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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
ernst barkmann said:
oh, my dictionary is ADAPTED TO THE CONSTITUTION AND LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND OF THE SEVERAL STATES OF THE AMERICAN UNION......is yours?
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The dictionary I quoted is independent and objective, not "mine" or anyone's. I think you just betrayed your biased source, much like quoting NARTH regarding gay marriage.

Your pride alone holds you here. You seem to have a need to get the last word in, but know that I know how to quote posts even after threads are closed, and so yours will not be the last. Save face and give up that battle now while you have some face to save. There are no natural rights, there never were. Yes this means you were lied to. Yes this mean the entire United States is a fraud. But just because the Titanic is sinking doesn't mean you can't be a survivor.
 
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Jerry said:
The dictionary I quoted is independent and objective, not "mine" or anyone's. I think you just betrayed your biased source, much like quoting NARTH regarding gay marriage.

Your pride alone holds you here.
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no my research of rights and knowing what i am talking about keeps me here, you see jerry, i have covered this subject many times before this thread on other threads and other forums before, and i have read and understand the meanings..long before talking to you about it.
 
ernst barkmann said:
no my research of rights and knowing what i am talking about keeps me here, you see jerry, i have covered this subject many times before this thread on other threads and other forums before, and i have read and understand the meanings..long before talking to you about it.
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If that were true then you would know that Natural Rights do not exist because every right can be taken from you. Please do not lie to me again, I thought highly of you.
 
Jerry said:
If that were true then you would know that Natural Rights do not exist because every right can be taken from you. Please do not lie to me again, I thought highly of you.
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sorry jerry, you can suppress rights...which is done by people and by governments, but rights are still there, because those people and those governments, did not grant them.

people are born free, it is government which made them unwilling subjects, to their will.

if i were to take the position that natural rights did not exist, then i will have to denounce my believes in the founding principles of america and the laws of america which are based on them...in short i would be denouncing anything i have ever been taught and read from the men who created our very own nation, and i will not do that.
 
Cephus said:
Actually, there are tons of repeat offenders who specifically want to go back to prison because it's easier than being on the outside. Do you ever get sick of being so ignorant?
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Tons, eh? Yeah, I'll have to plead ignorance on that one. :lol: I mean, I can see a homeless person trying to get into a local drunk tank for a night to avoid the cold. That would be rational. Even the occasional oldtimer who's grown accustomed to prison life. I would even call that rational. But tons of people lining up to get into prison? Get real, man, or give me a source.
 
Jerry said:
If there were a natural right to life then no one could ever be murdered.

In fact there wouldn't even be war since no one on either side could ever die.
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The fact that rights are violated in no way means they do not exist. This point has already been addressed, and you are now going in circles repeating it.

The reality is that your definition of natural rights is totally bogus and out of line with what natural rights actually are. You have redefined the concept of natural rights in order to say they do not exist, a completely fallacious tactic.
 
Jerry said:
If that were true then you would know that Natural Rights do not exist because every right can be taken from you. Please do not lie to me again, I thought highly of you.
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I have $10 in my wallet. A robber takes it away from me. Does that mean the $10 did not exist? Of course not. Yet that is your entire argument with regards to natural rights--"if you can take something away, therefore it does not exist." A totally nonsensical non sequitur.
 
roguenuke said:
No, there is only a tendency for most people to please others because of how we are raised and/or our experiences.
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I don't think people are taught how to feel. I think emotions such as love, hate, sadness, and happiness are innate even if they develop with maturity. I mean, have you ever heard of a newborn smiling after he's had his fanny spanked, or are they just quick learners who get the message on the first smite that they're supposed to scream their lungs out? As for the abusers, I'm sure some of them rationalize their behavior as "reasonable," but most of them realize what they'e doing is wrong. Even a sociopath knows the difference. They just can't help themselves because they lack self-control.
 
Lakryte said:
I have $10 in my wallet. A robber takes it away from me. Does that mean the $10 did not exist? Of course not. Yet that is your entire argument with regards to natural rights--"if you can take something away, therefore it does not exist." A totally nonsensical non sequitur.
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That's not my argument at all.

This is about what kind of right it is, not if you have any rights at all. You have a right to life, but it is not inalienable, which means it's not a Natural Right. The right to life is a Human Right because it is an authority or entitlement you have simply by virtue of being human.

You have $10 in your wallet. The government takes that away from you as 'tax'. You have been alienated from your $10. If that $10 was your inalienable right then you would have been born with it, because no one could have given it to you as payment, nor could you spend that $10, because you cannot willingly give away inalienable rights.

There are Human Rights and there are Civil Rights, but there are no Natural rights and we can prove this over and over.
 
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Ahlevah said:
I don't think people are taught how to feel. I think emotions such as love, hate, sadness, and happiness are innate even if they develop with maturity. I mean, have you ever heard of a newborn smiling after he's had his fanny spanked, or are they just quick learners who get the message on the first smite that they're supposed to scream their lungs out? As for the abusers, I'm sure some of them rationalize their behavior as "reasonable," but most of them realize what they'e doing is wrong. Even a sociopath knows the difference. They just can't help themselves because they lack self-control.
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The emotions themselves are innate to us, how they are directed is not. That comes from experiences and in some ways teachings.

It depends on how hard you smack the fanny, as well as the child's pain tolerance. I had a brother who laughed at getting spankings because his pain tolerance was so high.

And no, morals are subjective. Right and wrong is subjective. This is why segregation was fought so hard by so many, because they didn't see it as "wrong", despite so many of us now seeing this as wrong. That is part of morality. The same is true for killing. Yes, some may see it as wrong for their own morality, but others likely see what they are doing as not wrong (perhaps their views of morality hold a strong sense of "survival of the fittest"), even if they know that most of society will view their actions as wrong). There is a difference between viewing something as "wrong" and knowing that others will view something as "wrong".
 
roguenuke said:
And no, morals are subjective. Right and wrong is subjective. This is why segregation was fought so hard by so many, because they didn't see it as "wrong", despite so many of us now seeing this as wrong.
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Okay, they "didn't see it as 'wrong'" but it was wrong nonetheless, just as Hitler, Pol Pot, and Stalin were wrong when they snuffed out tens of millions of lives. It took the moral suasion of people like Martin Luther King and Ralph Abernathy and television images of blacks being beaten at places such as the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma to convince those who still needed convincing that Jim Crow was wrong. But, once again, love and reason triumphed over hate and discord.
 
roguenuke said:
And no, morals are subjective. Right and wrong is subjective. This is why segregation was fought so hard by so many, because they didn't see it as "wrong", despite so many of us now seeing this as wrong.
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While we're on the subject, do me a favor and give me your best moral argument in favor of the Holocaust. And I don't consider a moral argument one in which "lots of Germans thought it was right." I mean tell us why killing millions of Jews, Catholic clergymen, gypsies, homosexuals, political dissidents, etc. wasn't "wrong." If morals are truly subjective that shouldn't prove too difficult.
 
Ahlevah said:
You're deluding yourself if you think these are rights. The constitution of the USSR was a beautiful testament to human rights. I have a copy from the 1930s. It didn't prevent Stalin from killing 25 million people and sending millions more to forced labor camps.
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Ahlevah said:
True. That consent can come willingly from political indoctrination or begrudgingly through force. The Soviet Union got around the problem of dissent by utilizing a combination of both, with political education and, during several critical periods in the USSR's history, by embedding communist political commissars within the ranks of every military unit in the country. Their job was both to indoctrinate and sniff out dissent. Then there were various incarnations of the secret police (such as the NKVD). The normal resolution was to make the troublemaker disappear, either by executing him or sending him to a forced labor camp in the Gulag where he also faced a high probability of death.
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You're contrasting distribution of liberties within competing social structures. That's not an argument in defense of natural rights, that's simply a plea to emotions.
 
Ahlevah said:
Okay, they "didn't see it as 'wrong'" but it was wrong nonetheless, just as Hitler, Pol Pot, and Stalin were wrong when they snuffed out tens of millions of lives. It took the moral suasion of people like Martin Luther King and Ralph Abernathy and television images of blacks being beaten at places such as the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma to convince those who still needed convincing that Jim Crow was wrong. But, once again, love and reason triumphed over hate and discord.
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Wrong, according to a majority. It's still a matter of consensus. You can't objectively prove something is morally wrong.
 
Ahlevah said:
While we're on the subject, do me a favor and give me your best moral argument in favor of the Holocaust. And I don't consider a moral argument one in which "lots of Germans thought it was right." I mean tell us why killing millions of Jews, Catholic clergymen, gypsies, homosexuals, political dissidents, etc. wasn't "wrong." If morals are truly subjective that shouldn't prove too difficult.
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That's just it. Morality is all subjective so you can't give an objective argument for it either way. Give me an argument for why it is wrong that doesn't involve any emotions or beliefs or "isn't it obvious?". You can't prove subjective arguments.

I believe it is wrong what happened along with the vast majority of those on the planet since the Holocaust. But that is still subjective.
 
roguenuke said:
I believe it is wrong what happened along with the vast majority of those on the planet since the Holocaust. But that is still subjective.
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No you don't. You may think you do, but if you can't properly articulate why you believe it other than Hitler lost and a majority of the planet declares it wrong then you're standing on moral quicksand. As I've already pointed out, from a logical standpoint when you say majority rules when it comes to morals you assume a normative position that says "If a majority of Germans say it's fine to kill Jews it's fine with me." Basically, anything goes as long as the majority wills it. That's just as absurd a position as the "might makes right" argument.

The reason people find genocide immoral and why there are international conventions against it is because it violates what Francis Hutcheson called our moral sense:

Suppose we get the same advantage from two men, one of whom does things for us because he loves us and delights in our happiness, while the other acts out of self-interest or under constraint. The two are equally beneficial or advantageous to us, and yet we’ll have quite different sentiments regarding them. So it’s certain that we have perceptions of moral actions other than those of advantage; and this power of receiving these perceptions can be called a moral ‘sense’, since it fits the definition of that word, namely ‘a determination of the mind to receive an idea from the presence of an object that we are presented with independently of our will’.

The Origin of Our Ideas of Virtue or Moral Good--Francis Hutcheson
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Ahlevah said:
No you don't. You may think you do, but if you can't properly articulate why you believe it other than Hitler lost and a majority of the planet declares it wrong then you're standing on moral quicksand. As I've already pointed out, from a logical standpoint when you say majority rules when it comes to morals you assume a normative position that says "If a majority of Germans say it's fine to kill Jews it's fine with me." Basically, anything goes as long as the majority wills it. That's just as absurd a position as the "might makes right" argument.

The reason people find genocide immoral and why there are international conventions against it is because it violates what Francis Hutcheson called our moral sense:
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You are just begging the question now thouh. You can call it 'moral sense' if you want, but now the argument is just that 'moral sense' is subjective, not objective. Otherwise why are peoples moral senses different? What you and I may find immoral is different. What german citizens in in 1940 found immoral was different. Morality is linked to knowledge, and people with differing knowledge of differing situations can come to different conclusions as to the morality of it.
 
Ahlevah said:
No you don't. You may think you do, but if you can't properly articulate why you believe it other than Hitler lost and a majority of the planet declares it wrong then you're standing on moral quicksand. As I've already pointed out, from a logical standpoint when you say majority rules when it comes to morals you assume a normative position that says "If a majority of Germans say it's fine to kill Jews it's fine with me." Basically, anything goes as long as the majority wills it. That's just as absurd a position as the "might makes right" argument.

The reason people find genocide immoral and why there are international conventions against it is because it violates what Francis Hutcheson called our moral sense:
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You don't get to tell me my morality, what I believe is right or wrong. But by you stating that I don't believe it is wrong, you did prove my point. If I don't believe that genocide is wrong, then I do not share your moral sense, so therefore, different people have different senses of morality.
 
roguenuke said:
You don't get to tell me my morality, what I believe is right or wrong. But by you stating that I don't believe it is wrong, you did prove my point. If I don't believe that genocide is wrong, then I do not share your moral sense, so therefore, different people have different senses of morality.
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The religious think their morality is the only morality and anyone who doesn't practice their morality is wrong. That's why this is a total waste of time.
 
Nilly said:
You are just begging the question now thouh. You can call it 'moral sense' if you want, but now the argument is just that 'moral sense' is subjective, not objective.
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It depends on how you define the question. The poll question asks the respondents whether they believe in natural rights. I responded that I did. I was then asked to provide objective proof to support my belief. I responded I had no "proof" in the sense that I've never had a right hit me in the head. On the other hand, I've seen no objective proof to disprove the theory even though some have maintained categorically that there is no objective basis for natural rights. What I have said is human intellect has given us the ability to reason, and reason tells us that a being that has the ability to reason, experience living, and feel thoughts and emotions has value beyond mere existence. I'm still waiting for the counter-argument.

Nilly said:
Otherwise why are peoples moral senses different?
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Is their moral sense different, or do they just violate what they know to be true? If someone does something for you because he wants to from his free will while another does something for you because he's forced to would it be "reasonable" to give each circumstance the same moral worth? Why would this ever be true?

Nilly said:
What german citizens in in 1940 found immoral was different.
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Was it? I wonder. How many Germans knew about the death camps and the scale of the Final Solution? How many of them just kept their mouths shut because if they opened them they'd end up on an eastbound train? How many of them had a sense that what they were doing was wrong but grudgingly participated? And how many of them had an absolutely amazing moral epiphany between 1940 and 1945 when national shame set it?
 
roguenuke said:
You don't get to tell me my morality, what I believe is right or wrong.
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I can tell you what I think is moral and why I think it's moral. What I can't do is reconcile your professed belief that genocide is wrong against your statement that morality is whatever the majority wants. So what is your view? Genocide is wrong today but if we took a worldwide vote tomorrow and people said it was okay then it would be okay? Is that your position? :confused:
 
Ahlevah said:
I can tell you what I think is moral and why I think it's moral. What I can't do is reconcile your professed belief that genocide is wrong against your statement that morality is whatever the majority wants. So what is your view? Genocide is wrong today but if we took a worldwide vote tomorrow and people said it was okay then it would be okay? Is that your position? :confused:
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I didn't say morality is whatever the majority wants. I have said that laws are made from the morality of the majority or those in charge. Those are not the same things. Morality is subjective. But you get laws in countries like ours based off of a consensus of the majority agreeing upon certain moral rules. In our case, the majority is limited by a supermajority in the form of the Constitution.

To me, it would still be wrong and I would work to turn it around. If that meant killing people to defend myself or others from being killed en masse, even killing a lot of people, then so be it. Subjective morality doesn't mean you must submit to the moral code of those in charge, whether it be a person, a small group of people, or the majority of a society you live in. It just means that everyone has their own morals. My morality doesn't change with the beliefs of the majority (such morality would be shallow). It is based on my experiences and what I've learned throughout my life. My moral code/compass can change, just like other people's can.
 
roguenuke said:
My morality doesn't change with the beliefs of the majority (such morality would be shallow). It is based on my experiences and what I've learned throughout my life. My moral code/compass can change, just like other people's can.
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Does experience change the moral nature of a question or just the viewer's perception of it? I argue for the former. The principles behind a reasoned argument are constant, regardless of who is doing the arguing. As for mass killing, I can justify self-preservation. I can't justify killing people to satisfy a whim or megalomania.
 
Ahlevah said:
Does experience change the moral nature of a question or just the viewer's perception of it? I argue for the former. The principles behind a reasoned argument are constant, regardless of who is doing the arguing. As for mass killing, I can justify self-preservation. I can't justify killing people to satisfy a whim or megalomania.
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You can't, others can, at least to themselves, and likely to a few others.

What if there were people who had a disease that they were carriers for but it didn't kill them. Would you support killing them to keep them from infecting others if it had a 99% fatality rate and airborne infection? That could easily be seen as self defense, but those people didn't do anything, they are just trying to survive, have food, water, and other necessary resources.
 
roguenuke said:
What if there were people who had a disease that they were carriers for but it didn't kill them. Would you support killing them to keep them from infecting others if it had a 99% fatality rate and airborne infection?
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No, but they couldn't be permitted to infect the general populace. They'd have to quarantined, even if that meant indefinitely in a controlled environment.
 
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