so do you see it as a need to balance human rights with social order?
or do you see no place for human rights at all ?
Human rights are just more policies. If you ask three liberals to seriously define what human rights are, you'll get four answers and an impromptu street protest. Some "human rights" are good policies because they're cheap and they produce good results, like the freedom of the press and the right to keep and bear arms. Other "human rights" are
mostly good policies because the State can provide blanket coverage in ways the market cannot-- like primary education and universal healthcare-- and they double as useful tools for social engineering.
And some "human rights" are just bad policies, like the "right" to an education you're intellectually or socially incapable of benefiting from, the "right" to incur 85% of your lifetime healthcare costs staving off the inevitable in your last eighteen months, or the "right" to march down public roads shouting, blocking traffic, and waving picket signs with offensive slogans on them.
you make the assumption that you know what means will lead to which ends. or at least you think you can figure it out by trial and error.
The only real assumption I make is that society will survive, mostly because assuming anything else is self-destructive. As long as society survives, it is possible for it to be improved, and as long as society's goals are consistent with its means, improvement is inevitable. The problem is that in democracies, especially liberal democracies, society's goals are not consistent with each other-- and the majority of them remain unspoken.
which is what the Fathers did with the bill of rights. they defined the ENDS rather than the means.
The problem is, they defined a very limited system of ends in reaction to abuses against them carried out by their former government-- and did not consciously address either the practical or moral needs of society. Our nation has survived this long mainly because the State has ignored-- in some cases blatantly-- the limitations imposed upon it by the Constitution in order to fulfill its obligations to the people.
the ends being agreed on universally is sufficient for a framework for social order. the means can and should be decided on individual level because decisions are usually more efficient on that level than on state level.
Everyone believes this, and it's a load of utter nonsense. It is not enough to say that we have a right to life, liberty, and property and then simply let individuals figure out not only how to secure their own, but how to defend their neighbors', rights. There must be an authority that defines what these "rights" means, and implements them practically in the law-- and that means that the authority is limited by their own subjective experience and biases in implementing the law.