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Human rights

Kullervo

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I agree with [MENTION=22061]ginniebean[/MENTION] and I'm a libertarian, but it's not the vehemence in assertion that makes the notion of inalienable rights "solid"; it's the evidence from practicing these principles and the tremendous success of the USA that makes such principles "solid". As they say, the proof of the pudding is in its eating thereof.

I agree with your line of reasoning more than hers in this case; though I'm sure we'd disagree about the extent to which people should have rights.

It is better to think about what should work best (and there are a number of ways to estimate this) in making decisions on what should be awarded, as opposed to the feelings of a moment. It concerns me a lot that people are highly emotionally invested in their views, which makes it hard to have a calm discussion about them.

Contrary to what people may think, there is little in my perception of rights - and this can be extended to positions I take on an issue generally - that i wouldn't alter if I could be convinced that doing so would benefit me and people I care about, as well as making society as a whole more stable and prosperous, in the long term.
 

Julius_Van_Der_Beak

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Human rights are important, because, where they are ignored, you just see various factions with grievances enacting a never-ending cycle of vengeance. Ignoring universals is detrimental to harmony.
 

Tellenbach

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Kullervo said:
Contrary to what people may think, there is little in my perception of rights - and this can be extended to positions I take on an issue generally - that i wouldn't alter if I could be convinced that doing so would benefit me and people I care about, as well as making society as a whole more stable and prosperous, in the long term.

Someone very recently posted an excellent blog entry about rights. I tend to agree with this person, especially on the provision that rights are not claims on others. If you have a right, that right shouldn't require others to pay for it. By this definition, that would exclude universal healthcare, public education, clean water, and marriage.

What Is A Right? by Fulton Huxtable May 29, 2014
 

Mole

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it's not the vehemence in assertion that makes the notion of inalienable rights "solid"; it's the evidence from practicing these principles and the tremendous success of the USA that makes such principles "solid". As they say, the proof of the pudding is in its eating thereof.

The Enlightenment gave the West the values of freedom and equality. And the values of freedom and equality are maximised by the limitation of power. And so in liberal democracy, freedom limits equality, and equality limits freedom.

Unfortunately the USA is not a liberal democracy, the USA is a bourgeois democracy. As a result the USA has the highest level of inequality of any developed country.

But worse, the USA uses its power to export inequality to other countries.
 

Tellenbach

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msg_v2 said:
You're against police and armies, and for the restoration of an irregular militia to secure a right to life?

Of course not. I do want people to understand what a right is. The protection we receive from police and the military are services, not rights. I'm not sure what you mean by irregular militia, but the right to life, in my opinion, means that the government shouldn't be allowed to kill someone arbitrarily. It doesn't mean the government is required to provide shelter and food.

Mole said:
As a result the USA has the highest level of inequality of any developed country.

Inequality is just a reflection of diversity and everyone should embrace diversity.
 

Julius_Van_Der_Beak

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Of course not. I do want people to understand what a right is. The protection we receive from police and the military are services, not rights. I'm not sure what you mean by irregular militia, but the right to life, in my opinion, means that the government shouldn't be allowed to kill someone arbitrarily. It doesn't mean the government is required to provide shelter and food.

I'm not arguing about providing shelter and food or positive rights. I am specifically talking about the negative right to life, and the institutions that exist for protecting them. Institutions which cost money.

You don't think the military and the police protect your right to life ? What are they for, then? What do those services do? Isn't this the essential function of those services? It's the primary role of government (in addition to protecting property rights) according to minarchism, which I suspect you advocate. Yet you argued that a right shouldn't require others to pay for it. I'd just like to know your thinking here.
 

Tellenbach

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msg_v2 said:
You don't think the military and the police protect your right to life ?

Exactly. I don't think the right to life includes having others protect you; it just means that the government can't kill you without a very good reason.

What are they for, then? What do those services do? Isn't this the essential function of those services, as well as the primary role of government according to minarchism?

Every society needs law and order in order for commerce to proceed. Yes, it's an essential function, but it's not to protect the right of life.
 

Julius_Van_Der_Beak

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Exactly. I don't think the right to life includes having others protect you; it just means that the government can't kill you without a very good reason.



Every society needs law and order in order for commerce to proceed. Yes, it's an essential function, but it's not to protect the right of life.

OK then. I propose that we prevent the police from acting against murderers, so they are free to protect property. Think about how much effort and wasteful spending we could prevent if we merely outsourced the defense of the right to life to the citizenry. The government will then be able to devote more attention to property rights. After all, I can choose to arm myself if I truly care about my rights.

The military is trickier, but it could be justified based on the fact that an attack against the U.S. would not merely be an attack against citizens, but an attack against property. Think of all the commercial rental revenue that was lost on 9/11. It is fairly disgusting that the 9/11 memorial does not include a section about all the monetary damage that occurred. We can also stop paying for the funerals of military services, as the lives of the soldiers is ultimately not our responsibility. Let's get rid of this wasteful spending, and leave it to the families of the soldiers who volunteered to foot their own bill, instead of foisting it off on hardworking taxpayers.

An irregular militia would involve something like what existed during the Articles of Confederation or in the colonies prior to the revolutionary war.
 

Tellenbach

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msg_v2 said:
I propose that we prevent the police from acting against murderers

Just because the police aren't there to protect the right of life doesn't mean it's not a good service to have. The right of free speech just means the government shouldn't shut you up; it doesn't require anyone else to do things for you. The right to practice religion doesn't require anyone to do things for you. Same with all other rights. If it requires someone to get up early and go to work to pay for it, it's not a right.
 

Julius_Van_Der_Beak

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Just because the police aren't there to protect the right of life doesn't mean it's not a good service to have. The right of free speech just means the government shouldn't shut you up; it doesn't require anyone else to do things for you. The right to practice religion doesn't require anyone to do things for you. Same with all other rights. If it requires someone to get up early and go to work to pay for it, it's not a right.

I guess that makes sense. I dunno what good a right is if nobody does anything to enforce it, it's just crap people typed up on paper. But that's just me.
 

Tellenbach

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msg_v2 said:
I dunno what good a right is if nobody does anything to enforce it

The right to practice religion was enforced by the Supreme Court in the Hobby Lobby case. One of the Obamacare regulations required a businessowner to violate his religious beliefs by providing abortion medications; the court struck down that regulation.
 

Flâneuse

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if we want the best society and government we can create, it would protect for each individual unless willingly forfeited:

Access to basic resources: safe water, healthy food, clean air.
Land and shelter.
Freedom of speech, peaceful assembly, petition.
Basic income and retirement stipend upon reaching a certain age.
Universal healthcare.
Democratic input via voting and legal appeal.
Timely and fair trial by peers.
Protection from violence, thievery, and oppression.
Privacy and protection from both government and corporate entities.
Free education.
Safe working conditions.

Great list -- this is my favorite post in this thread so far.

If something is necessary to protect people's ability to live free* and safe lives (which I consider the principal right), I think it should be accepted as a valid right.
*Freedom to pursue happiness and to basically live by one's own values (as long as they harm no one), democratic freedom, freedom to seek information, freedom from exploitation and oppression
 

Julius_Van_Der_Beak

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The right to practice religion was enforced by the Supreme Court in the Hobby Lobby case. One of the Obamacare regulations required a businessowner to violate his religious beliefs by providing abortion medications; the court struck down that regulation.

I wasn't referring to Hobby Lobby. Don't try to change the subject. I respect the attempt, though. The constitutionality of a service like Obamacare (which sucks) is irrelevant to this discussion. I am interested in uncovering your reasoning. I was referring to rights in general. For rights to have meaning, they need to be enforced somehow. Otherwise, it is pure theory with no relevance to anyone but 5s.
 

Mole

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Inequality is just a reflection of diversity and everyone should embrace diversity.

In his feted book Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Thomas Piketty contends that wealth inequality is rising inexorably, with negative effects on health, education, welfare and personal safety.

The USA stands out as the most unequal country in the developed world.

We are a successful multicultural society far more equal and happier than the USA. And we don't want to follow down the path of the USA.
 

ygolo

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I am uninterested in the metaphysical nature of rights - they are abstract ideas (much like half the things we talk about on the forum) made objective by peoples' actions. But so what. Brooding over such a thing is pointless mental masturbation.

What I am interested in is peoples' take on which (if any) rights people should have and their reasons for thinking this. When I ask "do rights exist", I mean "is there anything that you are entitled to just for existing?", not "what is a right?". The former is a much less closed and more practical question, and can be expanded outward to other issues very easily (as has already happened).

You missed my point. Rights are what societies agree are rights. I already stated some of the ones I would support. I further believe there are cases where rights can be lost(any of them).
 

Mole

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Rights are what societies agree are rights.

We do have societies today that do not recognise human rights. Instead of human rights these societies have theistic rights. And humans submit to the rights of the deity.
 

Beorn

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You missed my point. Rights are what societies agree are rights. I already stated some of the ones I would support. I further believe there are cases where rights can be lost(any of them).

If this is true then on what basis did the Nuremberg trials exist? There was no agreement there as it was just one society (or group of societies) forcing their idea of rights on another society.

Edit: remember also that in the west as a general rule criminal laws aren't retroactively applied out of a basic sense of justice.
 

ygolo

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We do have societies today that do not recognise human rights. Instead of human rights these societies have theistic rights. And humans submit to the rights of the deity.
Yes. Those societies chose to not uphold rights that we as a global society believe are human rights.

If this is true then on what basis did the Nuremberg trials exist? There was no agreement there as it was just one society (or group of societies) forcing their idea of rights on another society.

Edit: remember also that in the west as a general rule criminal laws aren't retroactively applied out of a basic sense of justice.
Enough people of influence decided there should be a trial.
 

Nicodemus

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If this is true then on what basis did the Nuremberg trials exist? There was no agreement there as it was just one society (or group of societies) forcing their idea of rights on another society.

Edit: remember also that in the west as a general rule criminal laws aren't retroactively applied out of a basic sense of justice.
Such a poor argument you are building there...

In the aftermath of the Second World War, the London Charter of the International Military Tribunal was the decree that set down the laws and procedures by which the post-War Nuremberg trials were to be conducted. The drafters of this document were faced with the problem of how to respond to the Holocaust and grave crimes committed by the Nazi regime. A traditional understanding of war crimes gave no provision for crimes committed by a power on its own citizens. Therefore, Article 6 of the Charter was drafted to include not only traditional war crimes and crimes against peace, but in paragraph 6 (c) Crimes Against Humanity, defined as

"Murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population, before or during the war, or persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds in execution of or in connection with any crime within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal, whether or not in violation of the domestic law of the country where perpetrated".
 
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