A violation of rights is a violation of rights. Just because you consider the right to life more important than the right to marry doesn't mean I agree. Nobody has the right to vote against gay marriage. They don't even have the right to put it on the ballot. It's no different to violate the rights of gay people to marry, than it is for me to enslave someone, or rape someone, or rob them, or kill them.


If you think that makes me a "madman", so be it. I think anyone who violates the rights of other people to be insane so I guess we have a similar opinion of each other. I think people who deny that rights exist to be monsters on an epic scale. They are in the company of people like Pol Pot, Hitler, Stalin, Mugabe, Milosevic, etc.

Huh. All rights are created equal, and I'm a monster. Ooh, not just a monster, an epic monster.

I'm like Hitler!

You learn something new every day.

The Northern States were bullying the Southern states (over money and power) because they had greater populations and were more industrialized and the Southern states decided to secede from the union because they didn't feel they were being fairly represented and they didn't like getting pushed around.

Lincoln violated the Constitution and got 600,000 Americans killed unnecessarily to prevent the union from breaking while under his administration.

The Southern states did nothing wrong when they left the union. Slavery would have ended even in the Confederate States of America within 20 years. It didn't make fiscal sense to keep them after Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin. Slaves are expensive to keep. I realize the war was not over slavery, but this is often brought up by revisionists as the reason for the war. These are the people who look at Lincoln as a hero.

Personally, I believe the U.S. would have been far better off if Lincoln didn't try to stop the Southern states from leaving. We would have better government, a more enlightened society, better political leaders, etc.

Think about it, George W. Bush would never have been president. In fact, JFK might never have been killed.

If you don't believe human beings have inalienable rights, yes....you are a monster. The good news is identifying the problem is half the battle. Now you can seek help to fix it.

:lol2:

I'll be sure to bring your name up at my next monster-anon meeting.

:corn:

OK. You want to alter my opinion about these mythical "rights," you need to give me:

1.) a list of them
2.) the story of how they were "discovered":

What equipment was needed for this discovery? Were they discovered orbiting Saturn? Were they discovered microscopically in someone's blood plasma? Were they lurking in a long-lost Dead Sea Scroll? Did an orange fall on someone's head, so mankind could at last compare the two fruits?


Listen, I am not heartless. I think we have a very nitpicky argument here about "rights" vs. ethics.

What I am saying is that "rights" do not exist, but ethics do -- there is always a question of what IS right. Therefore, good people will make an ethical decision based on the "golden rule" (treat others as you'd want to be treated). But the application of this depends on many things, not the least of which is money and power. Rights, like laws, are only worth their power of enforcement.

Ethics are rules to keep from treading on other people's rights.

Ethics aren't rules. Ethics are an intangible sense of right vs. wrong.

I've never discussed "mythical rights". I've discussed the very real human rights that have been recognized as self-evident throughout the planet earth for over a thousand years.


1) List all of the stars in the universe, and then I'll list all of our rights. Both jobs will require similar effort.

2) The story is in the links I gave you. Read them.

3) What equipment was required to discover gravity? None. Someone sat under an apple tree and he was hit on the noggin with gravity.

If you actually read the items I posted, you'll have a clue about how they were discovered. I could add plenty more. Another very early writer on the topic of inalienable human rights is Saint Thomas Aquinas. You could also read Alexis de Toqueville, Harry Browne, Peter McWilliams, David Bergland, etc.


I know what you are saying, but you are wrong. Rights do exist, and ethics also. To deny the existence of rights is to say you would have no more right to complain if I rob you, rape you, enslave you, or kill you than you would to complain that it is raining.

You are asking me for answers, and I've already given them to you. I created links to each of those things that you can read. At the very least read "Natural Law" and "The Law" if you're too lazy to read anything else.

Very well. In that case, on what basis would you determine what is NOT someone's right?

Call me whatever you will, but don't you dare call me lazy. I've already read most of what you posted. As I said before, while I agree they were brilliant philosophers, they are not imprimatur. Theories. Opinions. Not proof.

He was hit in the noggin with an apple, not with gravity. And really, even that is a legend that may or may not have actually taken place.

OK. Rights exist because you say they do. So mote it be. If you drag an argument out until your opponent ceases to give a shit, I guess you still can claim victory. Enjoy.

Then I am a monster.

I believe in the civilising power of progress...through that progress we have identified a set of 'rights' which we currently deem inalienable...but they're not actually inherent in our humanity. I am a card carrying member of Amnesty International and campaign in my country on 'human rights': but I also recognise that these rights are an intellectual construct, a theoretical framework into which we place our understanding of ourselves. I like that intellectual construct, it is useful for us as a species, and allows us to transcend some of the less appealing aspects of our humanity.

In the identification and application of an agreed set of 'rights' we are able to transcend in large degree our animal selves.

But those rights are not inherent. If they are then they must also apply beyond our species to other animals. We are animals. Thinking, feeling, advanced animals.


[eta] in the centuries of philosophy to which you refer Radar, the concept of natural rights included within it an acceptance of inequality between the sexes. Tom Paine, whilst arguing for greater rights for all (including women) nonetheless drew a distinction. I'm paraphrasing now, because my copy of RoM is at my house and I'm down at mum's, but it goes something like this: Nature recognises no inequality except for that which exists between the sexes.

The rights of man are not necessarily the rights of woman. To me, as a woman, the rights you speak of are profoundly alienable.

Dana, I understand your point of view, but you're wrong. The differences in rights that you perceive are cultural, not natural. You should know that there have been and still are matrilineal societies where women have dominant rights. If there are these, and patrilineal rights, too, then there can be no "inherent" applied to either sex.

In what way does that make me wrong? I don't believe rights are inherent to either sex. I don't believe rights are inherent at all. I was merely pointing out to Radar that the sources he cites as evidence for the existence of rights (the fact that a thousand years' of philosphers and thinkers have all recognised the existence of natural human rights) do not actually point to a recognition of inalienable human rights at all. Many of the writers who suggested that natural rights exist, also suggested that those rights are not equally applied across the sexes.

By Tom Paine's logic, I, as a woman, am not equal in nature to Radar, as a man. I, as a woman, do not have the same human rights as Radar.

OK, reading again, I misunderstood your post. And reading my post again, I misspoke. I agree with Radar that we all have inherent rights, but I came across as saying that no one does.

And fuck Thomas Paine.