Do Natural Rights Exist Without Government ?

[Quantum Windbag]

Let me use reason to show you the flaws in your position.

If rights do not exist outside the construct of government.

(I never said this)

I never said you did, did I? If is a the introduction of a conditional phrase, not a quote.

then government is the ultimate arbiter of rights .

(even if I had said part one: this reasoning is flawed: the governed still can agree or disagree with the government, no matter WHAT, so there's an aweful LOFTY breakdown in your logic). (no it wouldn't. I can consider my wife sacrosanct same as I consider certain rights to be. a government doesn't even need to EXIST for your PERSON to consider something sacrosanct. again, your "if then" has no merit. It's completely made up wioth no logical foundation).

My point is that, if rights come from the government, they cannot be more important than the source.

This thread, fundamentally, is asking if rights exist without the government. You have been consistently arguing that they do not because you don't believe in natural rights and because, ultimately, they don't exist unless the government protects them. Now you are arguing that, to you, they exist even if the government doesn't protect them. Either you have spent this entire thread creating, and defending, a position that you don't hold, or you are confused about the question.

Which is it?

You are then faced with the paradox of arguing that it is possible to actually interfere with the source of something that cannot be interfered with. .

(no, because I never said the government was the source, so you're not even arguing with anything I said yet declaring I'm somehow cocky for not "coming to your enlightenment" somehow. I said and have maintained that rights came from man's brain, not nature (unless we're playing the canard "mans brain IS NATURE!" which , sure.)

Again, conditional phrase, look it up.

By the way, how is man's brain not nature?

If you are trying to argue that, because man thought of it, it isn't natural, how do you deal with beaver dams? The government actually classifies those as natural, even if they don't gt there without help.

Your positions indefensible, rights cannot both come from a government we can fight and be sacrosanct. I will leave you to figure out where rights come from since you refuse to admit they come from anything other than government, yet insist they actually are more important than government.

Good thing you misrepresented my position then.

My responses are in parenthesis and bold.

Have a nice day.

Your responses to this post contradict your position throughout the thread so I will ask you a simple question, do rights exist without the government?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Your reasoning WAS flawed.

Also - I never declared myself the winner of anything. All I merely said was that no logical proof has been presented as to rights being natural. And it hasn't. And I'm not you, I don't sit here and hours after people are having a LIVE discussion, go back 10 pages in the thread and start answering everything one by one by one when the people aren't even here anymore. That's a pain in the ass. I answer who is here and now having a discussion with me, that's just my personal way to enjoy the site.

That every one of your posts wasn't broken down word by word doesn't mean that there's no answer for them - but you keep sticking your chest out as though they're indisputable. They are not.

I actually presented one, and then explained why logic isn't the only, or even the best, way to present an argument.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Believe me, that rifle has looked pretty good now and then, but alas, I have always been one to fight more with ideas and reason than via fisticuffs and bullets and stuff like that.

But no. Rights do not come from government, because I (as well as the Founding Fathers and those great minds they studied) reject that one person, no matter who he/she is, can confer a 'right' upon another.

Rights either exist--have always existed--or they do not. So governments do not confer rights. What a government confers is rather a privilege or something that is allowed at this time, and that can just be as easily taken away tonight or tomorrow or some other time.

The concept of unalienable or God-given or natural rights is the essential core of what liberty is. That each of us can and will be who and what we are and are unlimited in what we do unless we interfere with who and what somebody else is. A natural right cannot require contribution or participation by any other because that negates the very concept of what a natural right is.

A government that recognizes natural rights and protects them is not at all the same as a government that assigns the 'rights' that the people will have.

I understand your position. It is mine too.

However, if you were a masochist....you'd read this thread. It is a mess.

While the question of who confers what is always going to rage...the real issue is what your ideology drives.

I'd fall into agreement too if the word natural were replaced with basic.

Which leaves you with the question, where do basic rights come from? This is why the term natural rights was coined, to differentiate the basic rights from those granted by the government, aka civil rights. Maybe you should spend less time obsessing over a word, and more time thinking about where those basic rights come from. Ultimately, they either come from man, or they are part of him.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

The argument that someone's ability plus want(or instinct/desire) to do something thus makes it a right has been torn apart time on end, and it's what keep being issued here as the "proof" I seek.

It is not proof, it is flawed logic. The premises do not equal the conclusion. There is no logical bridge there.

I am able to, so IF I WANTED TO - kill my mom, that does not equate to having a right to do so.

They very term "right" has an actual definition. That's the crux of that.

The argument that a desire equals a right is a strawman. I have never once said that it works that way. In fact, I have actually made the argument that simple desire is not equal to a right. I have consistently tried to tie the actual definition of right, a moral or legal entitlement to have or obtain something or to act in a certain way, to the natural expression of that right. There is no moral, or legal, entitlement to theft in and of itself. There is, however, a moral , and legal, defense of stealing under some circumstances.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Dont tell me it contradicts my position when youre sitting in your chair proving you dont even KNOW my position.

Yes rights exist without governments.

Never did i contradict THAT! GLUCK & dont apologize.

Tell me something, why did you argue that rights don't exist as part of our nature if you think they exist even if we don't believe in them?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

No. I told you your premises were not proof of your conclusion.

You then said proof doesnt mean a fact and pointed to the sun and said it was once proven to have revolve around the earth. I said proof does mean fact.

Then you showed the definition of proof. Which had the words "fact and truth" in there.

It was never the truth or a fact...the thing about the sun, so it was never PROVEN To revolve around he earth. Only falsely thouht to have been proven.

I shouldnt have to explain how logic or reason works.

Yet you made no effort to explain that statement. The way that logic works is you point out what the errors are, you do not simply declare yourself the victor.

And are still saying that the fact that you said it, without actually offering proof, is proof in and of itself.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

I'd fall into agreement too if the word natural were replaced with basic.

Which leaves you with the question, where do basic rights come from? This is why the term natural rights was coined, to differentiate the basic rights from those granted by the government, aka civil rights. Maybe you should spend less time obsessing over a word, and more time thinking about where those basic rights come from. Ultimately, they either come from man, or they are part of him.

I don't need to think about it.

I already feel pretty good about where I think they come from.

They come from man.

Not nature.

They come FROM man.

I've only said it a million times yet you had to ask. hehe

Rights come from man, man comes from nature, therefore, rights come from nature.

See how logic still backs up my position, and leaves you floundering because you simply reject it?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Dont tell me it contradicts my position when youre sitting in your chair proving you dont even KNOW my position.

Yes rights exist without governments.

Never did i contradict THAT! GLUCK & dont apologize.

Tell me something, why did you argue that rights don't exist as part of our nature if you think they exist even if we don't believe in them?

I didn't say they exist if we don't believe in them.

Again here with the time wasting.

You necessarily HAVE to believe in them FOR them to exist, is my position.

wow.

By that logic, God is real.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Rights come from man, man comes from nature, therefore, rights come from nature.

See how logic still backs up my position, and leaves you floundering because you simply reject it?

Um, no.

I said all along that rights come from man.

I'm not floundering at all.

When I say they come from man, I mean literally we made them up -

The opposing argument is that we simply observe them and they always were.

And I acknowledged like 100 times now that yah obv. mans brain is a part of nature.

That makes no difference to the argument of whether or not men invented them, or if they preexisted and men simply observe them. My argument is the former.

?You have said all along that natural rights do not exist. I just offered another logical proof that they do, and there is no way you can claim my premises are false, or that the conclusion is not valid. That means you have to agree with me that natural rights are real, or agree with me that, as a tool, logic leaves something to be desired.

The rest of your post is your floundering attempt to have your cake and eat it.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

I didn't say they exist if we don't believe in them.

Again here with the time wasting.

You necessarily HAVE to believe in them FOR them to exist, is my position.

wow.

By that logic, God is real.

Um, no not at all. Wow.

you HAVE to believe in God for him to exist? that's weird.

to clarify:

rights are a concept not an entity
god is (to believers) an actual entity. belief or unbelief in an entity has no bearing on whether or not it exists.

There are many people that view God as a concept. According to you, belief in a concept makes it real. That means that, by your logic, God is real. You cannot refute by claiming that other people believe something else anymore than I can claim that my belief in God requires you to go to church.