Er, where did I ever support law over rights?
Now you are attempting to attack a strawman.
I have never claimed that you "supported law
over rights"
I pointed out that, when your definition of Rights proved indefensible, you switched to arguing the law instead.
Or even basic compassion and reduction of pain and suffering? Which quote(s)? And since I dont remember doing so, that pretty much cancels out your rape ex.
Not at all. The person in that example, realizing that the statement they had made produced results they couldn't countenance, instead tried to switch to a discussion of legality, in hopes of dropping the failed logic they'd put forward.
Just as, for example, your claim right here in Post 182 that whether or not someone had rights depended on:
1. whether or not they had "entered into a state of society" and
2. whether or not they could exercise those rights.
Jews and blacks were entirely capable of exercising their rights and being a part of society.
The unborn are not. Your argument fails.
….
Before birth, the unborn has no rights that can be separated from the mother (physically, legally, ethically, practically). It's a dependency that truly demonstrates that it is not equal.
They do not have a single right that they can exercise independently.
Was shown to have results that you weren't willing to defend in
Post 195, namely, that the argument that one doesn't have rights if one is dependent on others or otherwise unable to independently exercise them would mean that 5 day old infants and people in coma's didn't have rights.
Your response to the results produced by your theory of Rights in
Post 231 was to instead attempt to shift the topic to
Legal Status. Here you are doing it:
cpwill said:
Good point. Babies who were born 5 days prior are well known for their ability to independently exercise their right to free speech, moral expression, own weapons, and have their houses houses from the forcible stationing of armed troops.
But, because I'm interested in pursuing the implications of logic - by your argument above, patients in a coma can be killed by the hospital they are utterly dependent on, because they are no longer really people with rights. Do you actually support such a policy?
Once born, there is a
legal status recognized...people don't lose that
status but in some periods of their life...minority, orphans, mentally challenged, ill, in a coma, brain dead etc, they have
legal represents like relatives or the state that also make decisions for them, up to and including death.
And I'm good with an answer to 'who says' as those that first recognized them: and that would be man. All rights are a man-made concept.
:shrug: then they do not exist, and, when populations are ethnically cleansed, women are stoned in honor-killings, or children are sold into slavery, they have no cause for complaint, because their rights not to have these things occur, not being recognized by the population or government around them, do not exist.
If the existence or scope of your
rights are dependent on
what others are willing to do or not do to you, then they aren't rights at all. They are forbearances, or privileges.
What does your statement, "human rights are indeed equal?" mean?
My right to life is the equal of your own. My right to not have government impinge my speech, similarly equal. Ditto right to my faith, right to defend myself, so on, and so forth.
Btw, no non-religious human rights orgs, national or international, recognize rights for the unborn.
:shrug: that's fine. For most of the anti-slavery movement, no non-religiously motivated organizations recognized their rights, either.
