Right to life, or belief in God.

[Yieu]

Then what you're saying is these rights don't help me at all (anyone can violate them at their own will), so what is the point of them? Announcing these rights to a dictator that wants to kill you won't save your life. It just seems silly to me, plus you hand authoritarians the language that helps them. They now say you have a right to healthcare, a job, a house, and on and on. And the government will provide it to you.

Freedom is a basic idea. There is no "right" to it, it is just the principle we want to base society on. I'd say it is described pretty well by the 10 commandments. Those come pretty close to describing the ways in which the principle of freedom regulates your unlimited freedom to do whatever you want.

There is a difference between "negative rights", which state that others cannot do certain things to you, and "positive rights", which pledge to give you things.

Negative rights are natural rights endowed by God.

Positive rights are contrivances of governments, and are not on the same level as negative rights because they can be taken away with the same pen that granted them.

You cannot write a law to take away your natural, negative rights. Even if you did write such a law, those rights would still exist but they might be violated.

Yes, people or groups of people (including governments) can violate the rights of individuals. Rights exist, they were granted by God, and they can be violated, but they exist as a framework for rational interaction with other people. It is not as if rights merely exist without purpose.

Rights will only be honored by people or groups of people that have enough respect for people to honor their natural rights. Part of the purpose of rights is that it a way for God to inform humans of how to interact with each other that they may get along and progress spiritually rather than be in conflict.

 

[Bonnieblue]

The Constitution of the United States was not written nor was it initially amended, up until the 13th amendment, which along with the unconstitutional 14th amendment and attendant 15th amendment turned the Constitution on its head, to give any one any rights at all. It was drafted and ratified to realign the delegated and enumerated powers therein contained and to through those powers create an agent to serve the principals which were the thirteen colonial republics and then independent republics. The first ten amendments were drafted and ratified to further bind the general government, not to give anyone any rights but to ensure that the general government, given the historical proclivity for power to corrupt, did not interferer with such rights as the states and the peoples thereof might think themselves to have. The general government is not a giver or a protector of rights. It is always, outside the chains forged to keep it in, a threat to any perceived rights.

While there is no real evidence that anything remotely resembling a "right to life" exists, the general government would be the last jurisdiction to expect protection for that right or any other.

 

[Victor]

Don't you guys have freedom of religion in USA? If yes, why then are you trying to impose your beliefs into a matter that's not intended for the federal government to make a ruling on?

 

[misterx]

When did God ever mention these rights? I assume you mean the God of the Bible, or else you wouldn't know God endowed upon us?

Couple points:
1.) No dictator has ever cared about "rights."
2.) No person wanting freedom would be put off if they realized that they didn't have a right to it.

Obviously we have no rights in nature. It's survival of the fittest. Anyone capable can take your life or property by force. The point of the Declaration of Independence and natural rights is that we institute governments to protect the rights that give us our humanity, as opposed to government existing for its own purpose and granting us rights as it chooses. If our government is not protecting these rights then we have no allegiance to it and should attempt to abolish it. God is only invoked to make the philosophy more readily accessible to people.

 

[ConCap]

WHY do people keep leaving out the rule of law.
The rule of law did just as much if not more for the development of the United States than the Constitution.

CONSTITUTION + CAPITALISM + THE RULE OF LAW= THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

 

[ConCap]

Don't you guys have freedom of religion in USA? If yes, why then are you trying to impose your beliefs into a matter that's not intended for the federal government to make a ruling on?

Well said, Victor

 

[Gary4Liberty]

among others we each have a right to life, a right to liberty and a right to the pursuit of happiness. According to the founding fathers, they come from God, not the government. The constitution is there to keep the government from violating those rights. Since we are talking about America, this is the correct context.

Whatever other perspectives on the nature and reality of man are purely philosophical and vary from person to person and in America you are free to explore, consider and believe in whatever you want BECAUSE in America their are penalties for people who violate your rights.

 

[cheapseats]

The right to life means you have a right to be alive and to not be killed or aggressed upon by another human or a group of humans.

This is a natural right which was granted by God.

In instances of unforced, unprovoked, maybe even heartbreaking Miscarriage, do you think it likelier that God changed His mind, that an Untenable Reject accidentally slid past Heavenly DHS, or that any woman with the audacity to LOSE a pregnancy MUST BE criminally negligent?

 

[ConCap]

among others we each have a right to life, a right to liberty and a right to the pursuit of happiness. According to the founding fathers, they come from God, not the government. The constitution is there to keep the government from violating those rights. Since we are talking about America, this is the correct context.

Whatever other perspectives on the nature and reality of man are purely philosophical and vary from person to person and in America you are free to explore, consider and believe in whatever you want BECAUSE in America their are penalties for people who violate your rights.

Hear, Hear

This is why I posted this thread. Everyone needs to see who they have watching their back and who is really moving the United States (not a party, not a candidate, not a movement) forward.

 

[ConCap]

But a legal right is different than a natural right, and the legal rights we have don't correspond to real freedom, and the government doesn't even care about violating these rights. Plus they continue to add rights like "healthcare" to the list which is actually oppressive.

Yes, and it needs to end now.

 

[pcosmar]

Agree.
The left is trying to make it “Constitutional” and split the right.

There is no "Left" or "Right".

There is, however, right and wrong.

 

[Tim Calhoun]

The right to life means you have a right to be alive and to not be killed or aggressed upon by another human or a group of humans.

This is a natural right which was granted by God.

This right was not granted by the Constitution, the Constitution merely recognizes that this right exists.

This. There are no "Constitutional rights" because the constitution does not grant any rights. We have rights given to us by our Creeator and are an inalienable part of our humanity. The Constitution just spells some of those rights and is supposed to keep the government in check from violating those.

 

[Tim Calhoun]

There is no "Left" or "Right".

There is, however, right and wrong.

Pete and his infinite wisdom strike again

 

[hazek]

OP, there is no such thing as a right. It's an illusion. Nothing but smoke and mirrors.

Have you even asked yourself what a right is suppose to be? I'll tell you: It's a claim to a moral obligation by others to you and completely meaningless because AFAIK a claim to a moral obligation wont stop bullets.

But what we actually have is the ownership of our bodies and by extension the ownership of the gifts that emanate from our bodies such as our life and the fruits of our labor. And we can either protect this ownership, or we can stand idly by while others deprive us of it. That's truth of the reality. No illusionary rights will stop them if we wont do it ourselves.

So stop speaking in these illusionary terms of rights that are just a slippery slope to ridiculous claims of moral obligations to all sorts of entitlements such as properties owned by others, such as money in the form of taxes, or healthcare, or housing, or race equality, or whatever and start talking about your body and your property and your willingness to do what ever it takes to keep and protect it no matter what happens to your life. Then and only then we will see any change.

 

[Gimme Some Truth]

Yea, the term "rights" doesn't mean a whole lot to me either. As far as I can see, there are only base values and oughts are derived from those. It just so happens that humans tend to value the same core things - by virtue of us all being humans.

 

[JohnGalt1225]

 

[onlyrp]

In my opinion, there are no rights. There is a very philosophically defined idea of what freedom is, and what a free society consists of. But to say that it is evident that "rights" exist in this world is a little foolish imo. I WANT freedom, the fact that it is so easily taken away is proof that there is no metaphysical "right" to it, except that the desire for freedom exists in the human spirit.