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What is a "Right"???

Border Reiver said:
The Iroquois Confederacy and a few others likely have an issue with your first sentence here.

As to the other, by that logic the early settlers had (and by extension the current occupiers) no legal rights to those lands either. Or should the US be conquered no former US citizen would have property rights either.
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Everyone has a right to life, liberty and property, even the conquered and the United States has generally secured those rights even to the people of conquered nations.
 
Border Reiver said:
See, the problem you've got here is that Lincoln's suspension of habeus corpus didn't affect the regions of the US in rebellion at that time, only the regions where the Union government still had authority. What he did was suspend the rights of those who were not in rebellion - some reward for remaining loyal.

In other words your doctrine seems to be that if in war rights are free to be ignored, because, hey, it's a war. Given that there have been very few years of peace in the history of the US, you should be quite grateful that your government doesn't suspend your rights more often.

I would also like to draw your attention to the Hague Conventions and the Geneva Conventions with respect to your contention that there are no rules in war - there are plenty of rules, and you may be surprised to know that they are generally followed as well.
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In time of war, there are always domestic traitors and insurrectionists who must be dealt with if a nation is to survive..
 
DC said:
in some ways it is.

Article 21.

http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr//QUOTE][

NO. Voting is a legal, not a natural right. And everyone should not have the right to vote. Moreover, the United Nations Declaration of Rights is no valid authority on human rights. Certainly, the so-called right to "favorable remuneration" or for "equal pay for equal work" are not a natural rights. Nor should it be a legal right. Nor does anyone have a natural right to education.
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Robert Prey said:
Everyone has a right to life, liberty and property, even the conquered and the United States has generally secured those rights even to the people of conquered nations.
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Except of course where the US has a direct interest in taking them away, then the "might is right" principle applies.

What does the right to life mean? What are the limits? How is it secured?

What does the right to liberty mean? What are the limits? How is it secured?

What does the right to property mean? What are the limits? How is it secured?
 
Robert Prey said:
Everyone has a right to life, liberty and property, even the conquered ...
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Robert Prey said:
Voting is a legal, not a natural right ... the United Nations Declaration of Rights is no valid authority on human rights ... the so-called right to "favorable remuneration" or for "equal pay for equal work" are not a natural rights ... Nor does anyone have a natural right to education.
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It's great to have an expert on hand, but for future reference can you tell us how to work out which rights are natural and which are not, so that we don't have to keep asking you?

Is it, as suggested above, simply that things you like are natural rights and things you don't like are not?

Thanks.
 
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Robert Prey said:
DC said:
in some ways it is.

Article 21.

http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr//QUOTE][

NO. Voting is a legal, not a natural right. And everyone should not have the right to vote. Moreover, the United Nations Declaration of Rights is no valid authority on human rights. Certainly, the so-called right to "favorable remuneration" or for "equal pay for equal work" are not a natural rights. Nor should it be a legal right. Nor does anyone have a natural right to education.
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oh well i am just happy that you are not part of the society i am living in.
in my society, citizens do have a right to education. its a good thing for society. We as a society created rights for us and protect and enforce them.
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Robert Prey said:
Everyone has a right to life, liberty and property, even the conquered and the United States has generally secured those rights even to the people of conquered nations.
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what about states that have the death penalty?
 
Robert Prey said:
In time of war, there are always domestic traitors and insurrectionists who must be dealt with if a nation is to survive..
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No one is a traitor unless properly tried and convicted of treason. If all it takes to start detaining people arbitrarily is the state's suspicion that someone is a traitor, and the state doesn't then have to act in accordance with the law because it's war, you stand to lose all your rights. And by your logic it's all good.
 
Robert Prey said:
DC said:
in some ways it is.

Article 21.

http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/
Click to expand...

NO. Voting is a legal, not a natural right. And everyone should not have the right to vote. Moreover, the United Nations Declaration of Rights is no valid authority on human rights. Certainly, the so-called right to "favorable remuneration" or for "equal pay for equal work" are not a natural rights. Nor should it be a legal right. Nor does anyone have a natural right to education.
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What is the difference between a legal right and a natural right?

Why shouldn't citizens have the right to vote? Wouldn't the inability to affect the political process in your own state impede your ability to preserve your own liberty, etc?

If you have no education then how can you know your rights, how they can be protected, etc.?
 
Border Reiver said:
What is the difference between a legal right and a natural right?

Why shouldn't citizens have the right to vote? Wouldn't the inability to affect the political process in your own state impede your ability to preserve your own liberty, etc?

If you have no education then how can you know your rights, how they can be protected, etc.?
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Everyone may has the right to educate himself, and parents may have a moral responsibility to pay for the privilege, but there is no right to make one's neighbors pay for his or her education for that is a trespass.
 
Border Reiver said:
No one is a traitor unless properly tried and convicted of treason. If all it takes to start detaining people arbitrarily is the state's suspicion that someone is a traitor, and the state doesn't then have to act in accordance with the law because it's war, you stand to lose all your rights. And by your logic it's all good.[/QUOTe

War is anarchy and chaos and very unfair to a whole lot of innocents.
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Jack by the hedge said:
It's great to have an expert on hand, but for future reference can you tell us how to work out which rights are natural and which are not, so that we don't have to keep asking you?

Is it, as suggested above, simply that things you like are natural rights and things you don't like are not?

Thanks.
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"Natural rights are rights not contingent upon the laws, customs, or beliefs of any particular culture or government, and therefore universal and inalienable. In contrast, legal rights are those bestowed onto a person by the law of a particular political and legal system, and therefore relative to specific cultures and governments...":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_and_legal_rights
 
Border Reiver said:
Except of course where the US has a direct interest in taking them away, then the "might is right" principle applies.

What does the right to life mean? What are the limits? How is it secured?

What does the right to liberty mean? What are the limits? How is it secured?

What does the right to property mean? What are the limits? How is it secured?
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One question at a time, please.
 
Robert Prey said:
"Natural rights are rights not contingent upon the laws, customs, or beliefs of any particular culture or government, and therefore universal and inalienable. In contrast, legal rights are those bestowed onto a person by the law of a particular political and legal system, and therefore relative to specific cultures and governments...":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_and_legal_rights
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aah i see, Natural Rights are pretty useless compared to real rights that are enforced and protected by a society.
 
Robert Prey said:
"Everyone" meaning everyone who has not violated the rights of others.
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In an earlier post, you referred to what I assume were the European "conquerers" of North America.

Since I think we both would agree that "conquering" a people that have not attacked you is a violation of their rights as you have presented them, and in a further post you state that those who violate the rights of others forfeit their own. From whence comes the legitimacy of property ownership in North America?

How can I have the "right" to property stolen from someone else?
 
Robert Prey said:
"Natural rights are rights not contingent upon the laws, customs, or beliefs of any particular culture or government, and therefore universal and inalienable. In contrast, legal rights are those bestowed onto a person by the law of a particular political and legal system, and therefore relative to specific cultures and governments...":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_and_legal_rights
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I note that you only selected one theory of natural rights - that of Paine.

If a natural right is "universal and inalienable" then you cannot forfeit that right by infringing on the right of others for that which is inalienable cannot be alienated from the holder, nor can it be voluntarily forfeited.


The problem I have with your definition of property rights as a "natural right" is that property rights are highly dependent on culture and society and cannot be said to be universal. Many cultures viewed the ownership of land by individuals as impossible - land belonged to a group or collective, many First Nations in North America worked on this principle, the Highland clans of Scotland (up until the 17th century), etc. If your rights are "natural" then one would expect that they would be interpreted the same way by various cultures and they aren't.

Rights are viewed in different ways by different cultures - Paine's understanding of what a right was, was influenced by the traditional "rights of Englishmen" first laid out in the Magna Carta - then expanded and defined by other acts of Parliament and the King.

As a philosophical construct "natural rights and legal rights" can be separated and looked at as different classes - the reality that we as people who live in the real world deal with is that such a differentiation is pointless. When rights collide it is the legal system of that area that gets to sort the problem out - not nature.
 
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