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Using your definition, there's no such thing as human rights. Life, liberty, and property are all things that are only guaranteed by societal standards and enf

Using your definition, there's no such thing as human rights. Life, liberty, and property are all things that are only guaranteed by societal standards and enforcement. Murder, theft, and enslavement is the norm where the rule of law and enshrinement of rights are absent. Much of the US enslaved human beings for hundreds of years - liberty is clearly only something we get by being a member of a specific society.

jamestimmins 9y ago
Well my assumption is that liberty, life, and property are things that can be taken away. edit: I may have misunderstood your comment. I mean that human rights are things that are violated by taking them away, not failing to give them to you. So while life can be taken from you, doing so would violate human rights. Whereas arguing that internet is a human right doesn't work with this model, because the current violation of that 'right' doesn't just result from someone taking something away, but from someone failing to give it to you.
ams6110 9y ago
You've got it backwards. Life, liberty, pursuit of happiness are inherent in being human. Governments can only take them away, they do not confer them.
- Mediterraneo10 9y ago
  > Life, liberty, pursuit of happiness are inherent in being human. <Citation needed>. The conventional Enlightenment-era arguments for natural rights, like those which inspired the American Founding Fathers, claimed that those natural rights were endowed by a Creator. Unfortunately, over the following two centuries-plus, fewer and fewer people accept the existence of a Creator that can endow such rights. Meanwhile, the study of homo sapiens as a social animal has proceeded apace, and it is clear to many – if not most – people today that “rights” are a rather arbitrary thing that human beings in groups posit for utilitarian reasons, but they have no foundation beyond that.
- ionised 9y ago
  I agree that they are inherent, but it's not just governments that take them away, it's other people in general. You could live in a totally government-free society and somebody, somewhere will eventually come along and fuck your shit up. Then you are just fighting to keep your rights, which for many might be preferable than trusting a government to do it for you. The question is are you more likely to retain those rights under a government than without one? If so, what kind of government?

jamestimmins 9y ago

Well my assumption is that liberty, life, and property are things that can be taken away. edit: I may have misunderstood your comment. I mean that human rights are things that are violated by taking them away, not failing to give them to you. So while life can be taken from you, doing so would violate human rights. Whereas arguing that internet is a human right doesn't work with this model, because the current violation of that 'right' doesn't just result from someone taking something away, but from someone failing to give it to you.

ams6110 9y ago

You've got it backwards. Life, liberty, pursuit of happiness are inherent in being human. Governments can only take them away, they do not confer them.

Mediterraneo10 9y ago
> Life, liberty, pursuit of happiness are inherent in being human. <Citation needed>. The conventional Enlightenment-era arguments for natural rights, like those which inspired the American Founding Fathers, claimed that those natural rights were endowed by a Creator. Unfortunately, over the following two centuries-plus, fewer and fewer people accept the existence of a Creator that can endow such rights. Meanwhile, the study of homo sapiens as a social animal has proceeded apace, and it is clear to many – if not most – people today that “rights” are a rather arbitrary thing that human beings in groups posit for utilitarian reasons, but they have no foundation beyond that.
ionised 9y ago
I agree that they are inherent, but it's not just governments that take them away, it's other people in general. You could live in a totally government-free society and somebody, somewhere will eventually come along and fuck your shit up. Then you are just fighting to keep your rights, which for many might be preferable than trusting a government to do it for you. The question is are you more likely to retain those rights under a government than without one? If so, what kind of government?