Inaliable Rights
 

Why in god's name are they called rights anyway. If a man is shipwrecked hundreds of miles from land with no food, no fresh water, and no chance of rescue, where is his right to life? Did it grow wings and fly away? What right to liberty does the person who steals liberty from others have, and what happened to their right to liberty? If you have been robbed of everything you own or it all burns in a house fire, what has happened to your right to property? These "civil liberties," these so called "rights," are not rights. They are privelages. We have them because our ancesters worked and sweated and shed their blood for us. History tells us that freedom must be won and maintained and the price is always in blood. To anyone who doesn't think that it is worth it, I think that Benjamin Franklin spoke for me when he said "Anyone who would trade their freedom for some temporary security deserve neither security nor freedom."

Just as an example, the people of Poland were conquered time and time again. They were conquered by the Russians and the French and the Keiser and the Nazis and the Comunists. Through all of this, they never stopped fighting and they always regained their freedom. The polish even put up more of a fight and lasted longer against both the Nazis and the Comunists at once with nothing better to rely on than horses, than France, a modern nation, did against just the Nazis. The Polls are certainly a noble people who understand the price of freedom and keep it dear to their hearts. Why can't more of us be like that?

Wait. What?

I thought we were fighting two wars simultaneously; not only for our own freedom (from "terror") but also for the sake of the rest of the world.

What's the deal?

Bwagaaaah?????
 

Dynamite you remind me of the people who complain to and sue companies because of the lack of warning lables like "do not scratch nose with drill" or "do not eat". Any loss of your right is because of you or the acts of someone else who will then be punished. And most communities will help out if an accident occurs like a fire, and if worse comes to worse insurences is good to have.

you take the words of the government to seriously my friend.

And as far as the war thing goes, sure the polish got attacked a lot but so what? if the US was challenged for freedom we would fight, but that just hasn't happened to us on a grand amount. And lastly there is no and was no terrorist threat...for the record.

Don't misunderstand me
 

Firstly, I never mentioned terrorists.

Secondly, bring proof, my friend. Words are nice, but meaningless without examples.

Thirdly, the government would never say a thing like this, bad politics. I read it in a political satire by R. A. Heinlein.

Finaly, i'm having my doubts that we would fight back. We haven't been chalenged in so long that only a small percentage of the population is ready should it be necessary. Many of us don't even take our freedom seriously enough to make something of ourselves. Can you honestly say that, if worst came to worst, you would pick up a gun and fight to the last man, give me liberty or give me death? I doubt you or even I could truly make that statement.

I think someone misunderstands the concept of freedom.

Freedom isn't about fighting for liberty, it's about having the choice. Even if you choose not to be free, you've still maintained freedom because it was YOUR choice.

Everyone has freedom, even people under dictatorship. It's the one thing you can never take away from someone. You always have to give them a choice, even if the choice is as simple as obeying you or dying. They still have that choice to take up arms and die in the process.

However: That's all it is. A choice.

Maybe I'd rather live. Maybe you'd rather die trying to gain 'freedom'. Neither choice is superior. Both embody freedom, because they both invoke the act of choosing.

Alright...
The rights we have as citizens are called rights because it's what they are. Sure they are like privileges but they are not quite the same. I see a privilege as something a person is given and can keep if they don't abuse it.

If somone loses all their posessions in a house fire, it doesn't mean they are no longer allowed to have personal property, just that their house burned in a fire. If a man is stranded on an island with nothing left, of course he still has the right to live if he so chooses.

You have a definition of rights that I'm not really sure is correct (or maybe I'm just not getting what you mean), so if you could explain more what you think about it, please enlighten me.

:fighter:

I agree Ippy!

It seems that having rights only has to do with loosing them, meaning my right to life doesn't mean that i can live forever but that, no one is allowed to take it away justly. so the stranded man has the right to live and if someone took it (killed him) the killer would be punished. So odly enough rights have to do with loosing themselves.

my statement about terrorists was directed to admark.

And if challenged for my rights i would fight. Unless the war was indirect or stupid like Veitnam or Iraq, but if seriously, a group of people (lets say hitler's ghost) tryed to take the US and my freedom! I'd make my own gun and fight them my self. Put my CS skill to the test baby!

Who's with me?

When people are talking about inaliable rights they usually are referring to rights they see as given by god. I personally don’t believe that this type of right exists, mostly because I don’t believe in the one major prerequisite. Bush on the other hand disagrees with me. He believes that all rights and freedoms stem from god. I see this as a dangerous belief because it gives him a moral blank cheque to push his “god given rights” onto those who don’t actually want them.

Yes our human right were origanlly seen as having come from god. Does that detract from their appilcation and continuation in a modern world were god takes a back seat? I should think not. The origin of an idea should have little to no bearing on its validity. The Nazis had some pretty good ideas about science, war, and national defense. That doesn't mean we have to shun those ideas because they also killed jews. Sometimes ideas to have a solid connection to their origin but really abstract things like human rights and the golden rule are independant of any external source of morality. In fact one of my major problems with a divine entity is the logic paradox that comes from basing your ideas of morality off said outside divine entity. That doesn't mean their isn't one just that morality has a more universal origin.

Morality is something we humans possess in our very wiring. Unless something is seriously wrong mentally with a person they know what is right and what is wrong, in the general sense at least. We also have an ingrained right to make choices, as was said before. This free will of ours allows us to over turn are morals and choose to follow what path we will. The interaction of these two factors is why we need to declare and protect our "rights". That doesn't mean we are guaranteed our life or property just a reasonable chance of obtaining and enjoying it. Life happens, a fire by itself does not threaten your rights although insurence restores what you lose. The person that set the fire is the one threating your rights.

Basically what I'm trying to say is that our rights were given to us by choice and that ability to make choice can also take them away. Thus the need to protect them from other people, not from nature or the universe in general. A man who is the vicitim of an accident does not lose his rights because no one chose to remove them. A man who's life or property is stolen by another person has had his rights infringed one because someone chose to do it to him. It's not a huge difference but it is there.

All im saying is that “inaliable” rights aren’t really. The initial question of the topic was, in a nutshell, who decided these rights are inaliable anyway.

But you must also remember that morality is not universal and varies from culture to cutler. Certain aspect of morality seem to be universal but that’s because of the Darwinian nature of societal development. A society based on murder and theft would not last very long, so they don’t exist in great numbers if at all. There is a tribe in south Africa with a 58% homicide rate. The entire focus of the society is destruction of ones enemies, be it on the play field or the battlefield.

We need morality to function as a culture, but we must never fool ourselves into thinking that our morals are universally correct.