CNN Anchor: ‘Our Rights Do Not Come From God’

[Contumacious]

and you believe that now that we've discovered natural rights, they are somehow supernaturally protected?

dear, I did not mention the supernatural???

no, you didn't.
so if you don't believe that natural rights receive any sort of supernatural protection, it can safely be assumed that it is up to mankind to protect and defend those rights.

which, of course, brings us right back to the fact that what you call natural rights only exist so long as society agrees they do.

Sad but true.

Reason we must never surrender our UNALIENABLE RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS.


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[regent]

So after all this, man's unalienable rights can be taken away, and are taken away, and in many cases there seems little man or God can do about it.

 

[ogibillm]

So after all this, man's unalienable rights can be taken away, and are taken away, and in many cases there seems little man or God can do about it.

sort of proves the point that the argument is philosophical, since pragmatically it makes no difference.

however, as i've said before, i think the idea of natural rights is lazy. it gives the impression that we don't have to fight for rights, because eventually nature or god or whatever will just correct us, or that we can't really lose rights if we're not vigilant, because no man can 'actually' take them from us (even though reality says otherwise)

i much prefer that we recognize that our rights only exist so long as we can exercise them, and that we can lose them, permanently, if enough of us acquiesce to it.

 

[suplex3000]

The Constitution grants no rights nor does it lay out any rights. The Constitution protects people's rights from government by limiting the powers of the government. Your rights would exist even if there was no government.

 

[ogibillm]

The Constitution grants no rights nor does it lay out any rights. The Constitution protects people's rights from government by limiting the powers of the government. Your rights would exist even if there was no government.

Would they?
How would you know? if a person or group took your rights, or prevented you from exercising them, how could you claim you still had your rights? what recourse would you have?

 

[jon_berzerk]

The Constitution grants no rights nor does it lay out any rights. The Constitution protects people's rights from government by limiting the powers of the government. Your rights would exist even if there was no government.

Would they?
How would you know? if a person or group took your rights, or prevented you from exercising them, how could you claim you still had your rights? ehat recourse would you have?

well in a civil society due process is the usual recourse

 

[ogibillm]

The Constitution grants no rights nor does it lay out any rights. The Constitution protects people's rights from government by limiting the powers of the government. Your rights would exist even if there was no government.

Would they?
How would you know? if a person or group took your rights, or prevented you from exercising them, how could you claim you still had your rights? ehat recourse would you have?

well in a civil society due process is the usual recourse

But the premise is no government. No government means no legsl system, and no due process.

 

[jon_berzerk]

The Constitution grants no rights nor does it lay out any rights. The Constitution protects people's rights from government by limiting the powers of the government. Your rights would exist even if there was no government.

Would they?
How would you know? if a person or group took your rights, or prevented you from exercising them, how could you claim you still had your rights? ehat recourse would you have?

well in a civil society due process is the usual recourse

But the premise is no government. No government means no legsl system, and no due process.

ok

if there is no government then who the **** cares

i will enforce my rights as i see fit

 

[Yarddog]

If your rights are violated, do you just pray or go to court? There should be no need for courts, if the OP is correct.

Lets say it was the founders attempt at empowering the common man against a governments control, who in the spirit of all governments would meter out peoples rights as they see fit. The founders, unlike politicians of today were highly educated and with all the History of Europe and the plights of its people,
were determined that history would not repeat itself. If God gave men certain rights, then they cannot be taken away. Or at least it takes Many more years for
the government to find ways to whittle away those rights. Guess it was the best they could do .

 

[NYcarbineer]

If your rights are violated, do you just pray or go to court? There should be no need for courts, if the OP is correct.

Lets say it was the founders attempt at empowering the common man against a governments control, who in the spirit of all governments would meter out peoples rights as they see fit. The founders, unlike politicians of today were highly educated and with all the History of Europe and the plights of its people,
were determined that history would not repeat itself. If God gave men certain rights, then they cannot be taken away. Or at least it takes Many more years for
the government to find ways to whittle away those rights. Guess it was the best they could do .

England at the time was ruled by a king. The belief was that HIS power as a monarch came from God.

If God gave the King the divine right to rule, then only God could take it away.

Get it?

 

[ogibillm]

If your rights are violated, do you just pray or go to court? There should be no need for courts, if the OP is correct.

If God gave men certain rights, then they cannot be taken away.

and yet most of what are called natural rights haven't existed until recently, and history is replete with examples of one group of people taking rights away from another very easily.

 

[Contumacious]

If your rights are violated, do you just pray or go to court? There should be no need for courts, if the OP is correct.

If God gave men certain rights, then they cannot be taken away.

and yet most of what are called natural rights haven't existed until recently, and history is replete with examples of one group of people taking rights away from another very easily.

Natural rights exists even though the government and other criminal entities refuse to recognize them.


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[ogibillm]

If your rights are violated, do you just pray or go to court? There should be no need for courts, if the OP is correct.

If God gave men certain rights, then they cannot be taken away.

and yet most of what are called natural rights haven't existed until recently, and history is replete with examples of one group of people taking rights away from another very easily.

Natural rights exists even though the government and other criminal entities refuse to recognize them.


.

Didn't you agree that they only exist if society agress they exist?

 

[Contumacious]

If your rights are violated, do you just pray or go to court? There should be no need for courts, if the OP is correct.

If God gave men certain rights, then they cannot be taken away.

and yet most of what are called natural rights haven't existed until recently, and history is replete with examples of one group of people taking rights away from another very easily.

Natural rights exists even though the government and other criminal entities refuse to recognize them.


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Didn't you agree that they only exist if society agress they exist?

Nope, why would I - that's nonsense.

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[ogibillm]

and you believe that now that we've discovered natural rights, they are somehow supernaturally protected?

dear, I did not mention the supernatural???

no, you didn't.
so if you don't believe that natural rights receive any sort of supernatural protection, it can safely be assumed that it is up to mankind to protect and defend those rights.

which, of course, brings us right back to the fact that what you call natural rights only exist so long as society agrees they do.

Sad but true.

Reason we must never surrender our UNALIENABLE RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS.


.

So you bolded a portion of my post, and said "sad but true" about it because you disagreed?

 

[Contumacious]

and you believe that now that we've discovered natural rights, they are somehow supernaturally protected?

dear, I did not mention the supernatural???

no, you didn't.
so if you don't believe that natural rights receive any sort of supernatural protection, it can safely be assumed that it is up to mankind to protect and defend those rights.

which, of course, brings us right back to the fact that what you call natural rights only exist so long as society agrees they do.

Sad but true.

Reason we must never surrender our UNALIENABLE RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS.


.

So you bolded a portion of my post, and said "sad but true" about it because you disagreed?

I was merely recognizing that criminality is a fact of life.

People are always trying to **** with you - reason I suggested to conceal carry and get ready to defend your life - stand your ground.


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[NYcarbineer]

If your rights are violated, do you just pray or go to court? There should be no need for courts, if the OP is correct.

If God gave men certain rights, then they cannot be taken away.

and yet most of what are called natural rights haven't existed until recently, and history is replete with examples of one group of people taking rights away from another very easily.

God gave kings divine right, and Men formed governments that took that right away.

 

[Abatis]

So after all this, man's unalienable rights can be taken away, and are taken away, and in many cases there seems little man or God can do about it.

A right being "unalienable" doesn't mean that it can't be "taken away".

The concept of "unalienable rights" is one premised on legitimacy of governance and that is based on consent. It presumes that all power originates in the people and only a government established through the uncoerced consent of the people is legitimate (as opposed to a government being imposed on them, i.e., a King). It holds that a government's legitimate powers only amount to the express powers the people surrender in the process of establishing the government and assigning it specific duties by writing a Constitution.

Unalienable rights is a concept that states that there are some interests that are so intrinsic to being a human possessing free will, that they can not be legitimately surrendered to another person (commonly summarized as Life, Liberty and Property / pursuit of happiness). This also places constraints on the governing body; it can not legitimately accept the surrender of these liberty interests, even if offered.

Here's where the "taken away" comes in . . . A government established upon such principles can not violate unalienable rights and retain its legitimacy to govern.

Once the government violates the principles of its establishment, it is no longer, "the government established by the Constitution"; it is something else, a foreign entity disconnected from the source of its powers and is from then on, subject to the original right of the people to rescind their consent to be governed and reclaim the powers conferred to government through the Constitution.

If this rescinding of consent and reclaiming of powers can not be done peacefully, then the people shall employ the means to effect that change . . . The fully retained, never surrendered, original and fundamental right to keep and bear arms, fighting the usurpers in an attempt to reattain the fundamental purpose of government, the security of rights.

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[NYcarbineer]

In Shakespeare's Richard II, King Richard, confronting the rebels, makes a very interesting statement about God given rights:

Because we thought ourself thy lawful king:
And if we be, how dare thy joints forget
To pay their awful duty to our presence?

(why weren't they kneeling before him...acknowledging his right to be king?)

If we be not, show us the hand of God
That hath dismissed us from our stewardship;

For well we know, no hand of blood and bone
Can gripe the sacred handle of our sceptre,
Unless he do profane, steal, or usurp.

He is saying, in effect, that how can he not be their King, because his right to be king was God given,

and no one has shown to him where God took that right away.

Thus, the kings of England (and other places) may have claimed their right was God given, but they turned out to be as wrong as anyone else who claims his rights of any kind are God given.

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

well... it would seem that hitler, stalin, and mao did not have problems killing people or depriving them of their natural rights.

correct!! its no problem at all for HItler Stalin Mao to deprive people of their natural rights when they have no natural rights.