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> "The are no "rights" but what the law/constitution/etc gives people." you have this exactly backwards, at least as it relates to the US constitution. human

> "The are no "rights" but what the law/constitution/etc gives people." you have this exactly backwards, at least as it relates to the US constitution. human rights are intrinsic and inalienable. the constitution only lays out the limited ways we intentionally and cooperatively delegate certain powers to the government for our common good. the government does not bestow any rights upon us. the bill of rights simply enumerates our inalienable rights as a way of reminding us and governments not to even think about trampling on them. they exist regardless of the enumeration.

coldtea 7y ago
>you have this exactly backwards, at least as it relates to the US constitution. human rights are intrinsic and inalienable. Not really. Those are mere words, the premises of the philosophy of those writing the constitution. There are no "intrinsic and inalienable" human rights in nature (of course: nature doesn't care one way or another) and not even in human cultures by default (empirically obvious). American US-constitution rights, whatever the constitution says they are based on, are only emerging and based on the constitution itself, and the power the government/police/army etc have to enforce it. In other words, the constitution says that these "rights are inartistic and unalienable" in the same way (mere philosophy/belief) that another constitution in some other country would say "rights are given from God" or "rights are based on the wisdom of Huhumu the Great, our founder and first leader" -- and of course the rights don't even have to be the same. What a constitution says rights come from doesn't make it so. A racist regime would also have constitution and also declares some reasoning and some foundation for the rights it describes in it. So what any Constitution says about how rights came to be or why they are chosen, is orthogonal to how rights appear, emerge, and are enforced in the real world. >the constitution only lays out the limited ways we intentionally and cooperatively delegate certain powers to the government for our common good. the government does not bestow any rights upon us. Well, "intentionally and cooperatively" is a misleading too. It's the notion of the social contract, but nobody actually allowed the people to vote for the Constitution they want (not to mention that blacks, women, and the poor, couldn't vote at all at the time, and had no say at all, and for close to 2 centuries later). [1] (to the degree they are - those "intrinsic and inalienable" rights wouldn't apply to southern blacks until the Civil War, and to blacks generally and fully, not until the 70s)

coldtea 7y ago

>you have this exactly backwards, at least as it relates to the US constitution. human rights are intrinsic and inalienable. Not really. Those are mere words, the premises of the philosophy of those writing the constitution. There are no "intrinsic and inalienable" human rights in nature (of course: nature doesn't care one way or another) and not even in human cultures by default (empirically obvious). American US-constitution rights, whatever the constitution says they are based on, are only emerging and based on the constitution itself, and the power the government/police/army etc have to enforce it. In other words, the constitution says that these "rights are inartistic and unalienable" in the same way (mere philosophy/belief) that another constitution in some other country would say "rights are given from God" or "rights are based on the wisdom of Huhumu the Great, our founder and first leader" -- and of course the rights don't even have to be the same. What a constitution says rights come from doesn't make it so. A racist regime would also have constitution and also declares some reasoning and some foundation for the rights it describes in it. So what any Constitution says about how rights came to be or why they are chosen, is orthogonal to how rights appear, emerge, and are enforced in the real world. >the constitution only lays out the limited ways we intentionally and cooperatively delegate certain powers to the government for our common good. the government does not bestow any rights upon us. Well, "intentionally and cooperatively" is a misleading too. It's the notion of the social contract, but nobody actually allowed the people to vote for the Constitution they want (not to mention that blacks, women, and the poor, couldn't vote at all at the time, and had no say at all, and for close to 2 centuries later). [1] (to the degree they are - those "intrinsic and inalienable" rights wouldn't apply to southern blacks until the Civil War, and to blacks generally and fully, not until the 70s)