Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: miko2d on December 03, 2002, 02:55:55 PM
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Would you gentlemen care to list the definitions and/or meanings for the terms "rights" and "freedom" that you employ to base your worldview on. Also where those concepts originate in your view - how they relate to objective reality.
Try to keep to one reasonably-sized post per person - at least untill we have enough definitions assembled to start the discussion (I will give a signal :)). For non-original definitions please indicate the source, quote, link, etc. if possible.
I believe a lot of our arguments is based on different understanding of those basic terms.
miko
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Freedom means the freedom of the IRS to avail themselves of all your income....oh, and to own lots of guns.;)
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Right = Not Left
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You have the freedom to right your own homework.
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Can I suggest that you read 'The Communist Manifesto' and 'On Liberty'?
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Originally posted by midnight Target
Right = Not Left
But that equation is not commutative
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Originally posted by miko2d
Would you gentlemen care to list the definitions and/or meanings for the terms "rights" and "freedom" that you employ to base your worldview on. Also where those concepts originate in your view - how they relate to objective reality.
No thanks. I've got a terrible head cold and writing that essay would be too much for me in my weakened condition.
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no, I'm illiterate. :)
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Rights are conveyed by laws, authority,-- freedoms are not conveyed by anyone, they exist and are protected by laws.
The right to drive..can be abbrogated.
The freedom to worship as you see fit cannot be abbrogated.
HC
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my dog ate it
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Rights are guaranteed to you.
Freedoms-others don't have the right to stop you from having them but they are not guaranteed
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The concept of human rights is a fictional principle created by politicians to motivate people to die for them. Nobody is born with rights, only a mandate by the majority of a society ever creates the illusion of having them. Your declared right to the pursuit of happiness is meaningless given that political and economic forces override that "right" at will. The much vaunted right to free speech/press in this country was immediately contradicted by the Alien and Sedition Act. Try contradicting or criticising the government in wartime. This act was originally passed to allow the government to imprison newspaper editors that criticized the government during wartime (specifically the unpopular War of 1812).
The only freedom you have is to suffer the consequences of your actions. You are free to choose whatever course of action you deem appropriate, but you have little or no control of the consequences of that action. The "freedoms" we have in this country are very real when compared to the restrictions in other countries. But to say we have freedom simply because we don't live as oppressed as many other countries would be the same as saying you should be happy to be raped because at least you weren't murdered. The government and big business has repeatedly trampled on the freedom of the masses when it suits their needs. Perhaps the only true freedoms the majority of us have in this country are being permitted to pay taxes and hand over the rest to Wall Mart and the oil companies.
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Originally posted by hardcase
Rights are conveyed by laws, authority,-- freedoms are not conveyed by anyone, they exist and are protected by laws.
The right to drive..can be abbrogated.
The freedom to worship as you see fit cannot be abbrogated.
HC
A quote from the Bill of Rights to the US Constitution:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
This example means that Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Franklin, and a bunch of others disagree with you. The first amendment prohibits the government from abridging your rights: rights that are inborn, natural, and if you are so inclined, God-given.
A government cannot give you rights, it can only take them away.
The right to drive is not a right, because a Bushman of the Kalahari is not born with it. The right to health care is not a right, because the Bushman is not born with that. The right to food and shelter does not exist, because the Bushman must earn his food and shelter. A Bushman does have the right to say what he thinks, That is a right.
The right to worship as you see fit can be abbrogated, it is done in many countries, and all through history.
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So, isn't the First Amendment, and the Constitution itself, a granting of rights by the authority of government?
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It appears, at first glance, that some are defining privileges as rights.
A RIGHT can not be granted, it just is.
A PRIVILEGE "MUST" be granted, by some entity.
Both "CAN" be protected or taken away.
Freedom is a concept that is self determined, and is very different from liberty.
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let me check with Ashcroft on the latest definition of both ... :)
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even tho i'm not american
i have the RIGHT to kick your ass:D
freedom of speech dweeb:eek:
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Read John Locke's Two Treatises on Government, published in 1690.
Locke believed that people possessed natural rights to life, liberty, and property at the time they lived in a state of nature, before governments were formed. People contracted among themselves to form governments to protect their natural rights. He further stated that if a government failed to protect these natural rights, the people could change that government.
Locke denied that people were born with an obligation to obey their rulers, a revolutionary concept in the age of monarchs. In his Second Treatise of Government, rather, Locke insisted that:
"Freedom of [people] under government is to have a standing rule to live by...made by the legislative power vested in it; a liberty to follow [one's] own will in all things, when the rule prescribes not, and not to be subject to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, arbitrary will of another..."
Government, therefore, was legitimate only so long as it respected the rights of its citizens and the citizens continued to consent to it.
Expanding on Locke's ideas in the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson stated that men had been endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. In order to protect these rights, governments were created, deriving their authority to rule from the consent of the People. Jefferson also stated that,
"...when a long train of abuses and usurpations,...evinces a design to reduce them (the people) under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new guards for their future security."
If we are to take the writings of Locke and Jefferson at face value, we must conclude that a right is something that cannot and must not be taken away from the people, as opposed to a privilege which can be taken away. The Founding Fathers understood perfectly well the difference between the two. That is why some of them insisted that a Bill of Rights be added to the Constitution in 1789. The rights listed in the First Ten Amendments were meant to be inviolable and were considered to be essential to the preservation of liberty within the United States.
Most Americans undoubtedly agree with the above statements. Now, if it weren't for that embarassing Second Amendment...
Regards, Shuckins
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"Thomas Jefferson stated that men had been endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights."
Unless, of course, those men were Jefferson's slaves....
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Popeye,
Jefferson's points about the rights of man were valid regardless of his status as a slave owner. He was born into the system but was not blind to its evils. Perhaps he should have freed them sooner than he did, but it wasn't easy for him, I suspect, to do so because, like other planters of that period, he honestly did not believe that slaves were capable of functioning on their own. If we judge him based on modern ideas of right and wrong we judge him unfairly. The world was a different place in Jefferson's day, more cruel and bitter than our own, and while he may have been a slave owner he was not a Simon Legree.
Regards, Shuckins
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that john locke , he one smart guy
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Originally posted by popeye
So, isn't the First Amendment, and the Constitution itself, a granting of rights by the authority of government?
No, the Constitution limits the authority of the US government from taking away your rights you were born with. The document is a set of rules that sets out how the government can conduct itself, and sets limits to that conduct. It does not set down rules about how people can conduct themselves.
Sorry, SLO and other Canuck friends , I am not familiar with your founding documents, so I do not know how yours are worded.