4 ms·

Has the whole "inalienable rights" thing passed you by - given we are talking about the USA

• coldtea 8y ago
  Those are just words on a document some old people wrote. Not a law of nature. The only thing keeping then "unalienated" is actual people, with guns and jails, etc, to prevent others from alienating them. And even so, those people keep unalienated whatever they're ordered to keep by those who pay their salaries. In practice those rights have been alienated time and again, whenever those wanted it.
• Frondo 8y ago
  Yes, and I'm of the position that there is no such thing as an inalienable right; that that too is a human invention and that that too is entirely up to people to defend. I also think this is a defensible position, hence my request to see the "rights molecule". That isn't to say I don't think certain rights should be held as universal, or that some aren't worth dying for, I certainly do. I just think there isn't a facet of human society that is not, in fact, ultimately a human invention (within the constraints of the pressures evolution has wired into our brains, like proscriptions on incest.) And, frankly, we should all be proud of what we can build, as a species.