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Flagged for no good reason, so I will post it again, because I think it deserves a reply: You are endorsing human rights abuses by oppressive governments like

Flagged for no good reason, so I will post it again, because I think it deserves a reply: You are endorsing human rights abuses by oppressive governments like the Khmer Rouge because that government didn't extend the right to freedom from persecution to their subjects. You are suggesting that it was the Cambodian people's fault for not having a better government that granted them more rights.

majormajor 5y ago
This just seems to exemplify the purely-rhetorical aspect of the whole conversation about "natural rights." "The government didn't extend the right to freedom from persecution" could be worded in any number of ways, such as "the government infringed on the inalienable rights of the people" but the fact that such an atrocity was committed says, to me, that claiming such rights are inherent, natural, or inalienable is rather useless. They clearly can be very easily violated. God or nature is not going to stop the violators, at least not during this life. So what good to the victims is a claim that the rights are inherent and a natural result of being born as a human?
- chroem- 5y ago
  You just admitted that it was an atrocity however. That implies the people who were killed had their rights violated. Your concept of rights granted by the government to the people is not self-consistent.
  - majormajor 5y ago
    That's not a definition of atrocity that I'm familiar with. We could extend this to quibble about the definitions of evil, cruel, what have you, as well, but it's a wide diversion at this point. "Nature does not guarantee you anything" is not "there is no such thing as moral right or wrong." Let's ask a different question: if there are inalienable rights, what is the complete set? Do you expect everyone to agree on what that set of rights is? If one person doesn't believe that guns are one of those, and another does, how do you break that tie? If there is truly a certain set of rights that's a law of nature, should everyone converge on the same set?
    - chroem- 5y ago
      My point is that it is virtually impossible to establish the concept of wrongdoing without the notion of certain innate rights having been violated. Each person has their belief of what they hold to be human rights. As human beings, it is the duty of each of us to protect what we respectively believe to be the rights of our fellow human beings.
- Nasrudith 5y ago
  Here is a different question - what makes it an atrocity? You could be technically correct and say "Because other people decided it." but that doesn't give any insight into why. A natural rights framework has the thumbprint of a lawyer along with outmodedly telological way of thinking that can only see a wrong as a "crime" but is willing to construct justifications for what they already believe. But mixed in the principles isn't just accepting "is wrong because I said so" as a proof. Thus it has contrived post hoc cruft to achieve consistency with assumptions but also underlying ethical principles.

majormajor 5y ago

This just seems to exemplify the purely-rhetorical aspect of the whole conversation about "natural rights." "The government didn't extend the right to freedom from persecution" could be worded in any number of ways, such as "the government infringed on the inalienable rights of the people" but the fact that such an atrocity was committed says, to me, that claiming such rights are inherent, natural, or inalienable is rather useless. They clearly can be very easily violated. God or nature is not going to stop the violators, at least not during this life. So what good to the victims is a claim that the rights are inherent and a natural result of being born as a human?

chroem- 5y ago
You just admitted that it was an atrocity however. That implies the people who were killed had their rights violated. Your concept of rights granted by the government to the people is not self-consistent.
- majormajor 5y ago
  That's not a definition of atrocity that I'm familiar with. We could extend this to quibble about the definitions of evil, cruel, what have you, as well, but it's a wide diversion at this point. "Nature does not guarantee you anything" is not "there is no such thing as moral right or wrong." Let's ask a different question: if there are inalienable rights, what is the complete set? Do you expect everyone to agree on what that set of rights is? If one person doesn't believe that guns are one of those, and another does, how do you break that tie? If there is truly a certain set of rights that's a law of nature, should everyone converge on the same set?
  - chroem- 5y ago
    My point is that it is virtually impossible to establish the concept of wrongdoing without the notion of certain innate rights having been violated. Each person has their belief of what they hold to be human rights. As human beings, it is the duty of each of us to protect what we respectively believe to be the rights of our fellow human beings.
Nasrudith 5y ago
Here is a different question - what makes it an atrocity? You could be technically correct and say "Because other people decided it." but that doesn't give any insight into why. A natural rights framework has the thumbprint of a lawyer along with outmodedly telological way of thinking that can only see a wrong as a "crime" but is willing to construct justifications for what they already believe. But mixed in the principles isn't just accepting "is wrong because I said so" as a proof. Thus it has contrived post hoc cruft to achieve consistency with assumptions but also underlying ethical principles.