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Old 06-26-2007, 05:47 PM   #2
Happy Monkey
I think this line's mostly filler.
 
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: DC
Posts: 13,575
Quote:
Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce View Post
"That no benefit outweighs"?... that depends on who's calling the shots, which is usually the ones making and enforcing the laws.
How you can exercise your rights always depends on who's calling the shots. But what you consider to be a right depends on you, and is largely based on culture. Your definition is nice, but ultimately useless. If both "stop at the red light" and "don't murder" are infringements of your rights, then "rights" are too abstract to be meaningful. You can't make a case against a law as infringing, because that's a given.

On the other hand, if you view a right as "something that no law ought to prevent me from doing", you can actually use the word in a useful way, as in "You should not ban handguns because of the right to keep and bear arms."
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