Put This in Your File

a reply to: AtlanteanFugitive

Interesting; thanks for the term "negative rights." Well put response and I'm still thinking about the topic, and may agree with your premise that these are our only inherent rights.

a reply to: surfer_soul

Its a good question, one many people often ask. Why does God let this befall me or why has God let someone suffer? The fact of the matter is the lord often does intervene when people ask for it. Sometimes it can take regular prayer. I don't believe God lets any thing that's wrong in the world happen to people that don't deserve it or those that live for the world and don't really know God often tend to experience the high's and low's in life saying that's how the dice rolls, that is not to say that the life of a follower isn't without trials and tribulations and that bad things still happen to them as well. Itd be a very onesided view to be Christian and say my life is great nothing bad ever happens. We live in a world that's crumbling to bits. Being good to one another doesn't mean your going to live a life full of roses either.

To not focus on the negatives, God doesn't let the vast majority of things take place in the world that are unwholesome and only harmful. They take place because of mens hearts and outside influences. Greed is one of the biggest ones in this world, ive often wondered if greed is a psychological disorder - just my opinion.

a reply to: Smigg

If you were to go by what the bible says, it shant. At some point all that's wrong in the world is going to go away though, a complete u turn. Perhaps not instantly maybe over a long period of time many years. Pollution for one will take technological intervention to some level.

a reply to: zosimov

OK. I've been thinking about it a bit more and...some of these thoughts are a bit out there but, if you truly want to do an exercise of the mind, sometimes you have to dive a bit deep into "woo woo" thoughts.

By no means am I saying this is accurate. It is just a alternate viewpoint.

In order to find out what rights we have without societal, political, and personal bias I thought about the rights we have when we're born. At the moment we are born, we have only one inalienable right I think...the right to live.

It is said that we have the right to live free but, that is not really the case for this reason:

We have too many laws (governmental and societal) that take that right away from you immediately. For instance, the moment you're born hospitals record your birth (birth certificate) and assign you a number (social security card). The very act if doing that takes your right to live free away because now you have been documented and placed into the system. You are not living free if you are placed into the system.

So that takes the right to live free away from you just a few hours after birth.

Everyone is born equal. That is not true. The kind of care that your mother can afford in the hospital has already put you into the class system. Some people are born in private birthing rooms, some in regular rooms, some at home or even in back alleys.

I think the only real right as a human is the right to live. Everything else is just fluff. And this is also questionable. For instance you can terminate your pregnancy if the babies show signs of down syndrome. I think tests are given as far along as 18 weeks.

So, you as a baby don't have the right to life either.

If you don't have the right to live and are technically not living free right after you're born, then I think it's safe to assume you really have no natural rights at all as a human.

That leaves us with given rights. You only have the rights that the society you live in affords you. Those rights can be amended at any time to meet the needs of current society. You basically have to earn your rights. And in order to keep them, the majority of the population in your societal group has to agree that they are relevant and necessary.

Just some thoughts. I'm still searching for the answer but so far, this is what my research has come up with.

Thanks,
blend

originally posted by: mammothtank
a reply to: Smigg

If you were to go by what the bible says, it shant. At some point all that's wrong in the world is going to go away though, a complete u turn. Perhaps not instantly maybe over a long period of time many years. Pollution for one will take technological intervention to some level.

I like your optimism but we as humans don't have the correct nature to turn this around and it's why we have the Bible.
When Christ was asked about the end His answers were clear enough.

a reply to: blend57

From what I've been able to come up with (though I am not yet applying much research to the endeavor--this would make for an awesome thread topic on its own), it's known that we have laws that people violate, so wouldn't it also be possible to have natural, inherent rights that others violate as well?

I think we all can intuit when we've overstepped the bounds and failed to respect others rights, just as we know when our own rights have been violated.

No one has a right to murder us, although some may murder anyway.
No one has a right to rape us, though rapes will indeed happen.
No one has a right to pen us up in cages or experiment on us, though as we can see some will do it if it may benefit them.
No one has the right to prevent us from (legally) acquiring food or water for our labor. Or to steal our property.
No one has the right to kidnap or hurt or maim us or force us to change what we think or say.

I also think that there will be natural consequences for violating others' rights, proportional to the crime, which is why I believe Geoff Thompson's molester (previous page) eventually came to the end of his rope. Even those who escape the law, or who evade social repercussions will ultimately face their crimes in my opinion, though again this would be impossible to prove.

Great discussion, blend, thank you!

a reply to: zosimov

My opinion is that the lines started to blur about what rights we have when we allowed certain people to believe that they had a right not to be offended.

I know it's a bit of a cliché but they say offence is taken not given.

Once it was accepted that certain people /groups could claim to be offended and get special treatment, they took it and weaponised it to the extent that everyone now walks on eggshells.
It has since been used to control general discourse and created a minefield in which a lot of people are now afraid to speak their mind for fear of unintentionally causing offence.

Selectively used, it helped the "shriekers" have their echo chamber. Notice how no one gives a donut if you find something offensive? You'll be told that you are old fashioned or regressive or even repressive then told to shut up and live with the "new way".

Anyway, Geoff Thompson is an interesting chap. I nearly had the chance to meet him at a book signing for Watch My Back but had to work so missed it in the end.
The guy at the bookshop got Geoff to sign a copy for me which I can no longer find in my collection but hopefully it will turn up eventually.

a reply to: blend57

The only rights you have are the ones you fight for, if you didn’t fight for them someone else did and they were granted to you by extension.

We are seeing rights being steadily taken away because people are to fearful to defend them.

a reply to: mammothtank

It’s not such a difficult question to answer when one realises illusionary nature of what we experience as reality. While I don’t think reality is a simulation, it’s a very good metaphor for our experience of it.

Our bodies, our personalities and egos. They are just the costumes of the soul, we take on these characters on the stage of life and it is so convincing that the audience and ourselves believe it’s real.

originally posted by: zosimov
a reply to: blend57

I think we all can intuit when we've overstepped the bounds and failed to respect others rights, just as we know when our own rights have been violated.

No one has a right to murder us, although some may murder anyway.
No one has a right to rape us, though rapes will indeed happen.
No one has a right to pen us up in cages or experiment on us, though as we can see some will do it if it may benefit them.
No one has the right to prevent us from (legally) acquiring food or water for our labor. Or to steal our property.
No one has the right to kidnap or hurt or maim us or force us to change what we think or say.

I also think that there will be natural consequences for violating others' rights, proportional to the crime, which is why I believe Geoff Thompson's molester (previous page) eventually came to the end of his rope. Even those who escape the law, or who evade social repercussions will ultimately face their crimes in my opinion, though again this would be impossible to prove.

Great discussion, blend, thank you!

I think that maybe those rights were at one time natural or inalienable rights but no longer valid.

For instance, food and water we pay for. We pay for them by earning money. To earn money we have to work. That is not freedom nor is it a right anymore.

There are also laws in place that prevent you from just finding food and water anywhere. Land owners rights, government epa laws, homeowner building/construction regulations....these make the right to food and water (hunting laws and licenses) no longer valid.

For physical harm or murder/rape, the consequences of such acts are not equal to the crime usually. Most legal matters such as these involve plea bargains and the jails/prisons for these offenders offer better living conditions then they had out in the real world.

As you notated, we are used for science/medical experiments more often then we care to admit (many examples show up if you search google).

So, inalienable rights are rights that no one can take from you.

Definition of Inalienable Rights

Noun

Rights that are not alienable

Rights that are not transferable or capable of being taken away or nullified

We've proven through your examples and mine that all these rights can be taken away by government, corporations, or individuals.

So, I'm still thinking on it but I can't think of any right that truly fits that definition.

Maybe at one time they did but I don't think they do currently.

I'll keep researching to see what else I can find.

Thanks,
blend

a reply to: blend57

I haven't given up on this thread, and though I still don't quite agree with your post, I love how thought provoking it is and how respectfully you post your ideas.

I'd say good call on the "inalienable" definition. It would seem that if we were to go with this definition (and I don't see any reason why we wouldn't-certainly not the type to change the definition of words when they no longer serve me).

The problem with human rights and self sovereignty is that there's no physical proof for it. Even the Declaration of Independence admits to this by saying

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 [...] that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it...

Of course, this is only one document, but in my opinion one of the most important documents defending the rights of mankind.

I guess the only way I can defend this view is the knowledge that I don't have the right to murder anyone, and therefore it would follow no one has the right to murder me. Even if I have the capability of going out and snuffing out another's life, I can intuit how egregiously horrifically wrong this is, and that I have no right to do so. Of course, there have been interactions between people which blurs this line, but most deadly or harmful interactions begin with some violation of a person's rights.

No group of wealthy or powerful people have the right to determine what people do with their own body, or whether they can leave their home, continue their prodigy, whether the earth is too populated. They may think so, but I know they don't.

Hope you are having a good one, dear blend!!

originally posted by: zosimov
a reply to: blend57


I'd say good call on the "inalienable" definition. It would seem that if we were to go with this definition (and I don't see any reason why we wouldn't-certainly not the type to change the definition of words when they no longer serve me).

Oops, lol, noticed I never finished my thought here which is that going by this definition, you'd be right in saying we have no inalienable rights.
So I do agree with you in this point wonder what definition the US founders were going by.