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OfflineBoots
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Re: Rights - the ideas by which we believe we are entitled to a "free" & "just" existence [Re: stellar renegade]
    #7451646 - 09/25/07 12:25 PM (16 years, 4 months ago)

I don't believe in "natural" or God-given rights". In my opinion, nothing is inherent.


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InvisibleOrgoneConclusion
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Re: Rights - the ideas by which we believe we are entitled to a "free" & "just" existence [Re: Boots] * 1
    #7451695 - 09/25/07 12:38 PM (16 years, 4 months ago)

We are granted the 'right to live' for as long as we can survive. :pirate:


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Offlinestellar renegade
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Re: Rights - the ideas by which we believe we are entitled to a "free" & "just" existence [Re: Boots]
    #7451758 - 09/25/07 12:59 PM (16 years, 4 months ago)

Quote:

Boots said:
I don't believe in "natural" or God-given rights". In my opinion, nothing is inherent.



I hate to sound corny, but is everything inherently non-inherent?

Let's put it another way. What makes things inherently real? Or are they not? What makes a tree inherently a tree? Is nothing inherent? Then how do we even understand the concept of inherentness? How do things hold together separate from each other and retain their uniqueness?

It's troublesome to try to refute the concept of inherentness IMO. The most you can say is that some traits are non-inherent while others still are inherent. Maybe you simply mean that the right to live is not inherent, which would entail another kind of discussion.


--------------------
"I threw a small stone down at the reflection of my image in the water, and it altogether disappeared. I burst as it shattered through me, like a bullet through a bottle... and I'm expected to believe that any of this is real!" -mewithoutYou

"To believe in the wide-awake real, through all the stupefying, enervating, distorting dream: to will to wake, when the very being seems athirst for godless repose: these are the broken steps up to the high fields where repose is but a form of strength, strength but a form of joy, joy but a form of love." -George MacDonald


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Invisibledemiu5
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Re: Rights - the ideas by which we believe we are entitled to a "free" & "just" existence [Re: stellar renegade]
    #7451803 - 09/25/07 01:10 PM (16 years, 4 months ago)

Quote:

stellar renegade said:
All I'm saying is that they're a different kind than us. I would expect wolves to rule over their own kind, elephants to rule over their own kind, etc. The same for humans. That's all I'm saying.




of course they're a different kind than us, just as wolves are a different kind than fish, and so on.

Also, in [the rare] environments where humans haven't fucked up/invaded/raped other animals' territories, those animals do rule their own kind


--------------------
channel your inner Larry David


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Offlinestellar renegade
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Re: Rights - the ideas by which we believe we are entitled to a "free" & "just" existence [Re: demiu5]
    #7451821 - 09/25/07 01:12 PM (16 years, 4 months ago)

Good, then they're doing what I would expect them to. :tongue2:


--------------------
"I threw a small stone down at the reflection of my image in the water, and it altogether disappeared. I burst as it shattered through me, like a bullet through a bottle... and I'm expected to believe that any of this is real!" -mewithoutYou

"To believe in the wide-awake real, through all the stupefying, enervating, distorting dream: to will to wake, when the very being seems athirst for godless repose: these are the broken steps up to the high fields where repose is but a form of strength, strength but a form of joy, joy but a form of love." -George MacDonald


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OfflineBoots
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Re: Rights - the ideas by which we believe we are entitled to a "free" & "just" existence [Re: stellar renegade]
    #7454642 - 09/26/07 07:05 AM (16 years, 4 months ago)

Quote:

stellar renegade said:
Quote:

Boots said:
I don't believe in "natural" or God-given rights". In my opinion, nothing is inherent.



I hate to sound corny, but is everything inherently non-inherent?

Let's put it another way. What makes things inherently real? Or are they not? What makes a tree inherently a tree? Is nothing inherent? Then how do we even understand the concept of inherentness? How do things hold together separate from each other and retain their uniqueness?

It's troublesome to try to refute the concept of inherentness IMO. The most you can say is that some traits are non-inherent while others still are inherent. Maybe you simply mean that the right to live is not inherent, which would entail another kind of discussion.




A tree isn't inherently a tree. It wasn't born with the name "tree". Humans developed the language. Things are real because we experience them. That being said, the hallucinations seen when on a psychedelic aren't real in the sense that they are tangible, but the experience of the hallucinations was real. We understand the concept of inherent-ness because we (humans) created it. Also, the right to live is not inherent.


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Offlinestellar renegade
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Re: Rights - the ideas by which we believe we are entitled to a "free" & "just" existence [Re: Boots]
    #7455841 - 09/26/07 01:50 PM (16 years, 4 months ago)

Man, discussions here have been too frustrating as of late. I'm going to get back to this when I have more time and mental energy to process through my answer.


--------------------
"I threw a small stone down at the reflection of my image in the water, and it altogether disappeared. I burst as it shattered through me, like a bullet through a bottle... and I'm expected to believe that any of this is real!" -mewithoutYou

"To believe in the wide-awake real, through all the stupefying, enervating, distorting dream: to will to wake, when the very being seems athirst for godless repose: these are the broken steps up to the high fields where repose is but a form of strength, strength but a form of joy, joy but a form of love." -George MacDonald


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InvisibleClean
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Re: Rights - the ideas by which we believe we are entitled to a "free" & "just" existence [Re: stellar renegade]
    #7458417 - 09/27/07 12:37 AM (16 years, 4 months ago)

Quote:

I guess I have trouble understanding why you would abandon the idea of rights simply because of the way we apply them, especially regarding our non-application to another species. Or at least, abandon the terminology. Perhaps you are simply trying to avoid the abuse of the term by using different phrasing




Essentially I am trying to avoid what I described in bold originally. The neglect of personal power and responsibility by replacing it with magic fairy dust sprinkled on us, and the want for an outside authoritarian management scheme to validate and safeguard that fairy dust.

My point here centers around the idea that I am opposed to such authoritarian structures because history has shown that they end up being managed by the criminally insane who look down on the "common man" and treat our collective consciousness like putty to be molded at their whim, and treat our lives like cheap throw-away prophylactics at their endless orgy. And we put up with it. Ever wonder why that might be?

Quote:

The problem for me is that, much as the term "rights" is ambiguous, it is still yet more ambiguous to avoid using the term, because now I don't know if you think that regarding others as yourself is to be defended at all costs, or if there's an aspect of naturalism and nihilism seeping into your viewpoint.




I confess I'm finding it hard to grok everything you said after the third comma there, and I don't know what you mean by naturalism and nihilism.

Quote:


For instance, should we give into our natural instincts? In many cases this actually leads to violence.




What feels to me like my "natural instincts" are feelings of wanting to have a mutual understanding with my neighbors to live peaceably, regardless of our ideological differences. To not infringe on someone else's sovereignty simply because I may be in disagreement with them over something. To not have to put up with all the conflict that arises from being hypnotized by the myriad aspects of perceived separateness. (This includes superiority complexes, which goes to the heart of the idea of "equal rights") To share a collective awareness of universality and the fact that we all come from the same source, every moment.

Quote:


Would you rather we not hold people innocent until proven guilty?



More often than not, we don't hold people innocent until proven guilty. That we do, seems to me one of the many lies laid before us so that we believe that the so-called "justice system" is there in our best interest.

Quote:

Methinks that in the midst of trying to battle the system's abuses of something good (i.e. the "Patriot Act" which extends the government's power over us in the name of protecting us citizens), you are battling the good, too.




I get the sense that we are coming from fundamentally different perspectives of modern government and the circumstances by which it has arisen.

In my view, despite the rhetoric we've all been indoctrinated with, abuse is intrinsic to the nature of "the system".
With all due respect.... the baby is dead and the bathwater is bloody and rotten.
In terms of the last few thousand years of human socio-political life, I see very little in the way of "historical foundations" worth building on (application of knowledge such as was popularized by Korzybski's work with general semantics might be a good start).

We have hardly known freedom in a collective sense. Our slavery has evolved. Only very recently have we been tantalized by the scent of something approaching freedom worth taking pride in, but we have been played like a fiddle, and the song has been coming to a crescendo for over 200+ years...the result of the masses relegating control over the affairs of collective life to a small group of power elite, born and bred , or so(u)ld out and sucked up into their positions.

Regarding the Constitution...I suggest some reading. This is an excerpt from the 1870 version of "No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority by Lysander Spooner.

Quote:

NO TREASON

NO. VI.

THE CONSTITUTION OF NO AUTHORITY


I.

The Constitution has no inherent authority or obligation. It has no authority or obligation at all, unless as a contract between man and man. And it does not so much as even purport to be a contract between persons now existing. It purports, at most, to be only a contract between persons living eighty years ago. And it can be supposed to have been a contract then only between persons who had already come to years of discretion, so as to be competent to make reasonable and obligatory contracts. Furthermore, we know, historically, that only a small portion even of the people then existing were consulted on the subject, or asked, or permitted to express either their consent or dissent in any formal manner. Those persons, if any, who did give their consent formally, are all dead now. Most of them have been dead forty, fifty, sixty, or seventy years. And the constitution, so far as it was their contract, died with them. They had no natural power or right to make it obligatory upon their children. It is not only plainly impossible, in the nature of things, that they could bind their posterity, but they did not even attempt to bind them. That is to say, the instrument does not purport to be an agreement between any body but "the people" then existing; nor does it, either ex- [*4] pressly or impliedly, assert any right, power, or disposition, on their part, to bind anybody but themselves. Let us see. Its language is:

"We, the people of the United States (that is, the people then existing in the United States), in order to form a more perfect union, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

It is plain, in the first place, that this language, as an agreement, purports to be only what it at most really was, viz., a contract between the people then existing; and, of necessity, binding, as a contract, only upon those then existing. In the second place, the language neither expresses nor implies that they had any right or power, to bind their "posterity" to live under it. It does not say that their "posterity" will, shall, or must live under it. It only says, in effect, that their hopes and motives in adopting it were that it might prove useful to their posterity, as well as to themselves, by promoting their union, safety, tranquility, liberty, etc.

Suppose an agreement were entered into, in this form:

We, the people of Boston, agree to maintain a fort on Governor's Island, to protect ourselves and our posterity against invasion.

This agreement, as an agreement, would clearly bind nobody but the people then existing. Secondly, it would assert no right, power, or disposition, on their part, to compel, their "posterity" to maintain such a fort. It would only indicate that the supposed welfare of their posterity was one of the motives that induced the original parties to enter into the agreement.

When a man says he is building a house for himself and his posterity, he does not mean to be understood as saying that he has any thought of binding them, nor is it to be inferred that he [*5] is so foolish as to imagine that he has any right or power to bind them, to live in it. So far as they are concerned, he only means to be understood as saying that his hopes and motives, in building it, are that they, or at least some of them, may find it for their happiness to live in it.

So when a man says he is planting a tree for himself and his posterity, he does not mean to be understood as saying that he has any thought of compelling them, nor is it to be inferred that he is such a simpleton as to imagine that he has any right or power to compel them, to eat the fruit. So far as they are concerned, he only means to say that his hopes and motives, in planting the tree, are that its fruit may be agreeable to them.

So it was with those who originally adopted the Constitution. Whatever may have been their personal intentions, the legal meaning of their language, so far as their "posterity" was concerned, simply was, that their hopes and motives, in entering into the agreement, were that it might prove useful and acceptable to their posterity; that it might promote their union, safety, tranquility, and welfare; and that it might tend "to secure to them the blessings of liberty." The language does not assert nor at all imply, any right, power, or disposition, on the part of the original parties to the agreement, to compel their "posterity" to live under it. If they had intended to bind their posterity to live under it, they should have said that their objective was, not "to secure to them the blessings of liberty," but to make slaves of them; for if their "posterity" are bound to live under it, they are nothing less than the slaves of their foolish, tyrannical, and dead grandfathers.




And he goes on in this fashion...


Edited by Clean (09/27/07 01:36 AM)


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InvisibleIcelander
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Re: Rights - the ideas by which we believe we are entitled to a "free" & "just" existence [Re: Clean]
    #7459648 - 09/27/07 10:18 AM (16 years, 4 months ago)

:thumbup::thumbup:


--------------------
"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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InvisibleClean
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Re: Rights - the ideas by which we believe we are entitled to a "free" & "just" existence [Re: Icelander]
    #7505329 - 10/10/07 01:18 PM (16 years, 3 months ago)

:lol: i bet Spooner was quite a "thread killer" back in the day too..


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Offlinea_guy_named_ai
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Re: Rights - the ideas by which we believe we are entitled to a "free" & "just" existence [Re: stellar renegade]
    #7507784 - 10/11/07 02:41 AM (16 years, 3 months ago)

Rights are based upon Spiritual truth, a moral standard we are all obligated to obey. If you don't believe in morality, then rights naturally are non existant. But I think it's very important to take a step back and think of the implecations of this. This means no true Love, no integrity, sacrednes of life, or any moral value whatsoever. It would be a mere figment of our imaginations. Are you really ready to give up on love? Do you really tell yourself that Love is not real? What do you live for? Mere carnal pleasures? Ask yourself what you know for sure. Do you really know anything greater than you know the reality of love? But this would blatantly contradict a purely naturalistic philosophy, and it does. But nevertheless many continue to recognise this form of Godliness, however distorted through their corrupt imaginations and desires, yet disregarding the only logical source therof.


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InvisibleClean
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Re: Rights - the ideas by which we believe we are entitled to a "free" & "just" existence [Re: a_guy_named_ai]
    #15228933 - 10/15/11 10:11 AM (12 years, 3 months ago)

Not that I expect a reply, considering this is 4 years old, but...

I think you are equating the concept of rights with the idea of the "golden rule" (treat others as you would want to be treated) etc.
Government doesn't exist to enforce the golden rule.  It exists to control large groups of people in an entirely non-voluntary manner.
Bottom line, are we capable of organizing in a VOLUNTARY way?  Or do we need to continue abdicating personal responsibility to gangs of armed criminals running a phony protection racket under the guise of Democracy?


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Invisibledustinthewind13
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Re: Rights - the ideas by which we believe we are entitled to a "free" & "just" existence [Re: Clean]
    #15229939 - 10/15/11 03:31 PM (12 years, 3 months ago)

Quote:

Clean said:
Not that I expect a reply, considering this is 4 years old, but...

I think you are equating the concept of rights with the idea of the "golden rule" (treat others as you would want to be treated) etc.
Government doesn't exist to enforce the golden rule.  It exists to control large groups of people in an entirely non-voluntary manner.
Bottom line, are we capable of organizing in a VOLUNTARY way?  Or do we need to continue abdicating personal responsibility to gangs of armed criminals running a phony protection racket under the guise of Democracy?




Gangs of armed criminals exist, but people won't bother to make a collective effort to prevent them from having their way, unless they can see themselves profiting from it and the exceptions to this are too small from what my subjectivity allows me to see. What I see as right or wrong is the same as the rights in your OP, they don't exist independent of my mind, although there are rights and wrongs that have to do with every individuals biology and these should be emphasized. This is where the "golden rule" should come in, but it won't, because human nature mostly doesn't like to give up pleasure to ease someones pain it has no relation to. The "golden rule" should be the obvious choice in the world as far as I'm concerned, but it isn't. All systems in the world are corrupt, so the best we as humans can do is to be/make others aware of how it works and let them/ourselves decide how to live with the knowledge.

I believe we do have the potential to organize voluntarily, but I also don't believe we are going to. In the thousands of years it took for us to get to where we are now, the basic structure created has not changed. Even if there are people in the world who have the "best" idea and could change things into a "golden rule world", it will still be threatened by people who understand and could help, because people understanding the "best" idea does not entail them wanting it to happen. Everyone understanding it is a lot of "fairy dust thinking" as it is, because most people won't care about understanding or might not be capable of it, since the amount of people comfortable in their ignorance is increasing and without them we can't change the system that is keeping them in chains, even if we pretend that the "best" idea collectively carried out would be foolproof, which I have doubts about.

I think there have been improvement with greater awareness and with systems replacing others. The increased awareness might have helped change the system, but I don't know how much the improvements that happened were for the well-being of the whole, because I don't know how much of it was for greater wealth or power and how much of it was due to the benevolence of those creating it. Isn't this what all the revolutions did though? Achieved power by changing the system in a way that allowed them to stay in power. If it just so happened that it raised the standard of living, then nothing was done about it, because it would jeopardize the rulers power due to awareness and stability. I have a feeling a lot of people would chose a totalitarian state over a democracy, if it would be easier for them to remain in power.


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"It is the peculiar quality of a fool to perceive the faults of others and forget his own." - Marcus Tullius Cicero

"A room without books is like a body without a soul."  - Marcus Tullius Cicero

"Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it." -Thomas Jefferson


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Offlinecrkhd
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Re: Rights - the ideas by which we believe we are entitled to a "free" & "just" existence [Re: dustinthewind13]
    #15229997 - 10/15/11 03:42 PM (12 years, 3 months ago)

All things that are born have an innate right to die.

What is the process of death?

Life.

The boundaries are only those that have been defined by the geometry of space in which all rights have their time to come and go.

To say that laws do not exist while lawmakers breathe our air is like saying art does not exist when we are surrounded by artwork.


--------------------


"Everything there is, and all that there is, is a Pattern of unspeakable proportion. The Pattern contains everything that is, completely fixed in succession, all the minimal particles interconnected in every way that is. Every way that is is not every conceivable way, because not everything that can be conceived is manifest in the pattern."

"THE Human, you, is a miniscule but essential part of that pattern. In it lies complete fulfillment. It will never become something it is not, but it will never need to be anything else." - Wiccan_Seeker

"If boring drudgery was the way of the universe, everything would have killed itself long ago." - Spacerific


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