re: #169 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))
I always thought that these rights exist by mutual consent: if we wish to exercise them ourselves, we cannot deny them to others.
Which makes it an important bit of strategy to make people feel cowed and unwilling to assert their own rights voluntarily before then seeking to actively take them away from others who might try to defend them.
imo, human rights exist. full stop.
they are not āgivenā. they cannot be taken away.
- they can and often are suppressed by āthe stateā
- they are not always ārecognizedā at large (possibly because no one really ever thought about it, or maybe a sea change event occurred that made something relevant)