talkpolitics | The Source of our Unalienable Rights (proper use of the word)

tniassaint.livejournal.com posting in

In a seperate and somewhat private discussion a comment was addresesed to me as follows:
"And people on YOUR side have been arguing they are NOT unalienable, not "natural" or "God-given", but GRANTED to us by the state!"

So "your people" (not sure which people were being spoken of) do not believe that our rights are "Unalienable", "not natural", not "god-given"? (That they are) Granted by the state?

I wish it were that I actually had the time at my disposal to fully address this right now, but as it is I will have to abbreviate it to Readers Digest form...

I don't believe (the speaker) knows what these terms mean. I know they think you do. There are contextual attachments to these terms that you assume are universal and generally accepted.

So allow me to parse it out...

I am going to pick unfairly on the "right" for the sake of argument, but this one is really far more universal than that, because the discussion was addressed as an absurdly one sided and inaccurate accusation.

unalienable (adj): - incapable of being repudiated or transferred to another

Yet those on the "right" (improper use), have indicated to me that they fully believe in suspending the rights of people held for criminal acts and who have never been tried in a court of law.

I have, on several occasions, called out folk who have made comments that have favored and or demanded that rights of individuals have and or should be suspended under specific circumstances.

We restrict the rights of various people all the time. CONSTANTLY. And as I recall the term of "Unalienable Rights" doesn't restrict the nature of "Unalienablity" to non-US citizens in or out of the US - yet this happens within our sphere of our legal controls of perpetrators CONSTANTLY - and whenever called out on this, it has been routinely defended it when (pick your side) has done it.

If they were in fact "unalienable" in the manner prescribed, one would not be able to remove them where it suits them - and we would not even be discussing this.

Natural: on the contrary, I do believe that. I also know that through the creation of any society there are limits that have to be placed as people without such limits have a tendency to become combative (in the mortal sense not the conversational sense) and it is not likely to end well. In a natural state where we were mindless animals with nothing to do but eat, sleep, crap , mate and defend we would be perfectly on balance with no restrictions. The problem is that people have their own interests that imped on the interests of others - they conflict with religious, moral, ethical and nearly all other levels of our cognitive lives. Many of these beliefs DIRECTLY demand that some interfere with my RIGHTS and those people have been waging constant battle in these areas throughout all history - and more recently it has escalated it seems (but only in that I see what is happening now - I have not been threatened with physically being burned at the stake of late - whew!).

god given: Well, one has to believe in magic to believe that. That argument can EASILY be destroyed even without disbelief in god. Want to give it a go? I might even be respectful enough to put in a capital "G".

My / our(?) side (now I am REALLY not sure who that is...)believe that rights are granted by the state: I do not speak for the mythical group in the comment. I speak only for and of and by myself.

simple... WRONG .

Wrong that I believe that stated comment and wrong in stated content.

Rights are granted by SOCIAL CONTRACT. They are accepted through the values, beliefs and institutions of the society. Even in the US this has been demonstrated over and over again. I can list plenty of Americans that have been separated from their supposedly unalienable rights from the very same people that have claimed those rights were in fact unalienable.

I do believe that as a PEOPLE and as a SOCIETY we DO ( I certainly do) in fact hold (not believe, but actually honor and hold) our rights to be of utmost and primary importance.

I do not need a mythical magic to define, issue and decree my rights to me. I do not need it to tell me they are right (proper use) and to defend mine and others. I do it because it is the PROPER MANNER OF BEHAVIOR in a civilized society. I can cite ACTUAL HISTORY of what happens in society where these things are not defined by society - and defended. It is not a passive thing either. They (our rights) are of, for and by society. They are not issued by the state any more than the state is a construct of the society.

In my country there is no state god. There is a state value in the rights of the individual.

Corporations are not individuals - btw.

To draw some connection that somehow the source of what we deem "unalienable" rights somehow diminishes our respect, value and defense of those rights. It is a narrow, submissive, parochial and even child like attitude to something FAR more complex and more deserving of merit than "natural" or "god given" - and VERY PROFOUNDLY cherished.

Hope that clears that subject up.

You may commence passing out the pitchforks and torches while the folks standing over there with Pat Robertson begin gathering up science books for the bonfire I will be burned on later.

Mood: amused
Music: Foster the People - All the Other Kids with the Pumped Up Kicks

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

underlankers.livejournal.com

To me the biggest problem with the argument of strict constructionists who try to define the Constitution as favoring the bigger, broader Republic of the 21st Century is that the Founders were very blatantly normal oligarchs of their day. They no more than anyone in the UK or the Netherlands would have seen rights as applicable to all, and even in Haiti, with the most egalitarian 18th Century revolution that concept never appears. So the claim that some dead slaveowner defined rights in the 18th Century as we do in the 21st Century is blatant nonsense and itself starts verging into religious territory, treating the Founders as creators of Yanquistani Hadith.

From:

underlankers.livejournal.com

In fact, to extend the analogy, the people who slavishly follow the concepts of the 18th Century want the Constitution to be the Quran, with the Federalist Papers the Hadith, and trusting in the Heritage Foundation as the Ulama expounding unto the faithful the words of the Righteous Ones who waged treason and got away with it. However, oddly, the reality that none of these men when in actual governance every followed any of the rules they themselves created in their own lifetime when principle would have required them to is entirely irrelevant.

From:

gunslnger.livejournal.com

"natural" and "god-given" are just two ways to say the same thing.

Fine, you don't believe that rights are granted by the state. However, many on the "left" act as if they believe that, so whether they do actually believe it or not isn't that relevant.

From:

tniassaint.livejournal.com

I would say that they are granted by the people, but they technically use the state as the vehicle by which those rights are protected (from the state).

I would question why you say "by those on the left". that assumes that there are no godless conservatives?

From:

gunslnger.livejournal.com

I say that because those on the left don't act that way. Belief in God has nothing to do with it.

How do you expect the state to protect your rights from violations by the state?

I would say that they are granted by the people

And that's the main difference. I would say that they are not granted by anyone, you simply have them naturally, but since others don't always respect your rights, people have created societies in order to help each other protect everyone's rights.

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The Source of our Unalienable Rights (proper use of the word)

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