As the Soviet Union, China, and even the United States have demonstrated, rights can mean very little to the lawfully constituted authorities, so I would say this bears out the notion that in fact rights are privileges that have been collectively agreed to be reasonably sacrosanct.

This means that all who have a stake in keeping those rights need to be actively concerned about any infringement on them or any encroachment upon them.

So, I think it is useful to conceive of rights as being something inherent to the human person, something necessary to the full development of human capacity.

These other "rights" seem to be more of a philosophical matter to discuss: the right to physical safety, the right to adequate food, shelter, etc. Now, I have been fortunate in these areas but some others have not been so blessed. (now, blessed, that's an odd choice of words, isn't it? Hmmm.)

Some of these rights we have to take for ourselves. For example, when I felt my right to physical safety was being violated by my ex-partner, I mustered the courage to reclaim (by leaving him) that safety that I felt I was entitled to. It meant that much to me that I risked venturing into the unknown to get away from that violator of my rights.

The issue of "God-given" rights has been on my mind a bit these days after the fiasco -erh, election. Some people may feel they have a divine right to wage war on those people by whom they feel threatened. No matter how many others may disagree with them, they firmly believe that they have the right to do so.

As a Canadian, I am exceedingly proud of our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Especially the Freedoms part. Maybe because we are so used to having Rights that it's the Freedoms that make us feel really special. I believe that Canada offers the best society and culture in the world, with our diversity and intelligent outlook of ourselves and our place in the global village.

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Rights are privileges generally agreed upon. No right is truly "natural",

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I don't know if I am reading you correctly here. Are you saying that a right has to be agreed upon to exit; so in segregated South Africa Blacks were not being denied their rights, they simple did not have any. Likewise those states which voted to not allow SSM are not infringing on peoples human rights. If rights are not natural, them I assume they are also not universal, so different groups can assign different rights to different groups. Am I missing part of your argument.

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except a human's right to defend him or herself if attacked by someone else.

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wow...no shit. How about "Canada-phobe"?

The highest law of our land is...a welfare program. These 'Canadians' that hate their own country should just leave and not come back.

[ 05 November 2004: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]

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I think it probably depends where you are. As a Canadian, I was born into some inalienable rights, such as the right to free education and health care.

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Originally posted by MongoBongo:
Hey relax I'm a lawyer lol.

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The natural/inherent/god given, however you style it, which basically boil down to the right not to be f'd with by anyone else. These all acrue to an individual, if that's the way to phrase that. They are eternal and non-negotiable, although they are not always respected.

And then there are contractual rights, which include most civil/national rights, although some of those may derive from the natural rights. Right to health care, face your accuser, etc. etc. They're all negotiable.

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Originally posted by MongoBongo:
Hey relax I'm a lawyer lol.

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Originally posted by DrConway:
[QB]Rights are privileges generally agreed upon.

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Agreed, by the winners. When I saw this thread I wanted to say much the same as you. Nice knowing you.

According to Anarchist Voltairine deCleyre. “abolish privilege and crime will abolish itself”. I agree. Rights are privileges that victors of one cause or another are paid in. If the suffrage movement didn’t earn those rights through endless years of tough battle, then I don’t know who did. They earned the privilege (Bush calls it capital) to write laws that insist women can vote, for example. Being a lawmaker is a privilege, most of the time it's abused for self-serving interests, unless you believe in altruism, I suggest great skepticism.

George Bush now has the “right” to carry out his plans. Right?

But I don't entirely agree with Dr Conway and Karadjos that rights are privileges.

I think the Rousseau, Locke and other early socialistic type thinkers had it right when they associated rights with "conditions necessary to human growth and survival."

In other words, rights like freedom of speech, thought, association and assembly are not just privileges to enjoy, but necessary conditions for both individual and collective survival.

For example, in primitive communistic societies, like the communes in Europe and the middle-east (where the term "communist" comes from), were democratic self-governing cooperative townships where these types of rights were entrenched as part of their very economic fabric. This is what inspired a lot of writers and activists to pursue democratic reforms, and later socialistic ones, on a larger scale.

Hence the historic struggles for liberal democracy, individual liberties, social welfare and universal constitutional law that's supposed (stress supposed) to apply equally to all.

In ancient Greece, the famous philosopher and scientist Democritus (where the term "democracy" comes from), who lived in and studied the ancient Ionians cooperative townships of the era, argued that the equal distribution of power to every individual, as in one-person-on-vote, in social decision-making was essential in making society work.

The traditional historic enemy of such thinking is what became known in the middle ages, and still exists as the dominant economic law today, as Master Servant Law. It comes from the ancient laws of Aristocracy (from Aristotle) and Plutocracy (from Plutarch), which dictate that those who are, by whatever circumstance, placed in a position of ownership or control of property get to make all the decision about what happens to that property and everyone and everything on it. They are the privileged.

Capitalism today, and feudalism of the past, as well as every dictatorship in modern times (regardless of what it calls itself) are based on this type of law.

That's why I don't think rights are privileges. The root word of privilege is "privi," which in Latin means exclusive or without accountability. This is where the word "private" comes from.

Contrary to a lot of popular belief, the term "private property" doesn't come from the idea of personal belongings or individual ownership of things s/he needs or wants. Historically, that's been much more of a social or democratic right.

Rather, it comes from the idea of undemocratic elite rule or other people and their assets by a "privileged" or "private" group.

I want to come back to write in a bit of historical comment as well, but that is one of the few posts about the roots of Western democratic thought I've ever seen on babble that I agree with.

The issue of rights as they concern us here seem to have more to do with our hopes for building democracy, and it is too easy to demonstrate that democracies are not states of nature.

Democracies depend on learned behaviour, behaviour disciplined by the accumulated experience and understanding of previous generations, and thus are better defended by arguments from history than arguments from nature.

The paradox of modern democratic thought, however, is that once the historians of the late Renaissance and Enlightenment had slowly built up, through their reconstruction of European history (especially its disasters, the revenge cycles macro and micro both), their understanding of the basic principles and structures required to build democracy -- and the short list of basic human rights and liberties is part of that assembly of structural understanding -- they were increasingly tempted to claim that those rights and liberties are inherent, universal, "natural."

While I also am morally driven to insist that our civil rights and liberties make us most human and should indeed be universal, I am also aware that that understanding is the product of historical understanding -- it is not immediately available to a four-year-old, eg, or to people living in many other states. Very little about the structure of democracy is immediately obvious to a child without careful teaching from someone previously taught. Who appreciates, eg, the need to give another the benefit of the doubt (the presumption of innocence) without knowledge of the (historically horrifying) alternatives?

The man who wrote "Man is born free; but he is everywhere in chains" also wrote Emile.

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Klingon: ...Master Servant Law. It comes from the ancient laws of Aristocracy (from Aristotle)

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I thought that "Aristocles" was the other name for Plato, perhaps the most famous idealist philosopher of that era. But I admit it is all Greek to me.

[ 06 November 2004: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]

"Rights" come out of natural law, which is all very well, but they have to be supported by The Powers That Be, as Hannah Arendt and doubtless many others have pointed out. You may profess that as a Human Being you have a right to this or that, but if your local Authority Having Jurisdiction doesn't go along, your so-called rights are worth diddley.

That wolves live in packs, or that many species of fish form schools is hard-wired into their brains through natural selection. Many species simply can't be socialized, like wolverines. We can. It is intrinsic to us. In order to be social, we have to respect each other's rights to exist, we have to learn to cooperate, to co-exist.

Rights may be "intrinsic" to us, but of what use are they when someone bigger than us says no?

If, for example, you go to some of the leftish American sites like The Nation or The Progressive or The New Republic or Common Dreams, you'll find a lot of talk about women's right to exercise control over their own bodies. I think the issue is phrased as "reproductive rights"?

Well, how far do you think those reproductive rights are going to get American women today, and in the next two or three or four years? You've got a bunch of white male evangelical Christians running the shop now, and they think abortion is BAD. Ergo, a woman's "right" to choose is out the window.

PS - I don't believe that "barter" is "intrinsic" either. I personally think cooperation (i.e., sharing) is as intrinsic as barter, but you know what? We'll never know which of the two is more or less intrinsic.

Skdadl's reference to four-year-olds brings another thought on this. I'll make a comparison to children who grow up in isolation, or abusive conditions. There is a "window" in human developement where we can learn language, become socialized, learn compassion, etc. Again, we have that capacity, most other species do not. It is a part of us. I don't deny that it can be damaged, it can be neglected, we can produce sociopaths, we can produce monsters. But it is still in us to form social groupings, and social groupings, even among four-year-olds, ARE the acknowledgement of a social contract at some level. "We are a group. At some level, we are the same."

But at some point, the wealthy decided that outright ownership of land and stricter definitions of property rights for the priveleged class would be somewhat more profitable. But at the expense of whom were the profits going to be extracted ?. What could the elite class gain from erecting barriers and hedges in preventing farmers from crossing one field to the next for worship or town meetings as they had done for centuries before?. The arrangement was already established that those who worked the land could live off the fruit of their labour while contributing so much of their agricultural efforts to the crown or his loyal overseers.

And so the rich decided that these new property rights could benefit them moreso than the existing arrangement if property rights might also include cheap labour to go with it. Fences and hedges were a part of their effort to exercise their own rights, but ultimately, the royal soldiers and sheriff's would be needed to enforce these exclusive property rights. Common rights, as viewed by the crown, were natural and granted by God and country. The cunnning Locke agreed that rights were natural and God given, but went on to add several caveats for the purpose of establishing exclusive rights over common rights. And to make these new rights as moral and universally accepted as possible, exclusive property rights could be acknowledged when a certain individual laid claim to the land by toil and hard work. The part about this that doesn't seem very natural to Biblical teaching was, what about those who were already using the land for their own sustenance ?. How natural or moral was it to ignore their common rights ?.

There were peasant revolts as the price of bread became unaffordable for many who began to experience hunger as bread prices rose and all manner of peasant necessities suddenly became "scarce" as labour became more focused on cash crops and larger shares of output were laid out by the poor for increasing rents.

By controlling the land, rich landowners could realize newfound opportunities to control labour. A monopoly on land meant that labour and the wages that peasants earned could more easily be controlled. Without the labour to go with it, the land was otherwise useless to the idle rich. New laws were written up to control the movement of labour. It became illegal for a man or woman to travel to the next borough or shire in search of work and driving up labour prices when labour became scarce in other parts. People could be whipped as punishment or made slaves for breaking the new and oppressive laws that stemmed from these so called natural property rights.

[ 07 November 2004: Message edited by: Fidel ]

Under the entry relating to "common law" we see the following terminology used:

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Common law ...Judge-made law. Law which exists and applies to a group on the basis of historical legal precedents developed over hundreds of years.....Common law has been referred to as the "common sense of the community, crystallized and formulated by our ancestors"

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This definition of common law identifies the development of such law, over time, that reflects an evolution of common sense over time. The part where I would take exception is in the notion that it is the exclusive domain of our "ancestors". Such a recipie would preclude any development whatsoever.....which would be fine for all social conservatives, whatever they call themselves.

So, here's some points about rights I'd like to draw attention to:

1. common sense, over history;
2. having the quality of development, of evolution, of course, with the caveat that there can be historical zig-zags (the only thing that moves in a straight line is something that has no influence on it from the environment....), and so on;
3. should be enforceable or remediable...otherwise we fall back on some bourgeois notion of right, formal but empty of real meaning...
4. in some deep sense, reflecting the moral and ethical development of the people in a particular country, etc. (Hence in Canada, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms reflects our shared moral values in our secular society and is our barometer of ethical development...incidently very useful for atheists to point to)
5. ...and reflecting the level of development of legal understanding or consciousness in a given society. Ideally, there would be no law "enforcement" because no one would choose to break the law. But that is another discussion.

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Steve N

I sympathize with your current cynicism about the threats to rights today. It doesn't alter my point that if we didn't have an innate capacity to acknowledge "rights", we wouldn't have them at all, and in fact we wouldn't have society at all. That you and I can even have this discussion at all is a result of that.

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I think Steve is onto something here.

I believe the idea of 'rights' is a direct result of our concious awareness of our individual selves.

There are no 'rights' in nature. Every organism is a product of evolution, and lives or dies based on its ability in the environment in which it lives. This is true regardless of the specific nature of the organism (social or individual, plant or animal, etc.). There is no 'fair' or 'unfair' in nature. However, at some point the human brain became concious of itself.

Up to that point, there is no 'choice' between differing courses of action, no right way or wrong way to do things. The evolutionary impulse is totally in control.

When a person becomes concious of themself, they can compare their actions against the actions of others, or indeed against a pre-conceived notion of what they would like to have happen.

not sure 2004 edition available widely yet; Amazon still posts the 1977 edition

[ 14 March 2005: Message edited by: Geneva ]

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The new Settlement Act allowed for the removal from a parish (generally back to their parish of birth) of newcomers whom local justices deemed "likely to be chargeable" to the parish poor rates. ... Another means of qualifying for settlement in a new parish was by being in continuous employment for at least a year. To prevent this, hirings were often for a period of 364 days rather than a full year.

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The 1697 Act also required the "badging of the poor" — those in receipt of poor relief were required to wear, in red or blue cloth on their right shoulder, the letter "P" preceded by the initial letter of their parish.

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English Poor Laws

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So again, I hope my point where I am, to put it in these terms, pro-Christian is clear enough. I claim that the way we — how should I put it? — the way to imagine any radical social change was opened by this logic, which again is not the logic of this eternal circular movement, the logic of disturbed and reestablished balance, where we are part of some large chain of being; but it's the logic of miracle, miracle not in the religious sense — I'm a materialist, to avoid misunderstanding — but miracle in the sense of you can begin from the zero point. We are not caught in an eternal movement. To be good does not mean to be identified to your place. And it's here I claim that human rights begin. Human rights do not mean you have your proper place and dignity comes to you through being identified to that place. Human rights means precisely, no, you are something independently of your proper place. Which is why every proper right-winger or proto-fascist always insists on one thing. This is the eternal organicist metaphoric of fascism or proto-fascism, that society is kind of a mega-organism, a body where the key to order is that everyone has to stick to his or her own place, and things go wrong when people want directly to participate at the universal dimension. While again, democracy, if this term has any meaning today, begins precisely when you have a direct access to the Absolute, where, independently of your place in this destructive, violent outburst you can acquire a distance towards the specific social structure. Because of this, against today's onslaught of New Age neo-paganism, it seems to me both theoretically productive and politically salient to stick to this Judaeo-Christian logic.

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http://www.egs.edu/faculty/zizek/zizek-human-rights-and-its-discontents.html

I'm surprised nobody has addressed the question of whether we have a right to Nature and at least SOME natural things -- clean air and water, for instance. And then there arise the questions of

-the right to seeds that propagate (consider all the Monsanto battles going on re GMF and "mule" seeds)

-the right to die (the Oregon Assisted Suicide debate)

-the right to be born (the abortion debate)

-the woman's right to bear and raise children, and/or to find a surrogate or adoptive parent in cases where the woman is not able to raise the child/ren herself. (consider the issues in some countries where female children are aborted; and the tradition in many cultures where extended family raise children whose mother OR father cannot raise the child.)

- the right to an uncrowded planet, where the right to be born, bear and raise children,and die are not taken away.

- the right to fertile soil (again, issues related to agro-chemistry, crop rotation, soil depletion -- and these issues are not confined to the USA. Some countries use "slash and burn" agriculture where acreages are burnt, soil ruined and abandoned, and the farmers move on to the next plot of land)

- the right to oxygen (something that is overlooked when massive forests are cut down worldwide for various reasnos, lumber and agriculture being the major ones, I think)

- the right travel freely (on the micro-plane, we are talking about walking from one SPOT to the next, hence it applies to private property AND political borders. Some cultures do not have these two concepts.)

These are just a few of the most basic issues. Are these "rights" or would they be considered things that simply "exist" and therefore can be forcibly taken away and therefore fall under the category of political or personal privileges to be defended?

Incidentally, as a feminist, I still have trouble with the "right" to abortion -- why? Because abortion is not at this point a "natural" right as above, in that it must be performed by a doctor. My guess is that there are "natural" ways to abort, probably herbs, which are lost to human knowledge, and THAT right I support! THAT way would be the woman's true right to her own body, her true way to choose, and wholly her own business. But I also support the right to have and bear children. And the right to find adoptive or surrogate parents if a woman is NOT able, for some reason, to raise the children herself!

I'll probably get real shot down for this post. Usually I do when I bring up these things. Few people understand or agree with what I say. But this is not new with me -- it's an intrinsic way of life for me, and I have felt this way all my life. It is spiritual, I think, a part of me.

It's a pity that we just can't latch to the surreality of philosophy so easily. As Mary Anna stated (kinda taking one of her thoughts and putting it to my own need), certain rights that should definitely be permanent and consistent through out society, like abortion...Aren't inherently natural. They are something that women have come by, by fighting extremely bitter battles for literally, thousands of years. So, is the right to being free a natural, inalieable right? Probably not, because the concept of freedom is probably unique to humans and the pecking order that we have firmly established does NOT allow for it. The only real right that exists for humans is the right to think. And from that right, which is without a doubt the most fundamental and most beautiful thing there is, all of our other rights spring.

[ 17 March 2005: Message edited by: Papal_Bull ]

... because the concept of freedom is probably unique to humans and the pecking order that we have firmly established does NOT allow for it.

Interesting point. However, the term "pecking order" is, of course, from the animal kingdom! And whereas PERHAPS the animal don't have a "concept" as we humans conceptualize subjectively, the issue of having enought food or land does involve freedom, does it not? Therefore freedom, as you say, is not an inalienable right.

To make this even more graphic than "pecking order," consider now the loss of habitat to clearing of land for housing developments. Or to slash and burn agriculture. Or to the natural cycle of food-source supply and demand which makes one animal species' population grow huge, while species' population another shrinks; over time, members of the overpopulated species die of starvation, and the depleted species population increases. Other natural ways land habitats can be removed could be, say, via volcanic lava flows; oceanic or river delta formations; forest or brush fires, etc.

Physical freedom is also not an inalienable right due to the fact that any living creature may be trapped or killed at any time.

Thought freedom is an interesting concept. What about "confidence games," though? Con artists and even hypnotists are the basis for "brain washing," cults, and trickery of all sorts. How does a person know that in any given situation, some type of tricksters and liars are not manipulating one's ability to think? It may be in the form of a person presenting him/herself as a friend, lover, or even spouse. Or business partner. Or in the form of written disinformation, or television or movie subliminal messages, etc etc.

From the historic fight for basic democratic rights and the rise of socialism, like talked about by that Star Trek Alien guy Klingon, the idea of the universal right to nature, discussed by Mary Anna, this is what people should be talking more about.

Most of us here believe in universal equal rights. That's a good thing. But what exactly are rights and where do they come from? Why are they something so important to so many people?

I agree with the recognition made a while back here that rights are "conditions necessary to human growth and survival."

They must be this simply because they are so critical to the lives of almost everyone.

While I seek a deeper explanation of a inherent right of expression, I see "this" as a right of each of us. I know "this" is vague right now. I'm trying to piece it together.

Without this creative tendency, how is it first principle can ever be entertained, beyond the rules of constitutions and bylaws adopted with the incorporation?

I looked at examples like the basis of computer developement and the choice we might have from OS systems. While the converstaion is quite diverse here, the models have allowed us to express ourselves in a nice way?

And then you go into this copyright and copyleft about the laws inherent, in what is transmitted, as a way to express this idea of a first principle?

Do we want to inhibit the expressions we have here or do we want to further exploit the possibilties in the developement this medium has to offer?

So you see where structures like constitutions/law can easily be adopted and transferred to existing organizational ideals.

It still required some work to define the existance that we would want of such a country or organzation to come into being, as a basis in the developement of that society?

So to me identifying this idealization in some kind of model, is very important. That it could begin in each of us, and develope outward and would hold the entire population in context of this expression.

The philosphical discourse of free societies draws our attention to the model developement. While again this can be diverse in it's expression, consensus draws it all to the foundations from which democracy will begin?

It gets complex. As you develope outward, the infringements that would deter expression would ask what motivations you might seek to regulate the anger or infringements on other rights, that it might retard or advance growth? I don't have to go into what we undertand about how we should treat one another, because we undertand this here I think.

I looked at the American constitution and realized what basis of expression early on, asked that they be responsible in this right of expression. Benjamin Franklin understood to change Jefferson's words in the right way about religious rights and freedoms, because he also thought like a scientist, and not to be deterred by religous fanaticisms.

To the other extreme, where captizational systems that exploit and rule over these rights of freedoms, has taken over the American system of democracy, as it seeks to do here in Canada.

Democracies, then become very important and how they are established. Even the Dalai Lama in exile understood to draw it up in in face of his position within that society. The people were shocked, but the Dalai Lama recognized how this constitution had to be drawn up of a free society that was locked out of its own country.

I am always open for corrections here.

[ 17 March 2005: Message edited by: forum observer ]

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Originally posted by Rand McNally:
I have been think a lot lately about rights. I consider myself a liberal democrat; by liberal, I mean that I take the concept of rights seriously, I would suspect that many other on this board do as well. Human rights, gay rights, animal rights, native rights, women's rights, and a whole host of others are everyday talking points for the left. My question is from where do people think rights originate? Are they logical constructs, legal concepts, divinely granted, or something else? Are they discovered or created? I would not mind hearing some thoughts from the board. I think it is an interesting question, and how one answers it would seem to have an impact on one's world view.

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Originally posted by Klingon:

In ancient Greece, the famous philosopher and scientist Democritus (where the term "democracy" comes from), who lived in and studied the ancient Ionians cooperative townships of the era, argued that the equal distribution of power to every individual, as in one-person-on-vote, in social decision-making was essential in making society work.

The traditional historic enemy of such thinking is what became known in the middle ages, and still exists as the dominant economic law today, as Master Servant Law. It comes from the ancient laws of Aristocracy (from Aristotle) and Plutocracy (from Plutarch), which dictate that those who are, by whatever circumstance, placed in a position of ownership or control of property get to make all the decision about what happens to that property and everyone and everything on it. They are the privileged.

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Democracy from Democritus, Aristocracy from Aristotle and Plutocracy from Plutarch? Are you sure?

I mean maybe democracy came from Demostenes, Aristocracy from Aristides and Plutocracy from... Uh... Pluto?

In ancient Greek
Kratos = power
Aristos = best
Demos (demou) = of the people
Plutos = a minor Greek god of riches

[ 18 March 2005: Message edited by: Surferosad ]

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Originally posted by Mike Keenan:
I have to admit that I find this whole question troubling. I avoid thinking about it too much, because when I do think about it I tend towards the unsavoury conclusion that rights- and responsibilities, for that matter- are fictions that we need in order to function in society. Fortunately this suspicion has not taken such a strong hold on me as to influence my behaviour- I tend to act as though rights and responsibilities are real.

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I think you're onto something there, but the idea of rights as a kind of fiction need not be so dire a conclusion as it might first appear.

To my mind, those rights we enjoy in society are put in place in those circumstances wherein the the powers that be are forced to agree to them, so as to preserve order. But it can happen in a few different ways.

Most notably, rights are agreed to by the elite to forestall the societal disruption that would result from their being denied. At such time as a social grouping can credibly demand rights-- say, women's suffrage, or black people's civil rights-- the elite must make a choice: institute the demanded rights, or face the wrath of those denied. The credibility comes from the potency of that wrath. These are rights most directly won by exercise of political or moral power.

On occasion-- say, at the founding of a new state, or after a revolution-- the new elite can choose to recognize such rights in a 'pre-emptive' way. I.,e., "this is what it seems that the people want, so we'll set things up that way, and therefore avoid the inevitable societal convulsions that would come should we demure."

And lastly, the elite at times chooses to codify those rights that have been in de facto operation for some time (having been one in one, or both, of the other two fashions) and seems serviceable for keeping the societal peace-- for example, the US Bill of Rights.

I think what we call rights are how we articulate and describe the nature of that cooperation.

Curiously, this struck me as I was reading de Sade. de Sade described his version of rights, which was, as you might imagine, absolute within your own power sphere: I have the right to do to you as I please limited by your ability to stop me.

This struck me as a good code of rights for more solitary animals like bears, but certainly not humans, who depend on each other for survival.

[ 18 March 2005: Message edited by: Fidel ]

However, it seems quite evident that a society that grants people rights like the right to free speech, self-determination, equal rights for all people, etc will have a higher level of happiness among it's population than a society that does not. If that is true, then the granting of rights is a practical choice.

If someone is a survival of the fittest, screw the homeless, screw the weaklings, I want it all type of person, you can't really come up with a logical or scientific argument to tell them that they ought to have a different outlook on life. They might even be very happy and prosperous as they tear their swath.

I don't see rights as god-given, being an atheist. I also don't see them as government given privileges, as privileges can be revoked.

The odd thing is that we don't all agree on our axiomatic rights. Free speech seems to be pretty basic, one we can all agree to. Some of the other seem to be up for debate, and it seems to be disagreements about what fundamental rights are necessary to make society function.

By government fiat, in Canada we have no rights. Everything in Canada is a privilege as exemplified by the notwithstanding clause.

Property rights in Canada are literally non-existent, which bothers me. Property rights are a tricky one, because there's a line between being able to own the land that you use to live on and land that you work to make a living, like a farmer's fields, and the kind of property that you rent or pay somebody else to till. One can be justified, as our support for native land struggles in central america, as they demand the ownership of their own land. The other we condemn, rightly I think as capitalist exploitation.

Similarly, there is debate about the right to defend yourself. The right to defend yourself is hollow for all but the largest and strongest men unless we are allowed the tools to defend ourselves. Yet in Canada, the best tool of defence, a handgun, is so regulated that it is virtually impossible to envision a scenario where somebody could legally defend themselves from an attack with such a tool.

Free speech has it's classic case of shouting "Fire" in a crowded theatre. Hate speech has been debated in Canada very recently. I was against the laws against Hate Speech, mostly because the best way to get rid of cockroaches like the Zundels of the world is to shine a spotlight on them and let their idiocy be shown to all, instead of martyring them, but I do understand the ideas behind the hate speech laws.

Looking at this short list, we see that every time we start infringing on these rights, it's because we haven't created a perfect society, so we have curtailed one right or another.

This leads me to the conclusion that rights are those things which when they no longer need to be restricted, define a just and good society.

Apply that to all the the rights that you hold dear. If in a perfect society the rights are not modified, then they are rights. They are things worth fighting for.

The right to free speech, but not the right to lie. The right to life, but not the right to kill. The right to your own property, but not the right to exploit.

By this token, I don't think the right to bear arms is a natural right, because in a perfect society we wouldn't need a weapon or 'arms'. I do think that the right to own guns however is a natural right, as a gun is just a tool, and I see the right to possessions as inherent. In a perfect world, guns are just a tool to make holes in paper from far away as an intellectual excercise.

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Originally posted by m0nkyman:
I too have been contemplating the issue of rights. I see them as axioms. Just like 1+1=2, certain rights are necessary for a functioning society. You can dictate that from here on in, 1+1=3, but that just means you'll be making arithmetic mistakes.

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Not to be a party-pooper, but LOTS of societies have and still do function with little concern being given to rights.

Your arithmetic is dealing with something a bit more fundamental I suspect.

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I don't see rights as god-given, being an atheist. I also don't see them as government given privileges, as privileges can be revoked.

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Where else can one find them? In a state of nature? No, because one needs civilizations (and fairly highly-developed ones at that) to have such abstractions as rights.

Unfortunately, rights are government given (and can be taken away or circumvented in the same manner).

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The odd thing is that we don't all agree on our axiomatic rights. Free speech seems to be pretty basic, one we can all agree to.

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You like to let fascists and racists drivel on, inciting others with their fear, paranoia, and filth?

Nix on free speech (at least as an absolute) so far as I'm concerned.

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By government fiat, in Canada we have no rights. Everything in Canada is a privilege as exemplified by the notwithstanding clause.

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While this sort of statement can have its propaganda value, it's quite false in practice.

We do have rights. The problem is the ease with which people (including the government) are willing to get rid of them on the occasion.

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Property rights in Canada are literally non-existent, which bothers me. Property rights are a tricky one, because there's a line between being able to own the land that you use to live on and land that you work to make a living, like a farmer's fields, and the kind of property that you rent or pay somebody else to till. One can be justified, as our support for native land struggles in central america, as they demand the ownership of their own land. The other we condemn, rightly I think as capitalist exploitation.

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Hurm! Tom D'Aquino would beg to differ with you about the lack of property rights in Canada. Those particular rights are always getting strengthened and exercised.

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Looking at this short list, we see that every time we start infringing on these rights, it's because we haven't created a perfect society, so we have curtailed one right or another.

This leads me to the conclusion that rights are those things which when they no longer need to be restricted, define a just and good society.

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Oy vey! Now you have to define "a just and good society" and its relationship to rights. Would such an animal even have the need for rights?

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They are things worth fighting for.

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Yes, but these things are always open to revision, change, eradication, etc.

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By this token, I don't think the right to bear arms is a natural right, because in a perfect society we wouldn't need a weapon or 'arms'. I do think that the right to own guns however is a natural right, as a gun is just a tool, and I see the right to possessions as inherent.

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