DesideriScuri
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Joined: 1/18/2012
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quote:
ORIGINAL: SpaceSpank
If you are the last person on earth, you are correct, you have no rights... because there is no one there to grant or remove anything from you.
At no point in time did I say "the last person on earth." So, according to your analysis, if I'm stranded on a deserted island, I can't make any choices for myself because there is no one there to grant me the right to choose? I no longer have a right to live? I can't go do whatever it is that makes me happy?
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There is no such thing as a natural right. It's a fallacy. Go to the middle of a 3rd world shithole where the lives of the people are owned by some despot dictator and tell him his people have an innate right to life. it simply does not exist.
Wrong, again. Why did we go into Libya? If rights are only whatever is granted by your government, how is it the UN has the right to decide that Libyans had a right to not get the shit blown out of them by the Libyan military?
The DoI made the statement that these rights are endowed to us by our Creator (God, magic pixie dust, whatever it is you believe), and there are some that can not be taken away from us. This was written because King George, et. al. had been dicking with those very things that were determined to be unalienable rights. Without there being those transgressions, there was no reason for us to fight for our freedom. If it was simply that whatever government grants us is what is our right, what the King said goes, and, well, there well may not have been the Revolutionary War at that time.
And, therein lies our "exceptionalism." We were the exceptions. We weren't rights granted by the government. We were rights of the people, protected by the government. We the People and the 13 States got together and wrote out a compact where we would essentially cede some of our individual authorities to the collective, the Federal Government. The Federal Government is a Union of the States, not any other entity. We can not gift a right to something that we don't have to give.
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"We" in the first world countries have a right to life because we have defined it (or redefined in some cases) as being the case for our societies.
You may want to think differently but the only rules in place are those which we set for ourselves. This includes rights and privileges. They are fundamentally the same thing, but they are granted and enforced differently. A right is something one is granted at birth by the collective agreement of the society they live in. We often project these onto others, even if it's not the case. "All are created equally" is a rather modern example that most first world countries embrace. We project this onto everyone, even if many other societies do not currently agree with it.
Privileges, in the other hand, are often only earned or given at certain points in life. Like rights, they are granted to an individual by a societal entity, be it a governing body, religious institution, educational establishment, or even a community leader. As they are granted under provisional circumstances, they also tend to be easier to revoke.
Privileges, unlike rights, are not inherent to someone's being. You don't get to drive simply because you are. You have to merit a license. Once you prove yourself worthy, you are given the privilege, provided you don't fuck up too many times. Ever thought about proving yourself worthy, at birth, for the privilege of living? This is exactly what the entire abortion argument is all about. When is a fetus actually a human? That is the point at which that mass of cells gets all the rights inherent in our being humans. If it's at birth, then abortion, at any time, is acceptable. If it's at fertilization, abortion, at any time, is murder. If someone gets pregnant due to rape or incest, aborting that fetus will be murder, if the abortion happens after that mass of cells is a human. It really is that simple.
I don't care if your an atheist, or any other religion. The Founders, for the vast majority, were Deists and the term "Creator" was used because of that. They weren't saying the God of Christianity, Jesus, the god of Abraham, Mohammed, Buddha, Ra, Zeus, Odin, Jupiter, or whatever. It was, we were created by an undefined higher power, and that's where these rights came from. Now, if you want to make the argument that an atheist, because of his/her belief should not have any rights, since they were not created by a higher power, well, we can talk about that. Since you were born in America, and the entirety of our Government was started based on there being a Creator, you'll still have your rights protected.
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What I support:
- A Conservative interpretation of the US Constitution
- Personal Responsibility
- Help for the truly needy
- Limited Government
- Consumption Tax (non-profit charities and food exempt)
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RE: Where do rights come from? - 
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). If Governments are "instituted among men" to secure the unalienable rights, "deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." When the current incarnation of a government "becomes destructive to these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government." 
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