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re: Is there such thing as a basic human right?

Posted on 3/18/25 at 11:32 am to
Posted by wackatimesthree
Member since Oct 2019
10560 posts
Posted on 3/18/25 at 11:32 am to
quote:

I didn't say anything about justice or injustice.


You did, you just aren't following your premise through that far.

A "right" is defined by MW as, "A moral and possibly legally codified entitlement to have or obtain something or to act in a certain way."

You can't separate rights from morality, because if someone really has a right to something, it's immoral or unjust to deprive them of that right.

quote:

Yeah, this is actual history you're describing.


No, I wasn't describing history, I was asking you that if the majority changed their minds again and decided that blacks should be enslaved again, in 2025, you'd just say, "O.k., easy come, easy go, those rights."

I don't believe you if you say you would.

quote:

Rights are distributed by society, often in a unjust way.



No, rights are protected or enforced by society, often in an imperfect way.

You asked someone else above why it matters where rights come from if society has to enforce them.

The discussion we're having is exactly why it matters. If I see that the basis for rights is that we have been endowed with them by our Creator, then I can speak to a society that is violating them and say, "This is wrong. I don't care if the majority wants black people to be enslaved (they did at the time), they have the right to be free like everybody else!"

There is an authority to appeal to besides the majority show of hands. The mob, in other words.

If I deny that basis for rights, there is no authority to appeal to other than the mob majority.

You asked why it matters what the founding fathers wrote and what the foundational concept of rights in America are. If we followed your logic here, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 might still not be a thing, as the majority of Americans didn't support it at the time. Same with women's suffrage.

You focus on the fact that we didn't follow our own ideals for a couple hundred years after the country was founded with respect to certain people having certain rights and conclude that that is evidence that it doesn't matter what the ideals are.

I come to a different conclusion. What I see is that absent the ideals, we might still be depriving people of their inherent rights. The ideals are the only thing we have to appeal to other than the whims of the masses.

Posted by dafif
Member since Jan 2019
7917 posts
Posted on 3/18/25 at 11:43 am to
quote:

The right to free speech. Freedom of religion. The right to keep and bear arms. The right to remain silent.


NOne of those are basic human rights absent the power to enforce them

They do not exist in Canada, Mexico Great Britain or anywhere else for that matter except here because we say so and protect it but not absolutely
This post was edited on 3/18/25 at 11:49 am
Posted by LSUnKaty
Katy, TX
Member since Dec 2008
4793 posts
Posted on 3/18/25 at 11:45 am to
quote:

Rights are socially constructed
Would you say that your right to life, to not be murdered in your sleep for no reason, is a social construct dependent on consensus?

I mean ceteris paribus of course, all else equal, not if you are a mass murderer or something.
Posted by NussBusDriver
Mississippi
Member since Sep 2024
153 posts
Posted on 3/18/25 at 11:49 am to
You can't have a right to another persons labor. You have the right to bear arms but that doesn't mean the gov has to provide you a free gun.
Posted by dafif
Member since Jan 2019
7917 posts
Posted on 3/18/25 at 11:50 am to
Right to life is dependent on society and the fear of punishment - if fear of punishment does not exist - your life can be extinguished at any time
Posted by LSUnKaty
Katy, TX
Member since Dec 2008
4793 posts
Posted on 3/18/25 at 11:57 am to
quote:

No one has any rights outside of a society.
How about the right to self defense? Which emanates directly from the right to life.

I don't think "society" (whatever you mean by that) is required for that.
Posted by wackatimesthree
Member since Oct 2019
10560 posts
Posted on 3/18/25 at 12:01 pm to
quote:


I don't think "society" (whatever you mean by that) is required for that.


Society isn't required for any right to exist.

Not sure why it's so difficult for people to separate the right from the recognition of the right and the enforcement of the right.

The only thing you have to have society for is the last one, and obviously it won't have the last one without the middle one.

I get atheists. They deny objective morality and that's basically what we're talking about here. Rights are just a specific application of morality. So if rights are just whatever the majority of people say, then so is morality and vice-versa, which atheists agree with.

But cubbies is not an atheist.
Posted by 4cubbies
Member since Sep 2008
59144 posts
Posted on 3/18/25 at 12:10 pm to
quote:

Shelter? Is there nothing one could do to cede that right? Is that not, in fact, exactly what is happening?



In simple terms, I suppose so.
Posted by 4cubbies
Member since Sep 2008
59144 posts
Posted on 3/18/25 at 12:11 pm to
quote:

No. They are saying that just because they believe a right does exist and should be protected, that doesn't mean a particular culture will protect it.



What does our culture actually protect?
Posted by 4cubbies
Member since Sep 2008
59144 posts
Posted on 3/18/25 at 12:13 pm to
quote:

The author is a moron



Is everyone you disagree with a moron?
Posted by 4cubbies
Member since Sep 2008
59144 posts
Posted on 3/18/25 at 12:15 pm to
quote:

Women forget that they have the franchise only because men gave them permission.



Men forget that the only reason they exist at all is because a woman birthed them.
Posted by mistersnagalotapus
Member since Jun 2022
57 posts
Posted on 3/18/25 at 12:16 pm to
I think the "socially constructed consensus" on this board is that you can go fruck yourself. You can shove your little commie book up yer arse as well...
Posted by 4cubbies
Member since Sep 2008
59144 posts
Posted on 3/18/25 at 12:20 pm to
quote:

My recollection is you inexplicably tied dignity to wealth based on what some idiot (who'd be disassembled in 60 seconds of proper debate here) blabbered about to the captured audience in his classroom.



Well, I was meeting with him during his office hours so it was just the two of us and I can assure you that I was not a captured audience. In fact, I am the second or third youngest person in my cohort. It's not a gullible group. Some of the men are actually quite powerful in the Louisiana political landscape. I only mention that to show that the prof is intimidated by some of his own students. Because he's a misogynist, he likely assumed I would be charmed by his edgy atheist takes but they fell flat.

The group here was fixated on disparaging my professor and not the actual dignity discussion.
Posted by 4cubbies
Member since Sep 2008
59144 posts
Posted on 3/18/25 at 12:21 pm to
quote:

Otherwise, you find work and you pay for your food and housing. Simple enough. In this country, you can always find work.



This may be true, but affordable housing is much harder to come by.
Posted by 4cubbies
Member since Sep 2008
59144 posts
Posted on 3/18/25 at 12:25 pm to
quote:

Would you say that your right to life, to not be murdered in your sleep for no reason, is a social construct dependent on consensus?



Absolutely. In certain cultures, honor killings exist which violates rights in Americans' eyes but not the eyes of those cultures.
Posted by 4cubbies
Member since Sep 2008
59144 posts
Posted on 3/18/25 at 12:28 pm to
quote:

You say you do. O.k., then if that's the case, the logical conclusion of that a priori premise is that it was not unjust for black people to be enslaved.



rights are social constructs, but I argue that justice is not.
Posted by UptownJoeBrown
Baton Rouge
Member since Jul 2024
7337 posts
Posted on 3/18/25 at 12:29 pm to
They are called “natural rights”.
Posted by LSUnKaty
Katy, TX
Member since Dec 2008
4793 posts
Posted on 3/18/25 at 12:39 pm to
quote:

Right to life is dependent on society and the fear of punishment - if fear of punishment does not exist - your life can be extinguished at any time
That my life can be extinguished at any time is true enough, but that's true with or without any esoteric "fear of punishment" or "protection of the state", and it has no bearing on my own right to life. If my life is taken away by someone intentionally, and for no justifiable reason, then my right to life was violated, but that doesn't mean I never had that right.

But if I kill that someone, who was trying to kill me for no just reason, then I am not violating any right, I'm just protecting my own right to life. No society or state involved, just two people, but there is still a need to differentiate those two realities - outright cold blooded murder vs self-defense.

That's my narrative anyway and I'm sticking with it. You post-modern types can go off on your boondoggles but remember, based on your own ideology, my point of view is just as valid as yours is and part of that view is a resistance to allowing every new ideology that comes along to change the longstanding concepts and vocabulary that has been built up around and in support of my preferred narratives. Especially when such attempts at "change" are just a mechanism or ploy to gain power to yourself and bend old narratives to seemingly fit your perverse ways of thinking.
Posted by SoFla Tideroller
South Florida
Member since Apr 2010
39066 posts
Posted on 3/18/25 at 12:40 pm to
Ones who confuse rights with privileges and wants are.
Posted by LSUnKaty
Katy, TX
Member since Dec 2008
4793 posts
Posted on 3/18/25 at 12:40 pm to
quote:

Not sure why it's so difficult for people to separate the right from the recognition of the right and the enforcement of the right.
They can and do.

Everything else you said was spot on.
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