re: #122 gamark

I’m trying to wrap my head around your viewpoint. Are you saying that we as living beings, have no rights other than those recognized by some sort of collective agreement amongst ourselves? I think your view conflates possession of rights with recognition of those rights by others.

I’m an atheist and I certainly disagree with folks like Coburn who believe they get certain of their rights from $DEITY. But it doesn’t bother me that they think this because it doesn’t conflict with my view that I possess certain rights simply by virtue of being born. This doesn’t mean that other folks won’t violate those rights. If I’m murdered by someone, that doesn’t mean I didn’t have the right to life.

I’m saying that the concept of rights, in the abstract (i.e., divorced from any particular legal construct) are meaningless. You have free will, and can choose to do whatever you please. In that sense, you have total freedom to do absolutely anything of which you are physically and mentally capable. What consequences arise from the application of that total freedom is the purview of the law.

Any rights which you claim to possess which aren’t enshrined in law are utterly meaningless, as laws aren’t created by anything other than men. As such, it is incumbent upon humanity to apply reason and decide what rights should be legally recognized, and what particular applications of your free will should be punishable by some penalty, as applied by the government. This is the fundamental basis of the concept of the rule of law.

If you were murdered by somebody, then your free will was attenuated by the free will of another. That’s the only actual “natural right” anybody has, in my opinion: The right to do as you can do under the circumstances in which you find yourself. The rest, that’s enshrined by law, and law alone.

I have a problem with the concept of “inalienable” rights, because ALL civil rights are alienable. They can be taken away from you by men, and thus, they are not inalienable. Claiming that something is your right when it is not legal is sort of a pointless exercise. Where the rubber meets tho road is the social contract, not divine providence.

Whether God wills it or not, things here on Earth are exactly as they are, and not different. Man makes it so. There is nothing divine about rights, or laws. We forget this at our peril, as it has been forgotten before, with horrible consequences.

That’s my point. This isn’t a dig at the founders, but rather a philosophical issue. Free will is the only “natural right” we get. The rest are the rules of man.