ARE WE ENDOWED WITH CERTAIN UNALIENABLE RIGHTS?

truth
I cannot for the life of me understand how smart people can manuver away from, or around, the principle enunciated by Craven: "Rights are a social construct." (no social life; no need for rights).

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gotta' go away for a few days and hope to return to even more interesting questions.

let me state what i have seen here.

1. a religous position that believes rights are "endowed" by a Creator. that this requires a property found in humans which the religious side generally refers to as "free will."

this side rarely attempts to discuss from whence "free will," except to say that a god gave it to humans, but as i stated, it is my position that "free will" is derivative of self-awareness and human consciousness, so they would admit that their god gave humans the property of self awareness and consciousness.....and they usually tie these in with the concept of the eternal "soul."

2. a secular side which proposes that rights are wholly derived from social contracts.

this side rarely explains the basic premises from which social contracts are derived, meaning not simply that the contracts serve as all contracts do, to enhance the self interest of the parties in contract, but why human self interest is different than plan old animal necessity for survival. after all human self interest results in rights, animal self interest does not.

this too, human self interest, apparently is based upon "free will" and thus self awareness and consciousness.

thrown into the stew is the idea that if rights can be articulated only by the symbolism of language, and language is a derivative not of the individual but only by social interactions, then the concept of rights itself can only be understood to be related to social factors.

i think that us humans hear some sort of echo in ourselves when we are self aware and conscious and that this echo can be articulated to ourselves by language.

but the name of a thing is not the essence of a thing, so that when we attempt to articulate on rights we are in fact using symbolism which can only name it, not define it, as its essence is not what it is named.

this is going to be poorly worded, but here goes......"inalienable rights" are the echo of what humans term as a priori to experience, and the source of the echo we hear is ourselves when self conscious.

rights come because we are self aware.

the religious side says that self consciousness comes from their gods and so arises the soul.

the secularists do not demand this and require only the mind.

as for me, the verdict is not yet in, and i don't ever expect it too.

but, I am a Romantic, so, to quote my fellow Deadheads....'i'm waitin' on a miracle," but i am still going about my business of being the eyes of the world in the meantime.

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ican711nm wrote:

It's finally clear to me that I am failing to communicate my actual thinking when I use different words to convey the same concepts to different people. I'll stop doing that. I'll henceforth use the same words repeatedly to communicate my actual thinking.

The problem with simply defining things is that it doesn't prove that the definitions are valid. Everyone seems to agree that 'inalienable' means that the rights exist and cannot be taken away, yet in the real world, such things don't exist. You can be deprived of your 'right to life' by someone shooting you. You can be deprived of your 'right to liberty' by being imprisoned. You can be deprived of your 'right to the pursuit of happiness' by any number of things. While you can hold a belief in the existence of inalienable rights, functionally you can't demonstrate the existence of inalienable rights and it all becomes a word game.

Further, you mention that humans protect infants as proof that the inalienable right to life exists. However, we also have examples of human cultures sacrificing infants. Therefore, such an example is not universal, making it rather worthless. Unless the example is universal and held by all cultures and peoples across time, it does not demonstrate an inalienable human right, but only one within the specific cultures that practice it. In order to demonstrate that inalienable human rights exist, you need to find rights that have been revered and respected by *ALL* cultures and *ALL* peoples and you simply cannot do that.

So we're back to square one.

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Re: truth

JLNobody wrote:

I cannot for the life of me understand how smart people can manuver away from, or around, the principle enunciated by Craven: "Rights are a social construct." (no social life; no need for rights).

No clue, that's what I stated initially and people keep arguing with me. Smile

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I'll go along with that, JL. With reference to the babies wailing, there's that crucial realization that the wailing doesn't work past a certain point. Self-disclipline and respect for others kicks in. It's one of the major things mothers and fathers contribute to the world -- not just another baby but a socialized human being, product of socialized human beings, who begins to learn from them how to live in shared space. Animals learn this too. (Have all nations learned this?!)

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Craven de Kere wrote:

That has absolutely nothing to do with a right. Heck I can whine, that doesn't make what I whine for my right.

Nor does your whinning make it NOT a right. Failure to obtain the stuff Sofia mentioned would cost infants their lives.

Yes, one's right to life can conflict with another's right to life. Nonetheless, each still has their intrinsic and inherent inalienable right to life. The right does not vanish because of the conflict. The right to life is intrinsic and inherent in a live human being.

The conflict is resolved by how rights are secured. If one terminates another's life in self-defence, we do nothing. If a perp terminates another's life in an attempt to make the perp's life easier, we ought terminate the perps life, lest he terminate additional lives for the same reason. And, who knows, by such a security method, the actions of other would be perps, don't consist of terminating the lives of others; thereby preserving live people and their intrinsic and inherent right to life.

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ican711nm wrote:

Nor does your whinning make it NOT a right.

Is this a "I know you are but what am I?" argument? What on earth are you trying to assert with that. Of course whining doesn't make it NOT a right any more so than it makes it a right. It is an action with no bearing on the word "right" and thatw as my point. You are simply forwarding my argument while using its converse.

ican711nm wrote:

Yes, one's right to life can conflict with another's right to life. Nonetheless, each still has their intrinsic and inherent inalienable right to life. The right does not vanish because of the conflict.

Just as conflict doesn't remove a right (something I never argued) the instinct for self-preservation does not grant it.

ican711nm wrote:

The right to life is intrinsic and inherent in a live human being.

It's an intristic instinct (pardon the redundancy) but nowhere have you come close to indicating that we are born with rights. Society can grant rights to each individual and then when they are born they are automatiocally given this right but there simply is no such thing as rights without a society granting them. As nice as it would be for this to be a law of nature it isn't. It's a law that governs behavior.

ican711nm wrote:

The conflict is resolved by how rights are secured. If one terminates another's life in self-defence, we do nothing. If a perp terminates another's life in an attempt to make the perp's life easier, we ought terminate the perps life, lest he terminate additional lives for the same reason. And, who knows, by such a security method, the actions of other would be perps, don't consist of terminating the lives of others; thereby preserving live people and their intrinsic and inherent right to life.

What's the point? The examples are meaningless. Let's take nature. Conjoined twins is a situation that can preclude one's right to live for the sake of the other. Without conflict. They were not born with the right to live any more so than the one who has the better chance at survival was born with the right to a chance. Society grants these rights.

Look, this is really really silly. And for the life of me I can't understand what makes you stick by this.

If you think rights are not a social constuct and that they are inherent to our existence then how are they determined?

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Cephus wrote:

ican711nm wrote:
It's finally clear to me that I am failing to communicate my actual thinking when I use different words to convey the same concepts to different people. I'll stop doing that. I'll henceforth use the same words repeatedly to communicate my actual thinking.

The problem with simply defining things is that it doesn't prove that the definitions are valid. Everyone seems to agree that 'inalienable' means that the rights exist and cannot be taken away, yet in the real world, such things don't exist. You can be deprived of your 'right to life' by someone shooting you. You can be deprived of your 'right to liberty' by being imprisoned. You can be deprived of your 'right to the pursuit of happiness' by any number of things. While you can hold a belief in the existence of inalienable rights, functionally you can't demonstrate the existence of inalienable rights and it all becomes a word game.

Further, you mention that humans protect infants as proof that the inalienable right to life exists. However, we also have examples of human cultures sacrificing infants. Therefore, such an example is not universal, making it rather worthless. Unless the example is universal and held by all cultures and peoples across time, it does not demonstrate an inalienable human right, but only one within the specific cultures that practice it. In order to demonstrate that inalienable human rights exist, you need to find rights that have been revered and respected by *ALL* cultures and *ALL* peoples and you simply cannot do that.

So we're back to square one.

Cephus, I've been saying essentially the same thing to Ican for two years now, but he seems incapable of dealing with it.

When I was doing it, by the way, Ican was still insisting that the rights were endowed upon us by a Creator.

He says he has gotten off that.

We'll see!

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Re: truth

Cephus wrote:

JLNobody wrote:
I cannot for the life of me understand how smart people can manuver away from, or around, the principle enunciated by Craven: "Rights are a social construct." (no social life; no need for rights).

No clue, that's what I stated initially and people keep arguing with me.

TO BOTH CEPHUS AND JL (and of course, Craven)

Once again, I gotta say that I have been saying essentially the same thing to Ican for a very long time now.

Over in Abuzz, it was mentioned dozens of times -- although to be completely honest, I described it as "people demanding rights" -- a phrasing with which you folks may disagree.

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I think there are rights that I thinks hould be automatic. A few people here picked up on the "should be automatic vs. is automatic" line. Off the top of my head I remember sozobe had it perfectly and made a funny argument. There may have been others. Her argument was that if these rights were inalienable then what were they declaring? Obviouslt that the rights *should* be inalienable.

Sofia and PDiddie (and possibly others) seemed to be saying that they belive humans should be granted these righst that they consider fundamental (as do I).

But were these automatically granted (by whom?) they'd have less meaning and it would demean the progression our society has made.

We have come a long way. And much of our progress was in society granting rights. Let's not pretend they were already there.

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truth
Has it not occurred to any of Ican opponents that by "inalienable rights" he is not referring to rights that cannot be denied, but to rights that cannot be legitimately denied? The problem with this qualification is the source of legitimacy: is it divinely granted or legally/constitutionally granted? I claim only the latter. If individuals deny my legal rights I appeal to the state; if the state denys my claim, I appeal to the feds. If they deny it, I go to the supreme court. THAT'S where I may be permanently screwed since there's no higher court of appeal.

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If he were talking about that then he'd have to further qualify his statements so as to include the "we" being Americans (and other peoples with simmilar legally granted rights).

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truth
That's correct, Craven: he would have to include only parties to the (social) contract: citizens and other franchised members.

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Re: truth

JLNobody wrote:

Has it not occurred to any of Ican opponents that by "inalienable rights" he is not referring to rights that cannot be denied, but to rights that cannot be legitimately denied?

The problem there, JL, is that in many juristictions, many of the things we Americans consider "rights" CAN be LEGITIMATELY denied.

In fact, even here in the United States, we are having a problem with an Attorney General who is alienating many people from rights that have been passed on to us after fierce battles to secure them (pursuant to demands, of course) -- and he is doing it LEGITIMATELY. (At least until the Supreme Court gets a chance to review further some of the provisions of the Patriots Act.)

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truth
Frank, point taken. I think it will be decided that Ashcroft's denials are not legitimate.

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Craven de Kere wrote:

If you think rights are not a social constuct and that they are inherent to our existence then how are they determined?

BY LOGIC! In otherwords, by the clear implication that the human species cannot survive even the two million or so years the dinosaurs survived without our mutual acknowledgment of our INDIVIDUAL intrinsic and inherent rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It is alleged that the human species has so far survived less than 200,000 years. Fortunately for us, enough of our ancestors implicitly and/or explicitly acknowledged their mutually intrinsic and inherent rights for us to be here. Whenever humans made too parochial too contingent that acknowledgement, millions of humans died and so far as we know, no longer possessed intrinsic or inherent anything other than decaying or decayed flesh.

Yes we validly determine our rights by application of logic just like we validly determine everything else!

Yes, all live people have intrinsic and inherent rights that we must acknowledge for the sake of our own survival, whether we like it or not.

Yes, we live human beings should not delegate to any one the right to determine our intrinsic and inherent rights.

Yes, dead people do not have any intrinsic and inherent rights. Any rights granted a dead person by live persons are a social construct.

So some make the intrinsically and inherently absurd argument that the rights of live people are not inalienable because dead people do not have them. Because a live person can be made dead, they claim the intrinsic and inherent rights of live people are not inalienable, and are alienable. No! These rights are in fact inalienable for all people that are born and alive.

Some argue that those rights become inalienable at conception. Again by logic, the fetus is not a human organism until it is a fully formed live human organism sometime in the second semester of pregnancy. The fetus is not a live individual human being, a baby, until it is born, and is disconnected from its mother. Any rights we choose to grant a human organism or its predecessor organisms are social constructs.

Well then, what gives us the right to defend ourselves? Our intrinsic and inherent rights include the right to defend ourselves. Yes, I am saying that making a live person dead in self-defense of our own life, is our intrinsic and inherent right. It's straight forward enough: one of the things you can do to help avoid becoming a dead person, is not to take or threaten to take the life of another live person.

In brief, my intrinsic and inherent rights are mine whether you or any other person or persons chooses to acknowledge them or not.

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ican711nm wrote:

Craven de Kere wrote:
If you think rights are not a social constuct and that they are inherent to our existence then how are they determined?

BY LOGIC! In otherwords, by the clear implication that the human species cannot survive even the two million or so years the dinosaurs survived without our mutual acknowledgment of our INDIVIDUAL intrinsic and inherent rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Gimme a break, will ya, Ican.

The notion that people had a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is barely older than you.

(Egad! I actually thanked some god somewhere that I did not have the thought of two cavemen discussing the mutually advantageous and logical properties of inherent rights while drinking anything. My nose would still be burning!)

ican711nm wrote:

Well then, what gives us the right to defend ourselves? Our intrinsic and inherent rights include the right to defend ourselves. Yes, I am saying that making a live person dead in self-defense of our own life, is our intrinsic and inherent right. It's straight forward enough: one of the things you can do to help avoid becoming a dead person, is not to take or threaten to take the life of another live person.

Uh oh! Here comes the part about "I have a right to own a gun" that I promised everyone earlier.

Quote:

In brief, my intrinsic and inherent rights are mine whether you or any other person or persons chooses to acknowledge them or not.

Hummmm...quite a "right!" Nobody even has to know you have it.

Did you dream this bit of rationalization up yourself, or did you borrow it from the guy who says that God answers all prayers, but sometimes he answers "No!"

Quote:

It is alleged that the human species has so far survived less than 200,000 years. Fortunately for us, enough of our ancestors implicitly and/or explicitly acknowledged their mutually intrinsic and inherent rights for us to be here. Whenever humans made too parochial too contingent that acknowledgement, millions of humans died and so far as we know, no longer possessed intrinsic or inherent anything other than decaying or decayed flesh.

Yes we validly determine our rights by application of logic just like we validly determine everything else!

Yes, all live people have intrinsic and inherent rights that we must acknowledge for the sake of our own survival, whether we like it or not.

Yes, we live human beings should not delegate to any one the right to determine our intrinsic and inherent rights.

Yes, dead people do not have any intrinsic and inherent rights. Any rights granted a dead person by live persons are a social construct.

So some make the intrinsically and inherently absurd argument that the rights of live people are not inalienable because dead people do not have them. Because a live person can be made dead, they claim the intrinsic and inherent rights of live people are not inalienable, and are alienable. No! These rights are in fact inalienable for all people that are born and alive.

Some argue that those rights become inalienable at conception. Again by logic, the fetus is not a human organism until it is a fully formed live human organism sometime in the second semester of pregnancy. The fetus is not a live individual human being, a baby, until it is born, and is disconnected from its mother. Any rights we choose to grant a human organism or its predecessor organisms are social constructs.

Well then, what gives us the right to defend ourselves? Our intrinsic and inherent rights include the right to defend ourselves. Yes, I am saying that making a live person dead in self-defense of our own life, is our intrinsic and inherent right. It's straight forward enough: one of the things you can do to help avoid becoming a dead person, is not to take or threaten to take the life of another live person.

In brief, my intrinsic and inherent rights are mine whether you or any other person or persons chooses to acknowledge them or not.

Ican, you'd be much better off deepsixing all of this nonsense now (especially the part about unalienable rights), because you are more than likely going to discard it later -- like you do so many of your untenable ideas.

Why not save yourself the trouble and embarrassment of defending something so obviously and fatally flawed.

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ican711nm wrote:

Craven de Kere wrote:
If you think rights are not a social constuct and that they are inherent to our existence then how are they determined?

BY LOGIC!

In other words you are asserting what should be an intristic right rather than what is an intristic right.

ican711nm wrote:

In otherwords, by the clear implication that the human species cannot survive even the two million or so years the dinosaurs survived without our mutual acknowledgment of our INDIVIDUAL intrinsic and inherent rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

That is an argument toward the advisability of the recognition of said rights (something I never contested) and does nothing to address the notion that the rights are not granted by a logical evealuation of the society.

ican711nm wrote:

It is alleged that the human species has so far survived less than 200,000 years. Fortunately for us, enough of our ancestors implicitly and/or explicitly acknowledged their mutually intrinsic and inherent rights for us to be here. Whenever humans made too parochial too contingent that acknowledgement, millions of humans died and so far as we know, no longer possessed intrinsic or inherent anything other than decaying or decayed flesh.

Mankind (at least the most fit specimens) can survive without recognizing those rights. I'd not want to be a part of that society but it's possible.

ican711nm wrote:

Yes we validly determine our rights by application of logic just like we validly determine everything else!

In other words the rights are not inalienable. If we determine them we can change our minds.

ican711nm wrote:

Yes, all live people have intrinsic and inherent rights that we must acknowledge for the sake of our own survival, whether we like it or not.

Rights are not acknowledged unwillingly.

ican711nm wrote:

Yes, we live human beings should not delegate to any one the right to determine our intrinsic and inherent rights.

Especially not to the automation of the unknown.

ican711nm wrote:

Yes, dead people do not have any intrinsic and inherent rights. Any rights granted a dead person by live persons are a social construct.

The very notion of rights is a social construct. All rights be they for the dead or the alive are social constructs.

ican711nm wrote:

So some make the intrinsically and inherently absurd argument that the rights of live people are not inalienable because dead people do not have them. Because a live person can be made dead, they claim the intrinsic and inherent rights of live people are not inalienable, and are alienable. No! These rights are in fact inalienable for all people that are born and alive.

Death is just one issue. Nobody here asserts a right to live indefinitely so this is a straw man argument that does not tackle the arguments that have validity.

Some rights overlap and preclude the rights of others. An individual's right to self-expression might hamper anotehr individual's right to peaceful coexistance.

The rights are certainly not inalienable except in that we, as a society who grants these rights, should not attempt to alianate them.

ican711nm wrote:

Some argue that those rights become inalienable at conception. Again by logic, the fetus is not a human organism until it is a fully formed live human organism sometime in the second semester of pregnancy. The fetus is not a live individual human being, a baby, until it is born, and is disconnected from its mother. Any rights we choose to grant a human organism or its predecessor organisms are social constructs.

All rights are social constructs. But you are coming along nicely.

ican711nm wrote:

Well then, what gives us the right to defend ourselves?

Society. Some have the ability, the right is a social construct.

ican711nm wrote:

In brief, my intrinsic and inherent rights are mine whether you or any other person or persons chooses to acknowledge them or not.

In that case they are meaningless. Just as NAMBLA's alledged right to show 'love' to young boys is.

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Nice job, Craven.

I want to add something apropos of the word "endowed." When you or a university or whoever gets an endowment (like a trust fund from daddy), you're ultimately screwed if you spend it down without taking care of it. Same thing with endowed, unalienable rights. We can (and do) "alienate" ourselves from them when we allow little incursions on those rights, when we neglect their care and feeding.

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ANALOGIES
Suppose I lawfully own an airplane. Then someone steals it. Is my lawful right to that airplane alienated thereby? I think not. Only my enjoyment of that airplane is alienated

Suppose I lawfully have a right to equal protection of the law. Then a government deprives me of lawful protections it provides others. Is my lawful right to equal protection of the law alienated thereby? I think not. Only my enjoyment of that right is alienated.

Those lawful rights continue to be mine, but not the enjoyment of those rights.

Similarly, my intrinsic and inherent rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are mine regardless of what other humans think about that. They belong to me and cannot be alienated by any subsequent events,whether individual, group, majority, minority or government caused. I can, however, be deprived of the enjoyment of those rights.

Those intrinsic and inherent rights are not a social construct. They are my personal recognition of the physical reality of my existence as a live person -- like recognizing my heartbeat, my breathing, and my thinking. Don't mess with my enjoyment of my intrinsic and inherent rights, because if you do I shall surely take whatever action I (not you) consider appropriate to restore my enjoyment of them, whether you like it or not. I shall do that thinking that I am serving not only me, but also OUR posterity. For me to do otherwise would make me just another craven and pusillanimous human.

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ARE WE ENDOWED WITH CERTAIN UNALIENABLE RIGHTS?

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