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SirTripAlot
Semper Fidelis



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Rights
#14557678 - 06/03/11 09:20 PM (12 years, 7 months ago) |
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- Do believe in "natural" rights (life, liberty, and estate (property)....like Locke...or maybe you have a different context of rights)?
- Do you believe these rights to be inalienable or alienable?
- Moreover; at what point must these rights be upheld or taken away? Is this even possible?
The inquisitive nature of this thread is to try and bring some clarity to my own definitions of rights.... its seems my recent readings have clouded a once familiar topic.
Edited by SirTripAlot (06/03/11 09:23 PM)
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery



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You only have the "rights" you have the power to take for yourself. Anything given by others or a culture is at their pleasure to remove at any time.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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don_vedo
MerKaBa



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Nice way to put that Icelander. I would have to agree, it's a dog eat dog world out there. In nature the strong survive.
-------------------- Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us all. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
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BlueCoyote
Beyond


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Yah, that's the one viewpoint. The other is: You only have rights as long you belong to a community which dedicates itself to those rights and has the power to defend them. But, in general I don't trust communities more than myself or have different goals than them, which leads to different personal defined 'rights', as well. Communities tend to misuse their powers.
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SirTripAlot
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When you mean the "power to take for yourself" --meaning if you are cognizant of them, then you can attain/take them?
Would it be a proper assumption that you believe the rights you have (or have "taken") are an extension of your free will? When you say "power" ...this could be violent, non violent , etc...no?
-------------------- “I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
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johnm214


Registered: 05/31/07
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Loc: Americas
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Quote:
Icelander said: You only have the "rights" you have the power to take for yourself. Anything given by others or a culture is at their pleasure to remove at any time. 
Yes, but possesion is not the same as ownership. If rights are yours, they are yours regardless of their usefulness or ability to be excercised
I believe in natural rights arising from ones right to their body. While the right to body takes some degree of presumption, it at least makes some sense given we're sentient and in any case asserting said rights could not be wrong under an ethical system with less arbitraryness/presumptions.
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery



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Quote:
SirTripAlot said: When you mean the "power to take for yourself" --meaning if you are cognizant of them, then you can attain/take them?
Would it be a proper assumption that you believe the rights you have (or have "taken") are an extension of your free will? When you say "power" ...this could be violent, non violent , etc...no?
agree although I'm uncertain about free will. Why am I taking them? I don't know for sure.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery



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Quote:
johnm214 said:
Quote:
Icelander said: You only have the "rights" you have the power to take for yourself. Anything given by others or a culture is at their pleasure to remove at any time. 
Yes, but possesion is not the same as ownership. If rights are yours, they are yours regardless of their usefulness or ability to be excercised
I believe in natural rights arising from ones right to their body. While the right to body takes some degree of presumption, it at least makes some sense given we're sentient and in any case asserting said rights could not be wrong under an ethical system with less arbitraryness/presumptions.
Agree. I'm uncomfortable with the term "rights" and I don't ultimately believe I own anything including my body. This is all subjective.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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4896744
Small Town Girl


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I personally don't like using the word "rights" at all except in a strictly legal sense. Beyond using them in a legal sense rights are non-existent. There is only what you are capable of. That is the closest thing to "natural rights".
-------------------- Live your Life!
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mushiepussy

Registered: 02/06/11
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Quote:
iThink said: There is only what you are capable of. That is the closest thing to "natural rights".
I totally agree.
So is it governments right to imprison drug users because they are capable of doing so? I think yes, because we are capable of resisting.
This site is probably capable of organizing a rebellion.. we just need to be motivated to do so
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Silversoul
Rhizome


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You know, I've really wrestled with this concept. The formulation that Locke gave for natural rights, and which modern-day libertarians continue to use, is based on a naive and ahistorical view of human nature. It assumes that in a state of nature, people are isolated and contract with one another to form a society. This reflects the individualistic thinking of the Enlightenment, during which Locke proposed this view.
What we now understand is that people are social before they are individual. The process of individualization comes about in a social context. We are already born into a social context, and have been for as long as humans have existed. So the history of humanity is not people contracting with one another to form societies, but rather one of societies evolving into new forms, from bands of hunter-gatherers to settled tribes to chiefdoms to early civilizations and so on.
Each new kind of society offers a new range of possibilities which were not possible with previous forms. This is why I find the Lockean idea about a right to property dubious, since in the original form of human society, private property did not exist. It evolved out of later societies that had settled down and developed a division of labor. In a primitive "state of nature," you certainly don't have a right to all your money, since money is a social construct developed out of civilization.
So, the idea of eternal, unchanging rights just doesn't seem to work. On the other hand, I don't think consequentialism on its own provides a solid enough foundation for ethics and law either, and I certainly don't find moral relativism very palatable. To say that rights are simply a legal construct doesn't seem very satisfying.
It seems to me that what is needed is a kind of progressive deontology. That is, we should think of rights as evolving with society. I would propose that as society evolves and opens up a new range of opportunities, the members of that society have a right to equal access to those opportunities.
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SirTripAlot
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would if be accurate to summarize, that if one is not cognizant of said rights, then (rights)do not exist
-but-
if one is cognizant of their "rights", and they have the will (or power like you suggested) they do exist (<--whatever word or semantic you want to use).
If I believe the above, then rights do not exist independently......meaning that a right is nothing more then terminology after an action/incident has taken place.
I am not sure if I believe that.
-------------------- “I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
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