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Do You Believe In Natural Rights?

Do You Believe in Natural Rights?

  • Yes

    Votes: 36 41.4%
  • No

    Votes: 51 58.6%

  • Total voters
    87
Some people have no clue how to carry out an intellectual debate, they just keep repeating the same thing over and over again without realizing that they have to actually back up their statements with evidence. No wonder libertarians are so laughable.

Its a dog chasing its own tail over and over and over and over and over again.
 
to the founders voting is a privilege.....as stated by the constitution.

the USSC took voting out of state constitutions, recognizing it as a right......but in reality its not because a government action must be performed for voting to take place.

The official US CONSTITUTION refers to THE RIGHT TO VOTE or a slight variation on that language at least FIVE DIFFERENT TIMES in at least FIVE DIFFERENT PLACES.

Stop the crap making up nonsense calling voting a privilege when the Constitution calls it a RIGHT.

This is a clear and undeniable example where the Constitution you think exists is a figment of delusion on your part since you deny basic reality that is verified in black and white right there in the Constitution.

Stop it already EB. You are making yourself look delusional.
 
state legislatures elected the senate before the 17th NOT THE PEOPLE..its purpose was to BLOCK the COLLECTIVE capacity of the people, and place a CHECK on federal power.


this is the year 2015 EB. Get over it already. Accept it. Its called reality.
 
That is fair and accurate. Obviously every sort of ideology has some maxims attached to it but libertarianism stands out as it makes no apologies that it is simply one belief built upon another belief and there is no real world proof of any of it. And because the American people wisely treat the LIBERTARIAN label like the skull and crossbones at election time each round, they have the luxury of never having to put their silly nonsense to any real world test to see how it actually works.

Actually, I'm just about to throw a video about that up on my YouTube channel tomorrow. It's just so ridiculous.
 
Actually, I'm just about to throw a video about that up on my YouTube channel tomorrow. It's just so ridiculous.

post a link here when you do it. I would like watch that.
 
Actually, I'm just about to throw a video about that up on my YouTube channel tomorrow. It's just so ridiculous.

You,are more than welcome to use my term "sementical hop-scotch"
 
Not one thing in that quote dump negates the reality that a belief in natural rights is just that - an unprovable belief held by a believer because they want to believe it.

Objectively speaking, is there aright way for a bear to live? A mouse? An ant? What about a man? You determine the right way for a creature to live by examining its nature. The means of survival for a rational creature is different from the other irrational animals. Rational animals survive by rational thought. Rights simply answer the question: what is the right way for man to live as man. If man is to live by the use of his mind, it is right that he do so and be free to do so; it is right that he labor in pursuit of his own ends and to keep the product of that labor. That is ultimately what is meant by the right to life, liberty, the acquisition of property and the pursuit of happiness.
 
Objectively speaking, is there aright way for a bear to live? A mouse? An ant? What about a man? You determine the right way for a creature to live by examining its nature. The means of survival for a rational creature is different from the other irrational animals. Rational animals survive by rational thought. Rights simply answer the question: what is the right way for man to live as man. If man is to live by the use of his mind, it is right that he do so and be free to do so; it is right that he labor in pursuit of his own ends and to keep the product of that labor. That is ultimately what is meant by the right to life, liberty, the acquisition of property and the pursuit of happiness.

No, there is no right way for any of those creatures to live at all. People live in all kinds of different ways. So do mice. So do ants. So do bears. What you're really arguing for is your preferred way to live. It's your opinion. If you want the "natural" way for man to live, you're back to living in caves and off the land. If you want to do that, feel free.
 
This topic seems to have popped up in a few threads recently so I thought I'd put this together. Put simply do you believe in the concept of natural rights? That is to say rights that are "not contingent upon the laws, customs, or beliefs of any particular culture or government, and therefore universal and inalienable".

Personally I don't. I think that Hobbes had it right when he intimated that the only 'natural right' that a human being possesses is the right to strive for their own survival. Everything else exists only at the sufferance of your own strength or the kindness of others. It is part of what makes civilization so essential and so valuable, because by creating a society we attempt to lift ourselves out of that war of all against all. This allows for freedom of speech, property rights, press freedoms, freedom of worship, etc. Absent organized society these 'rights' would be purely theoretical.

1) I don't believe in answering anonymous polls

2) I believe that the founders of the USA believed in natural rights and thus our constitution cannot be properly interpreted without understanding natural rights

3) the rights recognized in the constitution can only be properly set forth in terms of scope and coverage by reference to natural rights as understood by the founders
 
1) I don't believe in answering anonymous polls

Why? Granted, it might make the results questionable at best, but clicking a button doesn't hurt anything, does it?

2) I believe that the founders of the USA believed in natural rights and thus our constitution cannot be properly interpreted without understanding natural rights

Who cares what they believed? It only matters what can be demonstrated to be actually true. This leads to little more than founding father worship.

3) the rights recognized in the constitution can only be properly set forth in terms of scope and coverage by reference to natural rights as understood by the founders

As believed by the founders, not as understood. They had no more basis for declaring these things to actually exist in reality than modern libertarians do. It's all wishful thinking. It was wishful thinking then, it is wishful thinking now, and until someone comes up with actual evidence that these things have any real existence in the real world, rather than just being philosophical masturbation, they will continue to be wishful thinking into the future. Belief doesn't equate to truth. We keep asking for truth, all we keep getting is blind faith.
 
:shrug: It seems that if you have no natural rights, then effectively, you have no rights at all, only privileges. You therefore have no cause to complain when they are abused.

Yet abuse the rights of those who claim there are no such things and watch to see if they get upset. It is similar to those who claim that there is no universal morality, who will nonetheless get upset when you break in front of them in line, or steal their car. Quite quickly you will find that they appeal to a standard whose existence they deny.
 
Why? Granted, it might make the results questionable at best, but clicking a button doesn't hurt anything, does it?



Who cares what they believed? It only matters what can be demonstrated to be actually true. This leads to little more than founding father worship.



As believed by the founders, not as understood. They had no more basis for declaring these things to actually exist in reality than modern libertarians do. It's all wishful thinking. It was wishful thinking then, it is wishful thinking now, and until someone comes up with actual evidence that these things have any real existence in the real world, rather than just being philosophical masturbation, they will continue to be wishful thinking into the future. Belief doesn't equate to truth. We keep asking for truth, all we keep getting is blind faith.

what the founders believed in is completely relevant in interpreting the words they wrote.

this is not an issue for an atheistic attack on God but rather constitutional interpretation
 
Objectively speaking, is there aright way for a bear to live? A mouse? An ant? What about a man? You determine the right way for a creature to live by examining its nature. The means of survival for a rational creature is different from the other irrational animals. Rational animals survive by rational thought. Rights simply answer the question: what is the right way for man to live as man. If man is to live by the use of his mind, it is right that he do so and be free to do so; it is right that he labor in pursuit of his own ends and to keep the product of that labor. That is ultimately what is meant by the right to life, liberty, the acquisition of property and the pursuit of happiness.


You have a way with words making that sound really deep. Well done. But truthfully, it it no way shape or form negates the reality that a belief in natural rights is simply a belief held because the believer opts to believe it. And lets be really truthful Fletch, even Jefferson who wrote that line about rights in the Declaration did not believe what he wrote and he knew it was only the equal of a public relations press release.
 
This topic seems to have popped up in a few threads recently so I thought I'd put this together. Put simply do you believe in the concept of natural rights?
I guess I don't. A man stranded in the middle of the ocean has no right he can invoke to keep the sea from swallowing him. The only right anyone has is the right to decide your aditude, but even that can be argued to be a mere universal condition rather than a right.

I do believe in human rights and civil rights, though, as those exist within social construts and not nature.

That is to say rights that are "not contingent upon the laws, customs, or beliefs of any particular culture or government, and therefore universal and inalienable".
Every right you have can be alienated from you, exept the right to make to decide your aditude, to 'persue happiness'.
 
No, there is no right way for any of those creatures to live at all. People live in all kinds of different ways. So do mice. So do ants. So do bears. What you're really arguing for is your preferred way to live. It's your opinion. If you want the "natural" way for man to live, you're back to living in caves and off the land. If you want to do that, feel free.
None of that is true, of course. There is a right way for bears to live and that is how they live. Same with mice and ants. Instinct and natural appetite guides their decisions. Ours are guided by reason. And there is a right way for rational animals to live and it isn't in caves as you absurdly suggest. If you would actually apply reason for a moment you would realize that it is exactly because of our rational minds that we don't live in caves. Not sure why you would even argue this point. It is fairly obvious even to those who don't have much going on upstairs.
 
You have a way with words making that sound really deep. Well done. But truthfully, it it no way shape or form negates the reality that a belief in natural rights is simply a belief held because the believer opts to believe it. And lets be really truthful Fletch, even Jefferson who wrote that line about rights in the Declaration did not believe what he wrote and he knew it was only the equal of a public relations press release.

the issue is not whether natural rights exist or do not exist

the issue is-did those who founded this nation believe in natural rights (YES)

and as a result, did their belief frame the way the Bill of rights was written or how it should be interpreted (YES)
 
You have a way with words making that sound really deep. Well done. But truthfully, it it no way shape or form negates the reality that a belief in natural rights is simply a belief held because the believer opts to believe it.
A belief in natural rights is just a recognition of reality. Man is a rational being whose survival depends upon his rational mind. Reason cannot function in a world dominated by force and violence. Rights will exist one way or another. Either they will be innate in each man equally, or they will be reserved to the strong whose rights are the product of violence and coercion. Reason demands the former because it cannot exist in the latter. To survive, as man, requires the freedom to act according to ones own conscience. Since it is necessary that man do so, it is right that man do so. That is basically all that natural rights entail.

And lets be really truthful Fletch, even Jefferson who wrote that line about rights in the Declaration did not believe what he wrote and he knew it was only the equal of a public relations press release.
I don't know about any of that. From everything I have heard, Jefferson believed it, as did all of the Founders.
 
the issue is not whether natural rights exist or do not exist

the issue is-did those who founded this nation believe in natural rights (YES)

and as a result, did their belief frame the way the Bill of rights was written or how it should be interpreted (YES)
I think both issues are equally important. 1) that natural rights exist 2) that the Founders believed it and wrote it into our Constitution. If you want to see #2 eroded and destroyed, say nothing while they erode and destroy #1.
 
The introduction of RIGHT and WRONG in terms of evaluative judgments was NOT part of my explanation. It is entirely of your own introduction.

You can't separate the concept of a right from morality. For example, if a society decides as a matter of convention that a child has a right to eat an ice cream cone on a public street without being molested what would be the point if a bully could just steal it from him? But then I can see why you'd want to avoid the subject of making evaluative judgments, because then you're left with the ticklish task of explaining how the white majority in South Africa wasn't wrong in depriving blacks of basic human rights, since their ability to deprive blacks of their rights emanated from force. I suppose you could continue to keep your mouth shut, in which case, whether you realize if or not, you're nonetheless making a normative judgment concerning what the state of affairs in the country should have been. ("Force makes right. Ergo because the whites were more powerful, they were right." If rights emanate neither from force nor natural law, then you're left with convention, unless you can do what no one else has done and come up with another source for the concept of a "right." Good luck utilizing convention to explain how the black majority agreed to make themselves second-class citizens.)
 
Obviously evolution is stuck and possibly reversing itself.

Every time the topic of "Natural Rights" I find it a bit disturbing how so many people believe that humanity is lacking in the intellectual ability to understand "cause and effect". Or just as fascinating is the number of folks who believe that rights are inherent, which is like saying everybody was born believing in the tooth fairy.

Rights are objective. Rights were derived from societies scrutinizing human behaviors in a social context - over a very long period.

Gezzzzzzzzzus...people, give human beings a bit more credit for their intellect, logic, and reason. No magic wands have been used in the creation of rights.
 
Exactly where did you get the "right to get plugged in the brain" from? You're just pulling this stuff out of your ass and thinking people are going to take you seriously? Think again.

Well, we're discussing natural rights, are we not? If I don't have a natural right to life, then what am I left with? Not much, except the "right" to take a slug to my brain.
 
The dude with the .38 just robbed you of your right. Rights sound good, make us feel warm and secure, and that's fine, that's good for humans, but there's simply no guarantees.

True. That's why we have prisons.
 
what the founders believed in is completely relevant in interpreting the words they wrote.

this is not an issue for an atheistic attack on God but rather constitutional interpretation

No it isn't. If they wrote about unicorns and leprechauns, it wouldn't make unicorns and leprechauns real. That's what we're trying to establish here. It doesn't matter what they thought about gods or rights, it matters whether what they thought was actually so. Are these natural rights actually real? If not, all the faith in the world, all the belief in the world is entirely irrelevant because they were simply wrong.
 
Well, we're discussing natural rights, are we not? If I don't have a natural right to life, then what am I left with? Not much, except the "right" to take a slug to my brain.

You don't have a natural right to life. You have a granted right to life, provided by the society in which you live. Welcome to reality.
 
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