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Nature's Law: Inalienable Rights vs Civil Rights; Constitutional Republic vs Democracy

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posted on Mar, 17 2015 @ 01:35 PM
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a reply to: Boadicea

Well put. Glad to see that there are people out there that still get it.



posted on Mar, 17 2015 @ 01:52 PM
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Ralph Raico is a historian and lecturer on youtube and a member of the von Mises community. He has proposed that being able to move from country to country in Christian Europe was essential to the development of personal liberty. The West was essentially one culture and so a person could leave an oppressive government to a new government and still live in accustomed ways. Countries had be reasonable concerning the rights of the average citizen or else their population would migrate away.

No other civilization has ever been as decentralized as the West. No other civilization has had individualism and private property. No other civilization has grown economically per capita. And there is also the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution.

The European Miracle.


The "miracle" in question consists in a simple but momentous fact: It was in Europe — and the extensions of Europe, above all, America — that human beings first achieved per capita economic growth over a long period of time. In this way, European society eluded the "Malthusian trap," enabling new tens of millions to survive and the population as a whole to escape the hopeless misery that had been the lot of the great mass of the human race in earlier times. The question is: why Europe?

....

Within this system, it was highly imprudent for any prince to attempt to infringe property rights in the manner customary elsewhere in the world. In constant rivalry with one another, princes found that outright expropriations, confiscatory taxation, and the blocking of trade did not go unpunished. The punishment was to be compelled to witness the relative economic progress of one's rivals, often through the movement of capital, and capitalists, to neighboring realms. The possibility of "exit," facilitated by geographical compactness and, especially, by cultural affinity, acted to transform the state into a "constrained predator" (Anderson 1991, 58).
mises.org...



posted on Mar, 17 2015 @ 01:52 PM
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originally posted by: Semicollegiate

originally posted by: greencmp
a reply to: Boadicea

Great thread and one of the more hotly debated aspects of both the definition and origin of rights.



We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.


A frequently misunderstood explanation of the intended meaning of this passage is the direct result of Jefferson's failure to leave Locke's original phrase alone which read, "life, liberty, and estate".

It is widely presumed (and I agree) that he was intending to include property as well as some other as yet undefined unalienable negative rights.



In 1689, Locke argued in his Two Treatises of Government that political society existed for the sake of protecting "property", which he defined as a person's "life, liberty, and estate".[7] In A Letter Concerning Toleration, he wrote that the magistrate's power was limited to preserving a person's "civil interest", which he described as "life, liberty, health, and indolency of body; and the possession of outward things".[8] He declared in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding that "the highest perfection of intellectual nature lies in a careful and constant pursuit of true and solid happiness".[9]

According to those scholars who saw the root of Jefferson's thought in Locke's doctrine, Jefferson replaced "estate" with "the pursuit of happiness", although this does not mean that Jefferson meant the "pursuit of happiness" to refer primarily or exclusively to property. Under such an assumption, the Declaration of Independence would declare that government existed primarily for the reasons Locke gave, and some have extended that line of thinking to support a conception of limited government


I thought that rights were negative rights only. A right is non interference with another person.


Positive rights all seem to be demands and therefore coerce another person into action. Slavery de facto.
None of the positive rights are rights to my way of thinking.


Yes, I agree and I am prepared to just jump to that conclusion.

I am not so confident that I have determined a convincing enough ratiocinative illustration to spike the ball.

States could include a variety of positive rights however unwittingly but, the ability to leave those states remains the final arbiter of such folly.

It becomes a problem only at the federal level, the obvious one is the right to due process which must have some arguably provisional implications.



posted on Mar, 17 2015 @ 02:04 PM
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originally posted by: Semicollegiate
Ralph Raico is a historian and lecturer on youtube and a member of the von Mises community. He has proposed that being able to move from country to country in Christian Europe was essential to the development of personal liberty. The West was essentially one culture and so a person could leave an oppressive government to a new government and still live in accustomed ways. Countries had be reasonable concerning the rights of the average citizen or else their population would migrate away.

No other civilization has ever been as decentralized as the West. No other civilization has had individualism and private property. No other civilization has grown economically per capita. And there is also the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution.

The European Miracle.


The "miracle" in question consists in a simple but momentous fact: It was in Europe — and the extensions of Europe, above all, America — that human beings first achieved per capita economic growth over a long period of time. In this way, European society eluded the "Malthusian trap," enabling new tens of millions to survive and the population as a whole to escape the hopeless misery that had been the lot of the great mass of the human race in earlier times. The question is: why Europe?

....

Within this system, it was highly imprudent for any prince to attempt to infringe property rights in the manner customary elsewhere in the world. In constant rivalry with one another, princes found that outright expropriations, confiscatory taxation, and the blocking of trade did not go unpunished. The punishment was to be compelled to witness the relative economic progress of one's rivals, often through the movement of capital, and capitalists, to neighboring realms. The possibility of "exit," facilitated by geographical compactness and, especially, by cultural affinity, acted to transform the state into a "constrained predator" (Anderson 1991, 58).
mises.org...


Not too go too far afield but, I am reading Machiavelli's Prince again and he makes the case for a prince to prefer to be feared rather than loved.

The logic being that love is fickle and can easily be converted to hatred whereas to be feared is to be universally respected.

It makes a sort of a fractal sense that the states should relate to each other the same way that counties, cities, towns and individuals interact with each other. I believe that is the purpose of our second amendment and it is the explanation for the de facto international state of relative peace through the free migration of people and property.
edit on 17-3-2015 by greencmp because: (no reason given)



posted on Mar, 17 2015 @ 02:08 PM
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a reply to: LABTECH767

The only reason we aren't still British is because your government lost its way and failed to listen when a new way was shown. It started to go the right way once and then stalled out for a while.



posted on Mar, 17 2015 @ 02:09 PM
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a reply to: greencmp

One positive right that has come to mind is the "right to an attorney"

The law should be quite simple, how else can it be obeyed? Do we need law of such complexity that lawyers are mandatory?



posted on Mar, 17 2015 @ 02:13 PM
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a reply to: ketsuko

I am afraid despite a little white wash British government still has the same attitude of dictating to the people it had then, less violently but still the same.
The US faces a different problem in that at least since the 60's your government has been gravitating away from a rule by the majority toward the same tell the majority what to do attitude and that lion's pelt as is pointed out in the film Monumental represented the British government, still a hell of a waste of good tea (sorry I could not resist I would rather have a nice glass of scotch on ice).

edit on 17-3-2015 by LABTECH767 because: (no reason given)



posted on Mar, 17 2015 @ 02:14 PM
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a reply to: greencmp

Yes, localism, like free markets, is the best way. It minimizes the impact of truly bad law. People can always pick up and move to pursue their happiness elsewhere and any states or localities with truly bad law and governance will eventually collapse and fail or set themselves right. We see an example of this right now in Detroit.

It is truly sad that anyone must suffer that, but at least the damage to people is minimized to those few hundred thousand in Detroit. Imagine the misery if those policies and that governance were nationwide.

edit on 17-3-2015 by ketsuko because: (no reason given)



posted on Mar, 17 2015 @ 02:15 PM
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originally posted by: greencmp




Semicollegiate: "Positive rights all seem to be demands and therefore coerce another person into action. Slavery de facto. None of the positive rights are rights to my way of thinking."



Greencmp: "Yes, I agree and I am prepared to just jump to that conclusion."


I agree for the most part... at least in terms of our natural rights. In that sense, all are negative.


It becomes a problem only at the federal level, the obvious one is the right to due process which must have some arguably provisional implications.


I agree. At the federal level, if/when they act upon or against us, they do have to take certain actions, such as due process, to guarantee our natural rights.


States could include a variety of positive rights however unwittingly but, the ability to leave those states remains the final arbiter of such folly.


I've been giving this some thought. There is strength in numbers, and it is often more efficient and practical to pool resources for a common goal... such as law enforcement, education, road maintenance, etc. The question is determining which functions are best left to the individual and which are best handled as a whole. So much simpler said than done!

Like Ben Franklin and Tom Jefferson and William Penn and so many other founding fathers, I consider public education of the absolute paramount in healthy Republic. An educated public is an educated voting public. Further, education creates an independent, resourceful and self-sustaining people -- in other words, a strong people, who neither want nor need public assistance.

Having said that, the current state of education is a joke. But the premise is sound. We just need to fix it. Others disagree with me, and would like to see public education done away with. I just want to see it wrested from federal interference and control, handled as locally as possible to best serve that communities needs. I would like to see vocational education become more available, and I think we otherwise need to totally reform our educational system.


edit on 17-3-2015 by Boadicea because: formatting



posted on Mar, 17 2015 @ 02:17 PM
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originally posted by: LABTECH767
a reply to: ketsuko

I am afraid despite a little white wash British government still has the same attitude of dictating to the people it had then, less violently but still the same.
The US faces a different problem in that at least since the 60's your government has been gravitating away from a rule by the majority toward the same tell the majority what to do attitude.



Sad isn't it?

They say we'll be where you are in 30 years. So what you look now will be what we will be in 30 years, and at that time, we'll be horrified by what you are but we'll be headed down that road ... Maybe, you'll have erupted into a Renaissance and we'll be horrified by how much unrestrained free chaos you all have to live your lives over there ...

I can always hope.



posted on Mar, 17 2015 @ 02:34 PM
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originally posted by: Semicollegiate
a reply to: greencmp

One positive right that has come to mind is the "right to an attorney"

The law should be quite simple, how else can it be obeyed? Do we need law of such complexity that lawyers are mandatory?


Murray Rothbard has some interesting ideas on local adjudication as he was forced to consider some of the details being so nearly an anarchist. Privatize everything but allow for appeal.

For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto



posted on Mar, 17 2015 @ 02:48 PM
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originally posted by: Boadicea

originally posted by: greencmp




Semicollegiate: "Positive rights all seem to be demands and therefore coerce another person into action. Slavery de facto. None of the positive rights are rights to my way of thinking."



Greencmp: "Yes, I agree and I am prepared to just jump to that conclusion."


I agree for the most part... at least in terms of our natural rights. In that sense, all are negative.


It becomes a problem only at the federal level, the obvious one is the right to due process which must have some arguably provisional implications.


I agree. At the federal level, if/when they act upon or against us, they do have to take certain actions, such as due process, to guarantee our natural rights.


States could include a variety of positive rights however unwittingly but, the ability to leave those states remains the final arbiter of such folly.


I've been giving this some thought. There is strength in numbers, and it is often more efficient and practical to pool resources for a common goal... such as law enforcement, education, road maintenance, etc. The question is determining which functions are best left to the individual and which are best handled as a whole. So much simpler said than done!

Like Ben Franklin and Tom Jefferson and William Penn and so many other founding fathers, I consider public education of the absolute paramount in healthy Republic. An educated public is an educated voting public. Further, education creates an independent, resourceful and self-sustaining people -- in other words, a strong people, who neither want nor need public assistance.

Having said that, the current state of education is a joke. But the premise is sound. We just need to fix it. Others disagree with me, and would like to see public education done away with. I just want to see it wrested from federal interference and control, handled as locally as possible to best serve that communities needs. I would like to see vocational education become more available, and I think we otherwise need to totally reform our educational system.



Simpatico. I say get rid of all public sector unions and then rebuild whatever necessary management is necessary locally. The department of education (being only about 40 years old and having failed) among others are to be disassembled, the experiment can be continued at the state and local levels.

Pretty much all of these debatable topics are ultimately funded through local property taxes anyway so there is no down side to any particular community to be released from bondage. The only obstacle is the teacher's and other public sector unions, perhaps the greatest threat this country has ever faced as it threatens to devour its master, us.



posted on Mar, 17 2015 @ 02:52 PM
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Quick question: Where does "money" come from when "everything" is privatized?



posted on Mar, 17 2015 @ 03:01 PM
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originally posted by: Gryphon66
Quick question: Where does "money" come from when "everything" is privatized?



The physiocrats made the argument that all wealth ultimately comes from agriculturally productive land. I do not agree with that simplistic but significant philosophical foray into what would later become economics.

But, to answer your question more plainly, wealth is created through the natural progression of requirement, vision, effort and reverence.

Money is simply a fungible currency which represents that wealth, easily replaced.
edit on 17-3-2015 by greencmp because: (no reason given)



posted on Mar, 17 2015 @ 03:03 PM
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originally posted by: Gryphon66
Quick question: Where does "money" come from when "everything" is privatized?



I wish I could star your comment twice. The question and answer have profound implications and consequences.

Money is what we make it. It did not come from nature, nor nature's god. It came from man. It is a tool to benefit all, and must be managed as such by those administering it in government... which, today, we're failing miserably.



posted on Mar, 17 2015 @ 03:10 PM
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originally posted by: greencmp

...wealth is created through the natural progression of requirement, vision, effort and reverence.


I really really like that. Sums it up nicely. And very true in a free market... but not so true in today's crony corporatism.


Money is simply a fungible currency which represents that wealth, easily replaced.


Sometimes I think we need to see money as we know it to totally and completely fail in order for people to understand the difference between "price" and "cost" and "value."



posted on Mar, 17 2015 @ 03:17 PM
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a reply to: greencmp

Money represents wealth. Check.

... and wealth is created through the natural progression of requirement, vision, effort and reverence. Uh ... check.

What is "wealth" itself then, in your terms [in a society were EVERYTHING has been privatized]?

EDIT FOR CLARITY IN BRACKETS.
edit on 15Tue, 17 Mar 2015 15:19:04 -050015p032015366 by Gryphon66 because: Noted



posted on Mar, 17 2015 @ 03:23 PM
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originally posted by: Gryphon66
a reply to: greencmp

Money represents wealth. Check.

... and wealth is created through the natural progression of requirement, vision, effort and reverence. Uh ... check.

What is "wealth" itself then, in your terms [in a society were EVERYTHING has been privatized]?

EDIT FOR CLARITY IN BRACKETS.


Goods actually covers pretty much everything.

Things which have inherent value.



posted on Mar, 17 2015 @ 03:30 PM
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a reply to: greencmp

So ... money represents goods which have inherent value.

I'm with you. Now, in a society where everything has been privatized, where does the money [itself, i.e. the fungible currency] come from?

E.g., A gross way of looking at my question: does each producer of goods issue their own money?


Also, if you have another moment, a quick definition of what you mean by privatized ... just a functional one.
edit on 15Tue, 17 Mar 2015 15:31:29 -050015p032015366 by Gryphon66 because: Edit in brackets



posted on Mar, 17 2015 @ 05:08 PM
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Maybe I'm missing your point but, why can't we have both, equally? We have our natural rights that are equal to our civil rights.

Is there anything specifically preventing the government, as an extension of the people, from declaring additional rights that are outside the purview of 'natural' rights?' I was under the impression that this was declared in the 10th amendment.

Finally, we are a democracy. You clearly understand that we elect our representatives democratically which is the definition of a democracy. Power vested to the people who rule through freely elected representatives. We, the people, furthered that through the 17th amendment. We don't have national votes on individual laws because we give that specific power to our representatives. But this nation is a democracy nonetheless.




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