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> There aren't any fundamental rights which require someone else to provide them to you. But don’t all of the fundamental rights require someone else to protec

> There aren't any fundamental rights which require someone else to provide them to you. But don’t all of the fundamental rights require someone else to protect them for you? Otherwise they aren’t rights, they are just observations of the state of the world. In the end, what is the difference between protecting a right and defending a right? They both require action and resources, and are both an obligation.

WalterBright 5y ago
Good question. We empower the government to guarantee our rights. They are rights whether the government exists or not, and whether the government enforces peoples' rights or not. For example, slavery violates peoples' fundamental right to liberty, whether the government legalizes slavery or not. Rights do not flow from government action. Rights are a fundamental consequence of human nature.
- cortesoft 5y ago
  > Rights are a fundamental consequence of human nature. What does that mean? If someone stronger forces you to do work for them and beats you if you refuse, that seems like a “fundamental consequence of human nature” a lot more than saying that they shouldn’t. To me, the “natural state” is for that you can do whatever you can get away with. Any limitation we place on that is our attempt to impose our conception of humanity on nature. To put it another way, what about the state of nature would imply that we have ANY of the fundamental rights people speak of as being such? The natural rights I see are what animals have; the right to try to survive as best you can, by doing whatever you can. Now, I am in no way arguing for anarchy or anything, just that there is nothing ‘natural’ about our concepts of rights.
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    As soon as people get together, they tend to form rules, a leader, and a means for dealing with someone who breaks those rules. How we find out what the rules should be is by observation of the results. A very large number of societies have been created, with every set of rules imaginable, multiple times. By correlating rules with success or failure of the societies, we can begin to tease out what the best set of rules are. Clearly, some sets of rules work a lot better than others. The best outcomes come from rules that guarantee a set of rights, best excemplified by the Declaration of Independence, the inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and later by the Bill of Rights. Some rules work out very badly, like Marxism. No amount of wishing Marxism would work made it work, and no amount of coercion made it work, either. This strongly implies that rights are natural, innate characteristics of being human.
    - jacobolus 5y ago
      > By correlating rules with success or failure of the societies, we can begin to tease out what the best set of rules are This is not how we decide what should be considered fundamental human rights. Plenty of rules work out fine (i.e. effectively maintain social order and persist for long stretches of time) for “society” while being disastrous for the disempowered living under them. > best outcomes come from rules that guarantee a set of rights, best excemplified by the Declaration of Independence This is entirely circular reasoning. You have pre-determined that outcomes similar to your personal experience should be considered “good”, and then are declaring your society to be best because it led to your experience as an outcome. But you have neither clearly articulated what you mean by “best outcomes”, nor considered the outcomes for the less fortunate in your society. The argument more or less boils down to “Life worked out for me personally, and if it didn’t work out for you in my society, tough luck. If it didn’t work out for you in a different society, well mine is better.” For example, I might for the sake of argument point out that Cuba clearly provides dramatically better healthcare and education outcomes than America (an astounding accomplishment considering its limited resources), and therefore conclude that Cuban society must be better structured and do a better job guaranteeing basic rights than American society.
      - WalterBright 5y ago
        > I might for the sake of argument point out that Cuba clearly provides dramatically better healthcare and education outcomes than America How many Cubans want to leave and come to America? How many Americans want to live in Cuba? Venezuela? N. Korea? Therein lies the answer to your argument. It's interesting you chose to compare health care and education. Public education in the US is a gigantic socialist system. So is health care. You're not comparing a socialist system with a market based system. You're comparing a socialist system with a socialist system - which says nothing about what market system could do. And lastly, who collects those astounding statistics on Cuba? The Soviet Union was famous for celebrating astounding statistics on food production, while the people starved. Why should we believe statistics collected by another communist, totalitarian outfit?
        deleted 5y ago
- AgentOrange1234 5y ago
  If human rights are fundamental consequences of human nature, is there some way to list them? It seems to me the whole notion is a valuable but entirely human construction, ripe for debate about what counts and what does not.
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    > is there some way to list them? Over time, by observation, we discover what they are. For example, do you have a right to not be a slave? If so, why do you think you have that right? Do you have a right to not have someone clonk you on the head with a pipe and steal your wallet? If so, why do you think you have that right?
    - joshuamorton 5y ago
      Yes, at least in the US I have both of those rights, but neither is a "fundamental consequences of human nature". I have the right to not be enslaved because the government and broadly society deems that valid. But that's a consequence of government force preventing people from enslaving others. Without government intervention, slavery emerges. It even still happens today, in the US in particular cases (prison, as one legal example). I don't see how something can be considered a fundamental consequence of our nature if, when left without supervision, it disappears. I don't think that you can provide a clear list of such "natural" rights. If "liberty" is one, why isn't "health"? Improving my health improves my liberty, but (in the US) we don't culturally consider healthcare a "right", although it is considered such in some other countries.
      - WalterBright 5y ago
        > Without government intervention, slavery emerges A closer examination of history shows that slavery tends to fail when in competition with free labor. The emergence of free labor destroyed slavery the world over. The Civil War was the last gasp of slavery in the US attempting to protect itself from free labor. Slavery had already died out in the northern colonies due to it being uneconomic. Free labor caused the collapse of the USSR. Free labor destroyed Nazi Europe. > we don't culturally consider healthcare a "right" Sure we do. >50% of health care in the US is provided by the government, and the rest is heavily controlled by the government. Emergency rooms are required to treat people who cannot pay for free. The government has so thoroughly regulated, overseen, subsidized, distorted, etc., every aspect of health care, that in no way can it be described as free market. Let's try something that is free market - the software business. Software in the US is completely unregulated. What's the result? Incredible progress, world leadership, and plenty of very high quality FREE software. It's amazing, unpredicted, and unbelievable. But it's true.

WalterBright 5y ago

Good question. We empower the government to guarantee our rights. They are rights whether the government exists or not, and whether the government enforces peoples' rights or not. For example, slavery violates peoples' fundamental right to liberty, whether the government legalizes slavery or not. Rights do not flow from government action. Rights are a fundamental consequence of human nature.

cortesoft 5y ago
> Rights are a fundamental consequence of human nature. What does that mean? If someone stronger forces you to do work for them and beats you if you refuse, that seems like a “fundamental consequence of human nature” a lot more than saying that they shouldn’t. To me, the “natural state” is for that you can do whatever you can get away with. Any limitation we place on that is our attempt to impose our conception of humanity on nature. To put it another way, what about the state of nature would imply that we have ANY of the fundamental rights people speak of as being such? The natural rights I see are what animals have; the right to try to survive as best you can, by doing whatever you can. Now, I am in no way arguing for anarchy or anything, just that there is nothing ‘natural’ about our concepts of rights.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  As soon as people get together, they tend to form rules, a leader, and a means for dealing with someone who breaks those rules. How we find out what the rules should be is by observation of the results. A very large number of societies have been created, with every set of rules imaginable, multiple times. By correlating rules with success or failure of the societies, we can begin to tease out what the best set of rules are. Clearly, some sets of rules work a lot better than others. The best outcomes come from rules that guarantee a set of rights, best excemplified by the Declaration of Independence, the inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and later by the Bill of Rights. Some rules work out very badly, like Marxism. No amount of wishing Marxism would work made it work, and no amount of coercion made it work, either. This strongly implies that rights are natural, innate characteristics of being human.
  - jacobolus 5y ago
    > By correlating rules with success or failure of the societies, we can begin to tease out what the best set of rules are This is not how we decide what should be considered fundamental human rights. Plenty of rules work out fine (i.e. effectively maintain social order and persist for long stretches of time) for “society” while being disastrous for the disempowered living under them. > best outcomes come from rules that guarantee a set of rights, best excemplified by the Declaration of Independence This is entirely circular reasoning. You have pre-determined that outcomes similar to your personal experience should be considered “good”, and then are declaring your society to be best because it led to your experience as an outcome. But you have neither clearly articulated what you mean by “best outcomes”, nor considered the outcomes for the less fortunate in your society. The argument more or less boils down to “Life worked out for me personally, and if it didn’t work out for you in my society, tough luck. If it didn’t work out for you in a different society, well mine is better.” For example, I might for the sake of argument point out that Cuba clearly provides dramatically better healthcare and education outcomes than America (an astounding accomplishment considering its limited resources), and therefore conclude that Cuban society must be better structured and do a better job guaranteeing basic rights than American society.
    - WalterBright 5y ago
      > I might for the sake of argument point out that Cuba clearly provides dramatically better healthcare and education outcomes than America How many Cubans want to leave and come to America? How many Americans want to live in Cuba? Venezuela? N. Korea? Therein lies the answer to your argument. It's interesting you chose to compare health care and education. Public education in the US is a gigantic socialist system. So is health care. You're not comparing a socialist system with a market based system. You're comparing a socialist system with a socialist system - which says nothing about what market system could do. And lastly, who collects those astounding statistics on Cuba? The Soviet Union was famous for celebrating astounding statistics on food production, while the people starved. Why should we believe statistics collected by another communist, totalitarian outfit?
      - deleted 5y ago
AgentOrange1234 5y ago
If human rights are fundamental consequences of human nature, is there some way to list them? It seems to me the whole notion is a valuable but entirely human construction, ripe for debate about what counts and what does not.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  > is there some way to list them? Over time, by observation, we discover what they are. For example, do you have a right to not be a slave? If so, why do you think you have that right? Do you have a right to not have someone clonk you on the head with a pipe and steal your wallet? If so, why do you think you have that right?
  - joshuamorton 5y ago
    Yes, at least in the US I have both of those rights, but neither is a "fundamental consequences of human nature". I have the right to not be enslaved because the government and broadly society deems that valid. But that's a consequence of government force preventing people from enslaving others. Without government intervention, slavery emerges. It even still happens today, in the US in particular cases (prison, as one legal example). I don't see how something can be considered a fundamental consequence of our nature if, when left without supervision, it disappears. I don't think that you can provide a clear list of such "natural" rights. If "liberty" is one, why isn't "health"? Improving my health improves my liberty, but (in the US) we don't culturally consider healthcare a "right", although it is considered such in some other countries.
    - WalterBright 5y ago
      > Without government intervention, slavery emerges A closer examination of history shows that slavery tends to fail when in competition with free labor. The emergence of free labor destroyed slavery the world over. The Civil War was the last gasp of slavery in the US attempting to protect itself from free labor. Slavery had already died out in the northern colonies due to it being uneconomic. Free labor caused the collapse of the USSR. Free labor destroyed Nazi Europe. > we don't culturally consider healthcare a "right" Sure we do. >50% of health care in the US is provided by the government, and the rest is heavily controlled by the government. Emergency rooms are required to treat people who cannot pay for free. The government has so thoroughly regulated, overseen, subsidized, distorted, etc., every aspect of health care, that in no way can it be described as free market. Let's try something that is free market - the software business. Software in the US is completely unregulated. What's the result? Incredible progress, world leadership, and plenty of very high quality FREE software. It's amazing, unpredicted, and unbelievable. But it's true.