3 ms·

Too ignorant. Since property rights are crated by state and the state is their guarantor and enforcer it can't steal by definition.

tomohawk 3y ago
The state does not create or grant rights. Free people have rights, quite apart from any government. The US Constitution recognizes rights we already have and constitutes a government whose primary purpose is to protect those rights. Most of the US Constitution is about trying to make sure that the government does not infringe on these rights. It's a constant struggle.
- lapcat 3y ago
  > During the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that conditions called war; and such a war, as if of every man, against every man. > To this war of every man against every man, this also in consequent; that nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice have there no place. Where there is no common power, there is no law, where no law, no injustice. Force, and fraud, are in war the cardinal virtues. > No arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death: and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short. Thomas Hobbes, "Leviathan"
  - tomohawk 3y ago
    The 20th century is a stark repudiation of hobbes.
    - lapcat 3y ago
      How so?
      - tomohawk 3y ago
        It was the countries that put the state first that killed millions of people - the fascists in Germany and Italy, the communists in Russia and China, and so on. Who stood up to them? It would be a much darker world without the one major country that is based on the idea that the government serves at the pleasure of the people, to protect the rights that they are naturally born with, and that the government has no other purpose than that.
        lapcat 3y ago
        > It was the countries that put the state first that killed millions of people - the fascists in Germany and Italy, the communists in Russia and China, and so on. Who stood up to them? This is a rather bizarre, ahistorical interpretation, because the communist Soviet Union fought against Germany in WW2 and indeed was an ally of the US. Likewise with communist China against Japan in WW2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-American_Cooperative_Organization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-American_Cooperative_Orga... In any case, I didn't intend to defend the whole of Hobbes's Leviathan. But I don't think there's any reason to believe that anarchy ("the state of nature") is any better. And remember that Leviathan was written during the English Civil War.
h2odragon 3y ago
I quote Thomas Jefferson: > 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.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, The State creates nothing; it acts as an agent to help citizens act in concert to secure their natural rights.
- lapcat 3y ago
  > endowed by their Creator 1) This is meaningless to atheists. 2) On the other hand, to Christians: “Truly, I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 19:23) Of course Jefferson himself was a wealthy landowner and slaveholder. By the way, the "founders" stole most of their ideas from British philosopher John Locke.
  - h2odragon 3y ago
    You may not have any Creator beyond your parents; does that mean you haven't the same right to pursue your own will that anyone else has?
- ReptileMan 3y ago
  200 years later is still bullshit. Inspiring bullshit, but bullshit nonetheless. A rights without power to enforce them are imaginary.

tomohawk 3y ago

The state does not create or grant rights. Free people have rights, quite apart from any government. The US Constitution recognizes rights we already have and constitutes a government whose primary purpose is to protect those rights. Most of the US Constitution is about trying to make sure that the government does not infringe on these rights. It's a constant struggle.

lapcat 3y ago
> During the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that conditions called war; and such a war, as if of every man, against every man. > To this war of every man against every man, this also in consequent; that nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice have there no place. Where there is no common power, there is no law, where no law, no injustice. Force, and fraud, are in war the cardinal virtues. > No arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death: and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short. Thomas Hobbes, "Leviathan"
- tomohawk 3y ago
  The 20th century is a stark repudiation of hobbes.
  - lapcat 3y ago
    How so?
    - tomohawk 3y ago
      It was the countries that put the state first that killed millions of people - the fascists in Germany and Italy, the communists in Russia and China, and so on. Who stood up to them? It would be a much darker world without the one major country that is based on the idea that the government serves at the pleasure of the people, to protect the rights that they are naturally born with, and that the government has no other purpose than that.
      - lapcat 3y ago
        > It was the countries that put the state first that killed millions of people - the fascists in Germany and Italy, the communists in Russia and China, and so on. Who stood up to them? This is a rather bizarre, ahistorical interpretation, because the communist Soviet Union fought against Germany in WW2 and indeed was an ally of the US. Likewise with communist China against Japan in WW2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-American_Cooperative_Organization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-American_Cooperative_Orga... In any case, I didn't intend to defend the whole of Hobbes's Leviathan. But I don't think there's any reason to believe that anarchy ("the state of nature") is any better. And remember that Leviathan was written during the English Civil War.

h2odragon 3y ago

I quote Thomas Jefferson: > 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.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, The State creates nothing; it acts as an agent to help citizens act in concert to secure their natural rights.

lapcat 3y ago
> endowed by their Creator 1) This is meaningless to atheists. 2) On the other hand, to Christians: “Truly, I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 19:23) Of course Jefferson himself was a wealthy landowner and slaveholder. By the way, the "founders" stole most of their ideas from British philosopher John Locke.
- h2odragon 3y ago
  You may not have any Creator beyond your parents; does that mean you haven't the same right to pursue your own will that anyone else has?
ReptileMan 3y ago
200 years later is still bullshit. Inspiring bullshit, but bullshit nonetheless. A rights without power to enforce them are imaginary.