outside of such lawbreaking, your rights are held inviolate.

But today, our "rights" seem to be multiplying without end. This is not necessarily bad-- as we said, rights are extremely valuable. But, are we getting ahead of ourselves, granting to ourselves so many things under the name of "rights"?

"Old Rights"

Some are pretty indisputable, such as the ones mentioned in the Declaration. The ones mentioned in the Constitution, especially in the first ten Amendments (which was even called the "Bill of Rights" by its authors), are similarly vital... though they seem to be undergoing a methodical erosion. Freedom of religion, right to peaceably assemble, freedom of speech and of the press, the right to keep and bear arms, etc. all are very basic, and it is scary to think of trying to exist in a country in which any of these do not exist.

New "rights"

But lately we have heard about other "rights", such as the right to work, the right to decent medical treatment, the right to a decent standard of living. These all sound salutary-- what kind of society would we have, if working for a living were forbidden, decent health care were forbidden, etc.?

But there is a big gap between "forbidden" and "compulsory". The rights found in the country's founding documents, are compulsory, to the extent that we all have them whether we want them or not (who wouldn't want them?), and no one can take them away.

What about, say, the right to decent medical treatment? Those who favor this "right", point out that they don't necessarily mean the rare, exotic, super-expensive treatments; nor "elective" procedures such as cosmetic liposuction or a luxury suite in the hospital. They usually mean that, if you get sick or injured, you have the "right" to have a doctor look at you, make sure the problem isn't unusually dangerous, and administer the routine treatments needed to help you on the way back to good health. An absence of such routine treatment, could occasionally put your life in peril, obviously-- a simple broken bone could lead to infection if untreated, and possibly far more. But there are differences between the "Old Rights", as we've called the ones in the founding documents, and these "New 'Rights'".

Your "right to life" protects something that no man gave you-- you simply had it, from the day you were born. Nobody had to go to extraordinary effort to create it for you, outside of natural processes that move forward on their own without deliberate effort or guidance by humans, government, etc.

Same with the "right to liberty". You were your own man, as it were, the day you were born. Nobody had to go to special effort to create that status for you. In fact, they would have had to go to considerable effort to take those things away, by deliberately coming to you and killing you; or by building a jail and imprisoning you etc. If they leave you alone, you have life and liberty, and can pursue happiness. They have to work at it to deprive you of those things.

The Difference in the "New 'Rights'"

But this isn't the case with what we've called "New 'Rights'". In order for you to get the kind of routine medical treatment its advocates describe, somebody has to stop what he is doing and perform work for you-- the doctor who examines you, the clerk who sets up your appointment, the people who built the office or hospital where you get treatment.

If this routine medical treatment is to be called a "right" on par with our "Old Rights", doesn't that mean that you must be given it when needed? And doesn't it follow, then, that others must be compelled to do the normal things needed to treat you?

Uh-oh.

How does this compulsion upon those others (doctors, clerks etc.) fit in with THEIR rights? They "have" to treat you? What if their schedules are full-- do they have to bump another patient to make room for you? What if they were spending precious quality time with their families-- do they have to abandon their own kids, to fulfill your "right" to treatment that only they can give? Doesn't this fit the description of "involuntary servitude"?

This is an important difference between the rights envisioned by the country's founders, and the new "rights" advocated by more modern pundits. In order to secure your "old rights", people merely had to leave you alone... do nothing to bother you. in fact, they were required to. But these new so-called "rights", required that people go out of their way to actively contribute to you.

And that "requirement", in fact violates THEIR rights-- specifically, their right to liberty. They must be left free to live their lives as THEY chose-- free from compulsion to come and help you out. If they want to help you, that's fine-- often it's the decent and moral thing to do. But they cannot be forced to help you, no matter how much you need the help.

These new "rights", are in fact not rights at all. They are obligations upon others, imposed on them without their agreement or consent.

Beware of announcements that you have the "right" to this or that. Ask yourself if this "right", forces someone else to do something for you, that he didn't previously agree to. If it does, it's not a "right" possessed by you. It's an attempt by the announcer, to force others into servitude... an attempt, in fact, to violate the others' rights.

If somebody has to do extra work to provide you your "right", is it a "right" at all? Or is it involuntary servitude impose on that other person?

 

[frigidweirdo]

If somebody has to do extra work to provide you your "right", is it a "right" at all? Or is it involuntary servitude impose on that other person?

So, if someone has to fight for your rights, they are not rights? Is this what you are trying to say?

Ie, if a govt infringes your rights for no good reason, they are therefore not rights?

Surely a right is something we as humans deem to be important and expect the govt to leave us alone over, as long as we don't hurt others.

In fact the theory of rights has grown to the point where it means you can do whatever you like as long as you don't hurt others.

 

[Little-Acorn]

If somebody has to do extra work to provide you your "right", is it a "right" at all? Or is it involuntary servitude impose on that other person?

So, if someone has to fight for your rights, they are not rights? Is this what you are trying to say?

No. What I was trying to say, is what I succeeded in saying.

And what you failed in your attempt to pretend I said something else.

(patiently)

Read what I said. Not what you wish I'd said.

 

[frigidweirdo]

No. What I was trying to say, is what I succeeded in saying.

And what you failed in your attempt to pretend I said something else.

(patiently)

Read what I said. Not what you wish I'd said.

Read it again, and I get the same thing. Why should the amount of work someone has to put in matter to whether it is a right or not?

If you say the RKBA is a right, then you assume it is a right for all people. In Europe therefore, you assume it is a right that is being infringed upon.

You appear to be saying this isn't a right. But I did ask a question for clarification, rather than asking a question to tell you what you said. Sigh.

 

[Little-Acorn]

People are still confused over this. Time for a re-post.