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The people are not "given" rights. Your rights are natural and they exist apriori, regardless of what any government or agent of the state may say. A right ca

The people are not "given" rights. Your rights are natural and they exist apriori, regardless of what any government or agent of the state may say. A right can not be given it can only be taken. A government can take them away and the people can take them back.

dredmorbius 7y ago
There is a limited set of natural, or unalienable, rights. Some guys wrote A Thing about that twelve score and three years back. Most others are very much granted or reserved by law, contract, or custom.
- igravious 7y ago
  I thought inalienable to be the accepted form: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=inalienable%2C+unalienable https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=inalienable%2C... Is it not? Or are they interchangeable?
  - dredmorbius 7y ago
    That's my own preferred formulation. Certain authorities take a different view: https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcrip... Yes, they are synonyms, or alternate spellings. https://grammarist.com/usage/inalienable-unalienable/ https://grammarist.com/usage/inalienable-unalienable/
gota 7y ago
That's a view that seem common among extreme libertarians. An opposing view is that no person has any rights other than those that _other people_ agree they have. That latter view is more common among extreme communitarians, that _all_ rights are "given". I'd say it's arguable whether we are (or should be) moving towards making your position, the first one, true. But it seems clear that in the natural state of human beings there were no rights (e.g. certainly no complex idea of property), so we are at the vert least transitioning _to_ your position _from_ the latter. I make no judgment of value, just pointing out you are at best "partially", or "not yet fully", correct. Point in case, travel a few thousand kilometers in any direction and most likely everyone you meet will disagree on what are your rights - not the least because there you'll be a foreigner. Do you really have inaliable rights as a fact of nature when there's not a single shred of structure to support them? Even more strikingly clear - were there rights before peoples? Were there human rights before humans? Was there a right to live before life? Rights as an intrinsic part of the natural is impossible in this view.
- briandear 7y ago
  > That's a view that seem common among extreme libertarians. “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.” If that is “extreme libertarian” then count me in. The United States was literally founded on this concept. It’s extreme to think of rights any differently, at least if you are an American. ”Extreme” is the idea that rights are gifts from government or from the benevolence of a sovereign. The view of rights as being unalienable is distinctly American; Englishman Thomas Hobbes expounded on this and thusly planted the seeds of the American idea. Such seeds didn’t take root in England at the time as citizens there were subjects of a king, but it was Hobbes that set the wheels of freedom in motion. Extreme? I suppose it depends on one’s perspective. At the time Hobbes was extreme, but then, as Americans, we might think of any idea contrary to liberty as a extreme.
  - igravious 7y ago
    > The view of rights as being unalienable is distinctly American That's quite a claim. > Englishman Thomas Hobbes expounded on this and thusly planted the seeds of the American idea. John Locke is the usual go-to figure, no? > Such seeds didn’t take root in England at the time Are you sure? “17th-century English philosopher John Locke discussed natural rights in his work, identifying them as being "life, liberty, and estate (property)", and argued that such fundamental rights could not be surrendered in the social contract. In Britain in 1689, the English Bill of Rights and the Scottish Claim of Right each made illegal a range of oppressive governmental actions.[18] Two major revolutions occurred during the 18th century, in the United States (1776) and in France (1789), leading to the United States Declaration of Independence and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen respectively, both of which articulated certain human rights. Additionally, the Virginia Declaration of Rights of 1776 encoded into law a number of fundamental civil rights and civil freedoms.”
  - gota 7y ago
    I didn't mean that _only_ extremely libertarian (or communitarian) people hold one or the other end of the argument. Just that it it's more common, as these are most likely core concerns for those people
scotty79 7y ago
> A government can take them away and the people can take them back. An the people (you live nearby) can take them away if they deem you unsightly ... unless goverment first takes away their right to take away your rights. Which governments usually do in sane countries. In the absence of top down rules, local level 'office politics' thrives making life worse for everybody.
dsego 7y ago
> Your rights are natural and they exist apriori “Voltaire said about God that ‘there is no God, but don’t tell that to my servant, lest he murder me at night’. Hammurabi would have said the same about his principle of hierarchy, and Thomas Jefferson about human rights. Homo sapiens has no natural rights, just as spiders, hyenas and chimpanzees have no natural rights. But don’t tell that to our servants, lest they murder us at night.” ― Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

dredmorbius 7y ago

There is a limited set of natural, or unalienable, rights. Some guys wrote A Thing about that twelve score and three years back. Most others are very much granted or reserved by law, contract, or custom.

igravious 7y ago
I thought inalienable to be the accepted form: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=inalienable%2C+unalienable https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=inalienable%2C... Is it not? Or are they interchangeable?
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  That's my own preferred formulation. Certain authorities take a different view: https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcrip... Yes, they are synonyms, or alternate spellings. https://grammarist.com/usage/inalienable-unalienable/ https://grammarist.com/usage/inalienable-unalienable/

gota 7y ago

That's a view that seem common among extreme libertarians. An opposing view is that no person has any rights other than those that _other people_ agree they have. That latter view is more common among extreme communitarians, that _all_ rights are "given". I'd say it's arguable whether we are (or should be) moving towards making your position, the first one, true. But it seems clear that in the natural state of human beings there were no rights (e.g. certainly no complex idea of property), so we are at the vert least transitioning _to_ your position _from_ the latter. I make no judgment of value, just pointing out you are at best "partially", or "not yet fully", correct. Point in case, travel a few thousand kilometers in any direction and most likely everyone you meet will disagree on what are your rights - not the least because there you'll be a foreigner. Do you really have inaliable rights as a fact of nature when there's not a single shred of structure to support them? Even more strikingly clear - were there rights before peoples? Were there human rights before humans? Was there a right to live before life? Rights as an intrinsic part of the natural is impossible in this view.

briandear 7y ago
> That's a view that seem common among extreme libertarians. “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.” If that is “extreme libertarian” then count me in. The United States was literally founded on this concept. It’s extreme to think of rights any differently, at least if you are an American. ”Extreme” is the idea that rights are gifts from government or from the benevolence of a sovereign. The view of rights as being unalienable is distinctly American; Englishman Thomas Hobbes expounded on this and thusly planted the seeds of the American idea. Such seeds didn’t take root in England at the time as citizens there were subjects of a king, but it was Hobbes that set the wheels of freedom in motion. Extreme? I suppose it depends on one’s perspective. At the time Hobbes was extreme, but then, as Americans, we might think of any idea contrary to liberty as a extreme.
- igravious 7y ago
  > The view of rights as being unalienable is distinctly American That's quite a claim. > Englishman Thomas Hobbes expounded on this and thusly planted the seeds of the American idea. John Locke is the usual go-to figure, no? > Such seeds didn’t take root in England at the time Are you sure? “17th-century English philosopher John Locke discussed natural rights in his work, identifying them as being "life, liberty, and estate (property)", and argued that such fundamental rights could not be surrendered in the social contract. In Britain in 1689, the English Bill of Rights and the Scottish Claim of Right each made illegal a range of oppressive governmental actions.[18] Two major revolutions occurred during the 18th century, in the United States (1776) and in France (1789), leading to the United States Declaration of Independence and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen respectively, both of which articulated certain human rights. Additionally, the Virginia Declaration of Rights of 1776 encoded into law a number of fundamental civil rights and civil freedoms.”
- gota 7y ago
  I didn't mean that _only_ extremely libertarian (or communitarian) people hold one or the other end of the argument. Just that it it's more common, as these are most likely core concerns for those people

scotty79 7y ago

> A government can take them away and the people can take them back. An the people (you live nearby) can take them away if they deem you unsightly ... unless goverment first takes away their right to take away your rights. Which governments usually do in sane countries. In the absence of top down rules, local level 'office politics' thrives making life worse for everybody.

dsego 7y ago

> Your rights are natural and they exist apriori “Voltaire said about God that ‘there is no God, but don’t tell that to my servant, lest he murder me at night’. Hammurabi would have said the same about his principle of hierarchy, and Thomas Jefferson about human rights. Homo sapiens has no natural rights, just as spiders, hyenas and chimpanzees have no natural rights. But don’t tell that to our servants, lest they murder us at night.” ― Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind