Gone from USA "left" baiting to actual left baiting? That was brave!

> Einstein wrote:
> This is inspired from Andrew Wilkow.
> A Freedom is one that is not supposed to be denied. <

Yes.

> If you wish to argue that point please make a seperate thread. <

No problem with freedom here.

> If a Freedom cannot be denied, then should food, shelter, and water be rights? <

I have two (glib) lines of thought:
1) Pure freedom means you are free to gather food, water, and build shelter as you see fit.
2) You have the right to expect food, water, and shelter, and everyone else has the right to expect you to work for it.

> If yes, then please open your house for me to live in, let me eat your food, and waste your water <

Do you need somewhere to live? Live with me, I wouldn't mind; You work.
Just remember to not take the piss and your rights will not be rescinded.

> Actually though an attempt at humor, it is germaine. If you cannot deny it, how do you stop claims against your > goods by others? <

You've already got the stuff you have a right to, what the smeg do you want my paltry earning for you greedy, selfish piece of [poo]? Get the [sex] out of my house before I break your llegs and tell the neighbours you fiddle with children.

> This is especially relevent since there is places with rationing of water due to limits placed upon them. <

Not sure I understand... do you want to starve the unemployed? Or do you want to try and stop global rationing before it happens, due to finite rescources and our species' massive numbers, because you think you are more deserving than others?

> The other argument is as follows
>
> If person A has the right to make demands of Person B, but person B cannot make counter demands on person > A, where is the fairness? <

Why can't person B make demands too?

:\

Rights can not be empirically tested, and therefore we have no knowledge of them.

I win!

@Justinian I

LOL.

somebody put that smug smartass in concentration camp

@Justinian

What if something is stated as a right because it has benefits to preserve life and improve the state?  Isn't "this is beneficial to the well-being of society" an empirically testable hypothesis, thus resulting in an empirically testable right?

Zarf,

The probability of an effect given certain conditions is testable, but it is a stretch of Logic to suddenly call those conditions rights. For something to be a right, at least in the context of this discussion, it has to be a law guiding what we ought or ought not do, and it must exist independently of human invention. Two main proposed possibilities have been that rights are mandated by a divine being (as is stated in the US constitution), or that they are a feature of nature that can be discovered by reason.

You can negotiate an agreement for certain values and then test how to best accomplish them all you want, but is not going to prove that there are rights. It will only support the idea that rights are human inventions for causing desired outcomes.

Acolyte,

That is an interesting article. But it fails here:

"A society that placed no bounds on rape, pillage, and murder would disintegrate. Its members would defect. Without these limitations, society would be impossible. It is intrinsic to the nature of every social group that each member can rely on others not to arbitrarily rob them of their lives or their assets. Each of us reasonably declares this as a right."

I agree with the argument that the restraint of certain activities like murder and theft are essential features of a functioning human society, but the author's use of "intrinsic to the nature of every social group..." is conveniently ambiguous. The sentence could mean that these restraints are essential features of a functioning society, as I agree with, or that rights are features of nature that human societies must respect in order to function. The author's evidence suggests that the former conclusion is true, but the remainder of the paper assumes that the latter is true and relies on the reader to be duped by the ambiguity. It's a clever ploy, but it is bs all the same. It is the same as saying that the educated elite of ancient Greece had the right to rule and be obeyed, because without their expertise society could not function.

In other words, the author's evidence that functioning human societies require the restraint of human behavior does not in any way prove that there are rights. It actually supports the hypotheses the author condemns like convention or positivism, theories stating that rights are human inventions, and not that rights are features in nature.

> Zarf BeebleBrix wrote:

<So people just sat around and randomly said, "I've got an idea!  Let's pull a bunch of random things out of our ass and say everyone deserves them!  We'll call them rights!">

My hypothesis is that dead white political scholars used the concept of rights as a means to elevate their political principles from mere human invention to absolute and unshakable truth. Having the truth on your side is convenient, from the divine right of kings to human rights. You don't want people thinking they are human inventions, or those who dissent can argue for alternatives that are equally justified but reflect their own interests instead.

I think what IA is saying is that these 'rights' are not mandated from up high, but merely the tools required to ensure a functioning society, which is a truely human invention.

> V.Kemp wrote:

> You are born free. It is the evildoers among your fellow man that wish to enslave you.

Ahhhh, republicans eh?

Why do you ask for a label/imply it fits a certain group better than the others? My problem is with the behavior, not with a particular group who does it x often. Bringing in your personal distaste for a particular group just misses the point.

While you are certainly right between 0 and 100%, my point was that he was only bringing up labels rather than engaging my content because it blew his mind.