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The right to -not- exercise a right?

Do you have the right to NOT exercise a right?

  • Total voters
    38
EpicDude86 said:
Your 'Rights' didn't exist until Civilization came up with them.
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Completely untrue, the rights were always there, they are just recognized because of hundreds of years of philosophical and idealogical works that have finally pinpointed them, works such as Plato's Republic, the works of Socrates, etc.
Ancient cultures had different rights than we did now, so what happened to those rights?
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Wrong, they had different liberties, but the rights and freedoms still existed, this is the concept of freedom and liberty, they are similar but completely incompatible, rights are inaliable, liberties are infringable.
Did they stop being rights or what? In medieval Denmark you could kill someone so long as you paid their worth to the family, that was a 'right' so to speak.
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There was a consequence directly related to the action, and this was a fine, so how could it be considered a "right to murder"?
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Ikari said:
You can't test the laws of thermodynamics either. You can see if they've been violated in some way, but they cannot be proven from first principle.
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One: You can test the Laws of Thermodynamics.

Two: If they'd ever failed those tests, they wouldn't be Laws.

And two of the laws ARE first principles, ie, axioms, the second law can be derived from statistics, and the fourth is an expression of the ..ummm..."rest state" of matter, ie, that it's not possible to extract all the energy from a system at absolute zero.

But they are all defined by observations of the universe.

RIGHTS, however, are just definitions and feelings, and culturally dependent.
 
Scarecrow Akhbar said:
One: You can test the Laws of Thermodynamics.

Two: If they'd ever failed those tests, they wouldn't be Laws.

And two of the laws ARE first principles, ie, axioms, the second law can be derived from statistics, and the fourth is an expression of the ..ummm..."rest state" of matter, ie, that it's not possible to extract all the energy from a system at absolute zero.
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Mostly correct. Statistical mechanics uses the laws of thermodynamics. None of the laws of thermo (0-3) have been proven from first principle. You can measure thermodynamic systems and compare those to the laws to see if violation have occurred. But that is a qualitative test of the laws of thermodynamics, not quantitative.

Scarecrow Akhbar said:
But they are all defined by observations of the universe.
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Indeed, observation has led to the discovery of these laws. Just as rights can be discovered through qualitative measurement and understanding of philosophy.

Scarecrow Akhbar said:
RIGHTS, however, are just definitions and feelings, and culturally dependent.
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Rights were discovered via observation. Societies provide just as decent a system to observe as a thermodynamic experiment.
 
Ikari said:
Mostly correct. Statistical mechanics uses the laws of thermodynamics. None of the laws of thermo (0-3) have been proven from first principle. You can measure thermodynamic systems and compare those to the laws to see if violation have occurred. But that is a qualitative test of the laws of thermodynamics, not quantitative.
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No, measuring the energy output of a oil fired steam system driving turbogenerators is a quantitative measure of the validity of thermodynamics, and the measured outputs can be compared against thermodynamic theory. When results are found to be in conflict with the Laws of thermodynamics, it's the exeriment that's flawed. No experiment has ever successfully demonstrated a violation of the laws of thermodynamics. Entropy, it's not a good idea, it's the Law.

Cephus said:
Indeed, observation has led to the discovery of these laws. Just as rights can be discovered through qualitative measurement and understanding of philosophy.
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No, "rights" can be created, not "discovered".

There's a difference.

Columbus discovered America, he didn't create the continents.

Mothers create babies, they're not discovered.

Let's assume the independent absolute existence of the right to life is an innate property of human individuals as you claim.

In 1972 it was determined that women have a "right to choose to commit abortion" upon their unborn babies.

Since the baby is human, it has now been denied the right to life, and it's existence is now dependent upon the whim of the individual carrying it.

But...if the right to commit abortions was discovered, as you claim new rights are from time to time, then the mother has always had the right to commit abortion, and therefore the unborn baby's right to life never existed.

Since the mother was at one time an unborn child herself, she herself never had the right to life.

Since the science of life shows that the unborn fetus, from the moment of conception, is a genetically distinct individual, and physically distinct from the mother in that body fluids are not exchanged across the placenta, there is no naturally mile stone in the fetal development that says "human rights start here". Not a one, because the fetus is already human, from conception.

So, the human fetus, which also has the "right to choose to commit abortion", since by the standards of the argument presented so far, exist independently of the individuals ability to exercise them or even understand them, is denied it's right to life...from the moment of conception to a legally defined and pretty much arbitrary condition, that of birth.

How can, therefore a baby's right to life co-exist with the right someone else has to murder that same child?

Answer: It cannot. The "right" to life is at present legally defined to allow the newly created "right to murder unborn babies" an existence for the convenience of a particular class of voters.

And that is only possible because neither right is an absolute. instead, both are constructs of human law, and nothing but.
 
Scarecrow Akhbar said:
No, measuring the energy output of a oil fired steam system driving turbogenerators is a quantitative measure of the validity of thermodynamics, and the measured outputs can be compared against thermodynamic theory. When results are found to be in conflict with the Laws of thermodynamics, it's the exeriment that's flawed. No experiment has ever successfully demonstrated a violation of the laws of thermodynamics. Entropy, it's not a good idea, it's the Law.



No, "rights" can be created, not "discovered".

There's a difference.

Columbus discovered America, he didn't create the continents.

Mothers create babies, they're not discovered.

Let's assume the independent absolute existence of the right to life is an innate property of human individuals as you claim.

In 1972 it was determined that women have a "right to choose to commit abortion" upon their unborn babies.

Since the baby is human, it has now been denied the right to life, and it's existence is now dependent upon the whim of the individual carrying it.

But...if the right to commit abortions was discovered, as you claim new rights are from time to time, then the mother has always had the right to commit abortion, and therefore the unborn baby's right to life never existed.

Since the mother was at one time an unborn child herself, she herself never had the right to life.

Since the science of life shows that the unborn fetus, from the moment of conception, is a genetically distinct individual, and physically distinct from the mother in that body fluids are not exchanged across the placenta, there is no naturally mile stone in the fetal development that says "human rights start here". Not a one, because the fetus is already human, from conception.

So, the human fetus, which also has the "right to choose to commit abortion", since by the standards of the argument presented so far, exist independently of the individuals ability to exercise them or even understand them, is denied it's right to life...from the moment of conception to a legally defined and pretty much arbitrary condition, that of birth.

How can, therefore a baby's right to life co-exist with the right someone else has to murder that same child?

Answer: It cannot. The "right" to life is at present legally defined to allow the newly created "right to murder unborn babies" an existence for the convenience of a particular class of voters.

And that is only possible because neither right is an absolute. instead, both are constructs of human law, and nothing but.
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They're gonna get you with that "Well a fetus isn't a person until..." line. Which then leads me to ask...At what stage in pregnancy do rights materialize?
 
Scarecrow Akhbar said:
No, measuring the energy output of a oil fired steam system driving turbogenerators is a quantitative measure of the validity of thermodynamics, and the measured outputs can be compared against thermodynamic theory. When results are found to be in conflict with the Laws of thermodynamics, it's the exeriment that's flawed. No experiment has ever successfully demonstrated a violation of the laws of thermodynamics. Entropy, it's not a good idea, it's the Law.
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It's quantitative measurement of the system. But not a direct probe of the law, that is inferred from the data.

Scarecrow Akhbar said:
No, "rights" can be created, not "discovered".

There's a difference.
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I know the difference, the wording was purposeful. The rights were discovered and acknowledged.

Scarecrow Akhbar said:
Columbus discovered America, he didn't create the continents.

Mothers create babies, they're not discovered.

Let's assume the independent absolute existence of the right to life is an innate property of human individuals as you claim.

In 1972 it was determined that women have a "right to choose to commit abortion" upon their unborn babies.

Since the baby is human, it has now been denied the right to life, and it's existence is now dependent upon the whim of the individual carrying it.

But...if the right to commit abortions was discovered, as you claim new rights are from time to time, then the mother has always had the right to commit abortion, and therefore the unborn baby's right to life never existed.

Since the mother was at one time an unborn child herself, she herself never had the right to life.

Since the science of life shows that the unborn fetus, from the moment of conception, is a genetically distinct individual, and physically distinct from the mother in that body fluids are not exchanged across the placenta, there is no naturally mile stone in the fetal development that says "human rights start here". Not a one, because the fetus is already human, from conception.

So, the human fetus, which also has the "right to choose to commit abortion", since by the standards of the argument presented so far, exist independently of the individuals ability to exercise them or even understand them, is denied it's right to life...from the moment of conception to a legally defined and pretty much arbitrary condition, that of birth.

How can, therefore a baby's right to life co-exist with the right someone else has to murder that same child?

Answer: It cannot. The "right" to life is at present legally defined to allow the newly created "right to murder unborn babies" an existence for the convenience of a particular class of voters.

And that is only possible because neither right is an absolute. instead, both are constructs of human law, and nothing but.
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As much of a tragedy abortion is; government force can suppress rights. We had slaves at one time too, we didn't recognize their rights as humans. Didn't mean they didn't have those rights, it meant force was used to suppress the exercise there of.
 
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Ikari said:
As much of a tragedy abortion is; government force can suppress rights. We had slaves at one time too, we didn't recognize their rights as humans. Didn't mean they didn't have those rights, it meant force was used to suppress the exercise there of.
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I think they were like a 1/5 of a person or something like that.

And yes it did mean they didn't have those rights. As a slave you have no "rights" unless they are given to you. That's what a slave is. Am I right or have I gotten lost in an old dictionary...
 
EpicDude86 said:
I think they were like a 1/5 of a person or something like that.

And yes it did mean they didn't have those rights. As a slave you have no "rights" unless they are given to you. That's what a slave is. Am I right or have I gotten lost in an old dictionary...
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Slaves do not have any of their rights recognized, nor are they free to exercise them. That is what makes them slaves. Freemen have their rights recognized and can freely exercise them at their leisure.
 
EpicDude86 said:
They're gonna get you with that "Well a fetus isn't a person until..." line. Which then leads me to ask...At what stage in pregnancy do rights materialize?
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Yes, they're going to claim that a fetus isn't a person.

Of course, I said "human", not person, but never mind that. The pro-aborts have to make that argument because the right to life cannot co-exist with the right to commit murder.

So what do they always do? They start arguing the semanitcs of when being "human" is attached to the growing fetus, never admitting that it's human from conception. So, they use legal posturing to establish that rights are an absolute...by arbitrarily defining terms. I do not know what Ikari is going to say, though, I'm discussing generalities.
 
Scarecrow Akhbar said:
Yes, they're going to claim that a fetus isn't a person.

Of course, I said "human", not person, but never mind that. The pro-aborts have to make that argument because the right to life cannot co-exist with the right to commit murder.

So what do they always do? They start arguing the semanitcs of when being "human" is attached to the growing fetus, never admitting that it's human from conception. So, they use legal posturing to establish that rights are an absolute...by arbitrarily defining terms. I do not know what Ikari is going to say, though, I'm discussing generalities.
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I'd say that I'm pro-life in the strictest of senses (anti-death penalty and war as well). And I will also agree that the "personhood" argument is a dangerous one at that. Human is the best way to describe it as an unborn child is without doubt a human life. People want to argue privacy and property, but the end result is that I think some are perhaps upset at the inequality of biology and want to escape responsibility for life created. Though the exact topic of abortion may be a bit off target for this thread, which is broader implications on overall rights and their origin.
 
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Ikari said:
It's quantitative measurement of the system. But not a direct probe of the law, that is inferred from the data.
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It's a direct probe of the law. What, are you assuming that the Laws of Thermodynamics must be PROVED? That's not how science works. Science works by the process of elimination, the bad theories are shown to be fatally flawed and discarded. That's what quantitative experimentation is for, to enable the scientist to distinguish which theories best fit the facts.


Ikari said:
I know the difference, the wording was purposeful. The rights were discovered and acknowledged.
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Then you're simply wrong, as I showed.


Ikari said:
As much of a tragedy abortion is; government force can suppress rights.
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Nope, not what I said.

The GOVERNMENT, to use your word, "discovered" the right to commit abortion.

Do you deny the existence of this right? Yes or no.

If you affirm the "discovery" of this right, and you claim humans have the right to life, how do you reconcile the existence of mutually contradictory rights?

Is the mother's right to murder her unborn child superior? The law today certainly says that the case.

Yet, if the child's right to life is inferior to the mother's right to commit murder upon her baby, did the child ever have the the right to live in the first place?

The answer to that must be "no", because contradictory rights can't exist.

Only if the unborn child is protected by law from murder by her mother can it be said to have a right to life.

Ikari said:
We had slaves at one time too, we didn't recognize their rights as humans.
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Right.

White people at one time had the right to own black people.

White people lost the freedom to exercise that right.

Do white people still have the right to own black people?

According to your arguments, a supressed right still exists regardless of the individual's ability to express it.

However, since the blacks have the right to be their owners of their own bodies, how is this supposed right to own black people reconciled with the black person's right to own his own body?

Answer: The right to own black people was a fiction of the law during a certain period of history, and the right of black people and white people to own their own bodies is a legal fiction of this time, and in future times the roles can be reversed or changed in any way possible. Because its the law that exists, and the laws define the rights contained within it.

There are no innate rights.
 
There was never a "right" to own another human. There was bigotry and force employed to suppress the rights of a certain group based on superficial qualities, but that's about it.
 
Ikari said:
I'd say that I'm pro-life in the strictest of senses (anti-death penalty and war as well). And I will also agree that the "personhood" argument is a dangerous one at that. Human is the best way to describe it as an unborn child is without doubt a human life. People want to argue privacy and property, but the end result is that I think some are perhaps upset at the inequality of biology and want to escape responsibility for life created. Though the exact topic of abortion may be a bit off target for this thread, which is broader implications on overall rights and their origin.
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The topic was introduced for illustrative purposes and shouldn't hijack the discussion of rights, I hope.

Also, I'm not using "you" or "your" to indicate any sense of your personal views, since I didn't know them. I'm merely arguing that the application of the concept of rights as absolute properties introduces irreconciable conflicts in the logic, which means the logic of the innateness of "rights" is flawed. Hence rights are not innate properties of human beings.
 
Ikari said:
There was never a "right" to own another human. There was bigotry and force employed to suppress the rights of a certain group based on superficial qualities, but that's about it.
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Yes there was.

The Dredd Scott decision affirmed that slaves were property and that merely conveying slaves from a slave state to a non-slave state did not alter their status as property and thus could not be removed from their owners without due process.

Owners have the right to own property.

Slaves were property.

Ergo, the owners of slaves possessed the right to own slaves.

Since your postulate is that rights are innate, then slave owners had an innate right to own slaves.

Then slavery was ended.

So slaves not only were not property, they were no longer slaves.

So other people were no longer allowed to exercise their innate right to own slaves.

Do they or do they not still possess that innate right to own slaves, or was that right snuffed out by legal and military action?
 
Ikari said:
There was never a "right" to own another human. There was bigotry and force employed to suppress the rights of a certain group based on superficial qualities, but that's about it.
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Most of History might disagree with you, so...at what point did it stop being a right? When most of civilization accepted it as immoral?
 
Scarecrow Akhbar said:
Yes there was.

The Dredd Scott decision affirmed that slaves were property and that merely conveying slaves from a slave state to a non-slave state did not alter their status as property and thus could not be removed from their owners without due process.

Owners have the right to own property.

Slaves were property.

Ergo, the owners of slaves possessed the right to own slaves.

Since your postulate is that rights are innate, then slave owners had an innate right to own slaves.

Then slavery was ended.

So slaves not only were not property, they were no longer slaves.

So other people were no longer allowed to exercise their innate right to own slaves.

Do they or do they not still possess that innate right to own slaves, or was that right snuffed out by legal and military action?
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I think we've reached the end road. You refuse to listen and try to at least understand in some way my argument. This written here is clear indication of just that. You have confused issues to misrepresent my point. As it has been rather stubbornly demonstrated by you in this thread that this is the behavior you choose, we're done. Spinning wheels gets us nowhere and I have much better things to do with my time than to slam my head against a brick wall repeatedly.

If you choose to engage in honest, open debate to try to understand at least in some part where I am coming from; perhaps we can pick it up there. Till then, there's nothing else I can write to promote this debate in a healthy and meaningful manner. It's up to you.
 
Ikari said:
I think we've reached the end road. You refuse to listen and try to at least understand in some way my argument. This written here is clear indication of just that. You have confused issues to misrepresent my point. As it has been rather stubbornly demonstrated by you in this thread that this is the behavior you choose, we're done. Spinning wheels gets us nowhere and I have much better things to do with my time than to slam my head against a brick wall repeatedly.

If you choose to engage in honest, open debate to try to understand at least in some part where I am coming from; perhaps we can pick it up there. Till then, there's nothing else I can write to promote this debate in a healthy and meaningful manner. It's up to you.
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Well you kinda come off the same way. Neither of you are listening to the other one's side, you're just refuting it. It's fun to watch though, I'll give you that. I'm learning lots.
 
EpicDude86 said:
Well you kinda come off the same way. Neither of you are listening to the other one's side, you're just refuting it. It's fun to watch though, I'll give you that. I'm learning lots.
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No, I understand perfectly the other side. They define rights through utility and functionality. Ideals and laws of societies change, as they change the perceived rights of those people change as well. What was a right at some point loses the status when enough of society rejects that notion as a right. We have the right to bear arms because enough people have agreed that it is a right and it's guaranteed, we can exercise it. If people change their mind and laws to prohibit gun ownership are established, the right to keep and bear arms no longer exists.

I simply disagree with the floppy definition of rights, and instead root them in the human race. All humans have the same base rights; everything stems from life, liberty, and property.
 
Ikari said:
No, I understand perfectly the other side. They define rights through utility and functionality. Ideals and laws of societies change, as they change the perceived rights of those people change as well. What was a right at some point loses the status when enough of society rejects that notion as a right. We have the right to bear arms because enough people have agreed that it is a right and it's guaranteed, we can exercise it. If people change their mind and laws to prohibit gun ownership are established, the right to keep and bear arms no longer exists.

I simply disagree with the floppy definition of rights, and instead root them in the human race. All humans have the same base rights; everything stems from life, liberty, and property.
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The floppy definition of rights IS indeed the problem here in this conversation.

Define these base rights for me? Because I'm assuming most of what you're going to list would be contrary to some basic human instincts.
 
Ikari said:
I think we've reached the end road. You refuse to listen and try to at least understand in some way my argument.
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I have listened.

I do understand your argument.

It's not my fault you're wrong.

I've presented clear logic demonstrating the flaws in your argument.

When are you going to present the flaws in the logic, of which there are none?


Your point is that rights are innate, and that people still have those rights when their expression of them is suppressed by abusive government.

I presented two separate examples of systems of mutually exclusive rights and you've refused to address either scenario.

Ikari said:
If you choose to engage in honest, open debate to try to understand at least in some part where I am coming from; perhaps we can pick it up there. Till then, there's nothing else I can write to promote this debate in a healthy and meaningful manner. It's up to you.
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If you wish to resign from the debate you've lost, please submit your request in more transparent phrasing.

If you wish to continue the discussion, try discussing the points I've been making. Repeatedly insisting that rights are innate while refusing to acknowledge the multiple examples demonstrating the falsity of that claim that have been presented is not how you conduct a .... ummm...what did you say?...oh, yeah, an "honest, open debate".

I comprehend your position.

It's false.

It's been demonstrated to be false.

Rights are legal constructs, not innate possessions of individuals of the species.
 
Ikari said:
I simply disagree with the floppy definition of rights, and instead root them in the human race. All humans have the same base rights; everything stems from life, liberty, and property.
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So what you're saying is that white people STILL possess the right to own black people, as an example.

But how do you reconcile the woman's newly invented right to murder her baby with that baby's right to life?

Which right is dominant, and hence which right doesn't exist?

You've glossed over that.
 
Scarecrow Akhbar said:
So what you're saying is that white people STILL possess the right to own black people, as an example.

But how do you reconcile the woman's newly invented right to murder her baby with that baby's right to life?

Which right is dominant, and hence which right doesn't exist?

You've glossed over that.
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If you claim that you understand my point then you'll understand that what you have written here is a purposeful misrepresentation of what I have stated (at least the first statement). As I said, if you wish to engage in honest, intelligent debate we may. I have no problem with that. But I shall not continue if all you want to do is engage in hyperbole and spin of my arguments. That's pointless.
 
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EpicDude86 said:
The floppy definition of rights IS indeed the problem here in this conversation.

Define these base rights for me? Because I'm assuming most of what you're going to list would be contrary to some basic human instincts.
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All rights are derived from life, liberty, and property.
 
Ikari said:
When you do the former. Otherwise, we'll have to accept that qualitative measurement can yield just as fine observation and result as quantitative.
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Except I did and now it's your turn. Or will you, as I suspect, try to wiggle out of it because you know it can't be done. Bald assertion doesn't make something true, but apparently that's all you've got.
 
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