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What is a "Right"???

Craig24 said:
This provides an opportunity to quote a passage that has become a favorite of mine: "There is no right to a value that another person has to provide." When you understand that rights refer to independent action (an action you alone judge as proper to take and that requires nothing of anyone else), you will understand how a right to property (properly obtained) cannot violate your right to take the stuff other men have because that isn't a right at all.

Permit me to quote from another forum the following brilliant observation:
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Your argument is reasonable sounding, but I wonder if you could define the conditions under which property is "properly obtained"?

And what is to be done with property that was "improperly" obtained?

Also, are fresh water, coal, air, minerals, fish, and other natural resources to be considered "property"?
 
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I believe the only truly inalienable right is the right to believe that one is right no matter how wrong one may be. And there's no debating that. What do you think?
 
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Robert Prey said:
Item:

"AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says his organization is pushing for a 'Second Bill of Rights" for the United States of America.

Trumka and the AFL-CIO are calling for a new bill of rights that would guarantee "full employment," a "living wage," and a "healthy future."

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/afl...ng-rights-full-employment-living-wage-healthy

A "Right" is the room that Nature allows us to go about the business of staying alive. Natural rights cannot be granted by government. We are born with them. But a right cannot be a right if it is a trespass upon others. What Trumka and his members want is for government to trespass on the rights of others to fulfill his utopian fantasy of "a living wage" and "healthy future."
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Wrong. Those who keep a system that prevents a living wage or a healthy future are the trespassers.
 
Wow. Articles like the one linked to in the OP should only appear in publications like The Onion. Unfortunately, that is not the case. The consequences os the government guaranteeing all Americans full employment, a living wage, and a healthy future (whatever that means) would be disastrous.

Hopefully Obama doesn't see that article.
 
sir drinks-a-lot said:
Wow. Articles like the one linked to in the OP should only appear in publications like The Onion. Unfortunately, that is not the case. The consequences os the government guaranteeing all Americans full employment, a living wage, and a healthy future (whatever that means) would be disastrous.

Hopefully Obama doesn't see that article.
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I rather hope Obama didn't help write it. I'm fear he will pursue effecting it into Law.
 
Tricky said:
It was okay to take all that property from the Native Americans though, because not a one of them could show any deeds or proof of purchase.
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It didn't seem to make much difference even when they did, and the deeds came from the people who were doing the taking.

How many treaties with Native Americans has the U.S. government managed to not violate?

Andy "Old Hickory" Jackson told the U.S. Supreme Court to stuff it when he didn't want to honor Cherokee property rights, even though the highest court in the land said he was wrong.

I guess he had more troops than John Marshall.
 
Tricky said:
When talking about rights and the American Revolution, it is important to remember that many of the colonists considered themselves British citizens, and when the King began to lay onerous taxes on them (without representation), they felt like they were being deprived of their rights as Englismen. They thought all this stuff had been worked out in the Magna Charta.
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It's a little bit of a tangent, but when talking about the American Revolution it is also important to remember that many of the settlers were the descendants of Scots, Scots-Irish (Ulster Scots), and Welsh, among others, who had no particular love for the English monarchy or Parliament. They were already used to their rights being abused by the English. It was no small part of the reason they left to try and make a living in a wilderness.

Many of the rest were the descendants of indentured servants or other less than enthusiastic emigrants, whose loyalty to the Crown was similarly problematic. I doubt that the Revolution would have been a success if any significant proportion of the colonists felt that their Englishness was particularly important.

I suspect that a tradition of visceral dislike for all things English among many colonists and a belief that the rights they wanted were doomed to the same fate they had suffered at English hands in the past if they didn't revolt had at least as compelling an effect.
 
Rolfe said:
A right is nothing but a privilege which is guaranteed to you by the society you are a part of.

The concept of being born with "inalienable rights" is so much woo.
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This. Basically a "Right" is anything you want that you don't feel like actually arguing a reason for.
 
MaGZ said:
National Socialism is based upon natural law, just to let you know.
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National Socialism was based on a flawed understanding of both national history and socialism. And it's many flaws have already been exposed for all to see, point at and go, "Seriously dude?"
 
BenBurch said:
Rights are ALWAYS contingent upon others. They are a pact with others and have no other real existence.
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Yes, they are a convention. The power comes from the philosophical notion they are inherent, however.

That conventiom seems to work out much better for everyone than the illogical notion that rights are a gift from other people.
 
Beerina said:
Yes, they are a convention. The power comes from the philosophical notion they are inherent, however.

That conventiom seems to work out much better for everyone than the illogical notion that rights are a gift from other people.
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so reality is a illogical notion to you?
 
That sounds like another version of the "you can't have morals without religion" canard.
 
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