What Constitutes a "Right?"

[Kevin_Kennedy]

Every member in Congress has lifetime single payer health insurance! It's good enough for them but not for you?

Well I wasn't speaking specifically about the healthcare issue, but that's certainly one thing that has been paraded as a right but is most certainly not. Since this healthcare would require other people to pay for it through taxation it can't be a right. Healthcare is a service, not a right. It would be a far more efficient and cheaper service if the government got out of the way, but it's a service nonetheless.

 

[amrchaos]

Ability are the traits and talents you are born with. You never needed a right to have them.

Rights are concoctions of man to tell others what they are allowed and not allowed to do.

Rights are promises made by politicians and governments in order to ease the peoples tension as they seek new methods to oppress them.

Rights are propaganda concepts used to catch wind under an extremists goals.

In pure Anarchy, there are no constitutional endorsed rights nor any government to "protect"(ha ha) them. Only your potentials and abilities and the will to actualize them.

 

[rightwinger]

What Constitutes a "Right?"

Three Lefts constitute a Right

 

[goldcatt]

Rights are powers and protections set aside for entities outside government to pursue their interests without unreasonable limitation or restriction, whether they are individuals, communities, businesses, religious institutions, or what have you. Different opinions of how to balance various kinds of rights and what constitutes "reasonable" linitations are often in conflict - always have been, always will be. That's the beauty of possessing the individual liberty to have and express an opinion.
The right to be free from taxation does not exist. Rather, the type and level of taxation is one reflection of the balance between different kinds of rights and how the government (which in the US includes the People) splits the difference between competing rights.
An obvious example: Should the right of the community as a whole to fire and police protection (the right to a basic level of security in your person and property) be more important than the individual right to not pay taxes? The answer is almost always "YES". Other questions provoke more heated debate, depending on the individual's view and the balance between the individual and the community.
The OP's error is in equating the desire for minimal taxation with a "right". Tax policy is (or ideally should be) a tool and a reflection of the balance between collective and individual rights, not in itself either a right or an infringement of rights.

Don't you have the right to not be taxed? Is taxation not simply a form of theft? Is there truly any difference between a government that takes your money for the "good of the people," whether you agree with that supposed "good" or not, and an actual thief who takes your money but promises that it will be put to a good cause? Shouldn't you be able to freely decide where the money you've earned goes without the guns of the state or the guns of the thief deciding for you?

I disagree.

What would give anyone the right not to be taxed, yet to enjoy the community benefits taxation makes possible? The security provided by law enforcement and military being a large chunk of where tax money goes. Roads and bridges. Did you ever attend a public school? Use municipal water or sanitation services? Have an inspector check out whether your home was safe and in good repair before you purchased it? Use a telephone line, or electricity that is carried through the grid?
Taxation is not theft. It is policy made by the Representatives we, the people, choose to elect to govern in our names. Indirectly, we choose the balance ourselves. Much has been made of the Boston Tea Party, but the cry there was not "No Taxation". It was "No Taxation Without Representation".

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

Rights are powers and protections set aside for entities outside government to pursue their interests without unreasonable limitation or restriction, whether they are individuals, communities, businesses, religious institutions, or what have you. Different opinions of how to balance various kinds of rights and what constitutes "reasonable" linitations are often in conflict - always have been, always will be. That's the beauty of possessing the individual liberty to have and express an opinion.
The right to be free from taxation does not exist. Rather, the type and level of taxation is one reflection of the balance between different kinds of rights and how the government (which in the US includes the People) splits the difference between competing rights.
An obvious example: Should the right of the community as a whole to fire and police protection (the right to a basic level of security in your person and property) be more important than the individual right to not pay taxes? The answer is almost always "YES". Other questions provoke more heated debate, depending on the individual's view and the balance between the individual and the community.
The OP's error is in equating the desire for minimal taxation with a "right". Tax policy is (or ideally should be) a tool and a reflection of the balance between collective and individual rights, not in itself either a right or an infringement of rights.

Don't you have the right to not be taxed? Is taxation not simply a form of theft? Is there truly any difference between a government that takes your money for the "good of the people," whether you agree with that supposed "good" or not, and an actual thief who takes your money but promises that it will be put to a good cause? Shouldn't you be able to freely decide where the money you've earned goes without the guns of the state or the guns of the thief deciding for you?

I disagree.

What would give anyone the right not to be taxed, yet to enjoy the community benefits taxation makes possible? The security provided by law enforcement and military being a large chunk of where tax money goes. Roads and bridges. Did you ever attend a public school? Use municipal water or sanitation services? Have an inspector check out whether your home was safe and in good repair before you purchased it? Use a telephone line, or electricity that is carried through the grid?
Taxation is not theft. It is policy made by the Representatives we, the people, choose to elect to govern in our names. Indirectly, we choose the balance ourselves. Much has been made of the Boston Tea Party, but the cry there was not "No Taxation". It was "No Taxation Without Representation".

Yet my argument is that all those things could be offered by the private sector and would undoubtedly be run better. However, nothing you said proves that taxation is not theft. Do you willingly pay your taxes, or do you do so only because you know that the government will imprison you if you don't? Taxes are taken by force, and property taken by force is theft.

 

[PubliusInfinitum]

I'm going to play devil's advocate a little here...

Where does this right to property come from?

From the right to pursue the fulifillment of one's life... which is endowed from God.

 

[goldcatt]

Don't you have the right to not be taxed? Is taxation not simply a form of theft? Is there truly any difference between a government that takes your money for the "good of the people," whether you agree with that supposed "good" or not, and an actual thief who takes your money but promises that it will be put to a good cause? Shouldn't you be able to freely decide where the money you've earned goes without the guns of the state or the guns of the thief deciding for you?

I disagree.

What would give anyone the right not to be taxed, yet to enjoy the community benefits taxation makes possible? The security provided by law enforcement and military being a large chunk of where tax money goes. Roads and bridges. Did you ever attend a public school? Use municipal water or sanitation services? Have an inspector check out whether your home was safe and in good repair before you purchased it? Use a telephone line, or electricity that is carried through the grid?
Taxation is not theft. It is policy made by the Representatives we, the people, choose to elect to govern in our names. Indirectly, we choose the balance ourselves. Much has been made of the Boston Tea Party, but the cry there was not "No Taxation". It was "No Taxation Without Representation".

Yet my argument is that all those things could be offered by the private sector and would undoubtedly be run better. However, nothing you said proves that taxation is not theft. Do you willingly pay your taxes, or do you do so only because you know that the government will imprison you if you don't? Taxes are taken by force, and property taken by force is theft.

Taxes are taken by law, which is made by the people's Representatives.
Law is not "force", although it is enforce-able. It is the civilized alternative to force.
The uncivilized alternative is, of course, something roughly equivalent to Somalia. Do I pay taxes willingly? I don't love them, but I shrug and do it because I can't imagine a life at the tender mercies of every vigilante, psychopath and pirate who wants even more than the government does.
You may trust the private sector, I do not. Government isn't perfect, but at least there is some sort of accountability to real human beings. Private industry has none, save to money.

 

[PubliusInfinitum]

Naturally there are no rights to anything other than your thoughts and ideas, and that does not include the expression of those two or the life that gives you the ability to have them. Every "right" we have in society, including your right to life, is created through common social standards within our society, and have to be protected by law, force or whatever mechanism is in place wherever you are. What's called your "god-given right" to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness can theoretically be taken away by a simple change of government if it was to fall to a ruthless dictator. In this very nation, African slaves had no right to liberty or the pursuit of happiness. So I would say yes, you need some kind of social order to establish any kind of right beyond the right to possess your thoughts during your life.

Your other questions are moot. You're not arguing rights, you're clearly arguing legalities between the government-given right to property and taxation.

As usual, the idiots come to advance a misnomer...

There is no social contract, which provides any right of any kind... all a government or any collective, which by virtue of it's means, which possesses the would-be power to do so, can do... is to extend a cultural privilege...

As is typical, at the root of the issue is the notion that the means to exercise the right, represents 'the right'...

Such is not the case... My rights are endowed to me by my maker... oka: Nature's God. Those rights are unalienable; meaning that no one but my maker who endowed the right to me, can separate me from my rights... Intrinsic in those rights, is my responsibility to defend those rights; and not only for myself, but for those within my sphere of influence (my neighbor) as well; to the extent of my means. And where I fail to defend those rights by failing to recogize and maintain that responsibility... where I concede the responsibility, I concede the right.

Where a human power usurps my means to exercise my rights... it is my duty to destroy that power, again, to the extent of my means; and if such effort results in my earthly demise... I died engaging in that to which I was rightfully entitled, thus I did with my rights intact.

Rights of social contract, are again, not rights at all... they are but temporal privileges; which as the idiot noted, are subject to change with the changing of the power that granted them.

 

[midcan5]

The argument is lost in the first sentence, "A "right" is something that you have naturally." You do? Explain natural. For that matter explain right? Even your life is not natural as it flows from a whole spectrum of human and societal interactions.

 

[PubliusInfinitum]

A "right" is something that you have naturally. You have a right to your life, your liberty, your property, and your personal pursuit of happiness. The word "right" is thrown around too loosely in politics. If you believe you have a right to something then look at the situation deeper. Does your supposed "right" require the government's force to back it up? Does your "right" require the government to take from one person through taxation to supply you with your "right?" If the answer is yes then your "right" is clearly not a right at all because it violates somebody else's right to their own property. You cannot have a right to something that violates somebody else's rights.

You have no rights.

Rights are something that cannot be taken from you.

You cannot name a single thing that cannot be taken away from you.

More idiocy on parade...

You have no power to take my right to my life from me... You may have the power to usurp my means to exercise that right... but you've no means to usurp the right.

PERIOD!

Thus the concept 'unalieanable'...

 

[PubliusInfinitum]

Ability are the traits and talents you are born with. You never needed a right to have them.

Rights are concoctions of man to tell others what they are allowed and not allowed to do.

Rights are promises made by politicians and governments in order to ease the peoples tension as they seek new methods to oppress them.

Rights are propaganda concepts used to catch wind under an extremists goals.

In pure Anarchy, there are no constitutional endorsed rights nor any government to "protect"(ha ha) them. Only your potentials and abilities and the will to actualize them.

ROFLMNAO...

And that is all there is to identify anti-Americans... simply get them to start talkin'...

Good job Kevin...

Also... notice how where the idiots are defending taxation; all they ever mention is necessary infrastructure... if you read back over those posts which sought to answer that, you'll notice that all of the examples of just taxation are 'Highways, Military and local entities of Police and Fire deptartments... NOT ONE OF THE IDIOTS MENTIONED SOCIAL ENTITLEMENTS.

 

[PubliusInfinitum]

The argument is lost in the first sentence, "A "right" is something that you have naturally." You do? Explain natural. For that matter explain right? Even your life is not natural as it flows from a whole spectrum of human and societal interactions.

ROFLMNAO... Sweet mother you people are truly a waste of skin.

Natural is that which occurs as a function nature... A right is that to which one is rightfully entitled... such as the life endowed to me by my maker and the right to pursue the fulfillment of that life.

Even your life is not natural as it flows from a whole spectrum of human and societal interactions.

LOL...

My life flows from the decisions I make; the principles I adhere to and the respect and diligence I apply in maintaining the responsibilities inherent in my rights.

 

[PubliusInfinitum]

I'm going to play devil's advocate a little here...

Where does this right to property come from?

Most often, property is the end product of applying your life's energy to available resources.

If you don't freely offer them for sale, in what way does another have claim to the products of your efforts?

HELLOoooooooooo HUMANISTS!

Dude's asked a question... I couldn't help but to notice that no one wanted to answer it.

Now I wonder what the sudden reticence stems from, given the bold certainty that you idiots were so eager to trot out regarding your feelings on what rights ARE.

Of course the question is rhetorical, as Humanist ARE NEVER ABLE TO ANSWER THIS, where they want to hide their anti-American 'feelings'.

 

[xotoxi]

A "right" is something that you have naturally. You have a right to your life, your liberty, your property, and your personal pursuit of happiness...You cannot have a right to something that violates somebody else's rights.

A man has the right to marry a man.

 

[goldcatt]

A "right" is something that you have naturally. You have a right to your life, your liberty, your property, and your personal pursuit of happiness...You cannot have a right to something that violates somebody else's rights.

A man has the right to marry a man.

This should be interesting.

 

[xotoxi]

but kevin,
...you don't have a right to have roads...

...Those are goods and services that could be supplied by the market.

Imagine if all the roads were privately owned.

Imagine how many tolls you would have to pay to get to work.

And where I live in a rural area, the owner of a road connecting point A to point B would not have any competition and would be able to charge an astronomical toll, yet make absolutely no improvement to the road.

Your only other choice would be to drive 20 miles out of your way to avoid the poorly maintained road.

No...I don't see that roads could be exclusively privately owned.

 

[PubliusInfinitum]

A "right" is something that you have naturally. You have a right to your life, your liberty, your property, and your personal pursuit of happiness...You cannot have a right to something that violates somebody else's rights.

A man has the right to marry a man.

No man has a right to marry anyone...

A valid right is that which where such is exercised that such does not usurp the rights of another.

Where such undermines the viability of the culture, such is rendered morally unjustifiable and as such is not a right of any kind.

Its not a complex issue sis... its just one which falls beyond your means to comprehend.

 

[xotoxi]

A "right" is something that you have naturally. You have a right to your life, your liberty, your property, and your personal pursuit of happiness...You cannot have a right to something that violates somebody else's rights.

A man has the right to marry a man.

No man has a right to marry anyone...

A valid right is that which where such is exercised that such does not usurp the rights of another.

Where such undermines the viability of the culture, such is rendered morally unjustifiable and as such is not a right of any kind.

Its not a complex issue sis... its just one which falls beyond your means to comprehend.

However, you have to prove that the viability of the culture is undermined...and you have not done that.

 

[goldcatt]

A "right" is something that you have naturally. You have a right to your life, your liberty, your property, and your personal pursuit of happiness...You cannot have a right to something that violates somebody else's rights.

A man has the right to marry a man.

No man has a right to marry anyone...

A valid right is that which where such is exercised that such does not usurp the rights of another.

Where such undermines the viability of the culture, such is rendered morally unjustifiable and as such is not a right of any kind.

Its not a complex issue sis... its just one which falls beyond your means to comprehend.

So you believe the viability of the culture as a whole is more important than the liberty of the individual?

 

[PubliusInfinitum]

A man has the right to marry a man.

No man has a right to marry anyone...

A valid right is that which where such is exercised that such does not usurp the rights of another.

Where such undermines the viability of the culture, such is rendered morally unjustifiable and as such is not a right of any kind.

Its not a complex issue sis... its just one which falls beyond your means to comprehend.

However, you have to prove that the viability of the culture is undermined...and you have not done that.

Nope... that's established bydefault, through the natural tendency of the species to dry right up where homosexuality catches on... add to that the promotion of debauchery, hedonism and general degeneracy... as a rule... those things are not the things which sustain a viable culture.