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Post by EK - Shadow of Death on Sept 29, 2003 9:29:16 GMT -5
Right. If the majority decides that a certain course of action is correct, then why stop the government from imposing that on the populace?
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Post by OceanWhysper on Sept 29, 2003 10:48:37 GMT -5
I must agree with Eldritch. The western societies spend too much time trying to mold other nations into what they think they should be, instead of letting them continue with their traditions and customs.
We as a free country should be the last ones going in and telling someone else how to live thier lives. Our country was based on freedoms, yet we continually try to dictact action to others.
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Post by Wyrmfire on Sept 29, 2003 19:17:18 GMT -5
While, I do, to a fairly large extent, agree, I also think that there is a time and place for foreign intervention.
When you have the power to act, inaction is an action. If we, as a nation, see what we consider to be an injustice and do not act, it is in many ways happening because we allow it to happen. Culture is a virtue, but so are basic human rights, and at some point one does outweigh the other.
And isn't "imposing" freedom a contradiction in terms?
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Post by Hussar on Sept 29, 2003 20:48:10 GMT -5
This idea has been categorically denied by US president Bush. Hussein had nothing to do with terrorists.
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Post by EK - Shadow of Death on Sept 29, 2003 23:51:54 GMT -5
Humans have no natural rights. These are things bestowed by a government in order to make life better for their society. In the case of America, we guarantee the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. A highly affluent nation in the future might also decide to grant the right to a having a house or a good car to every citizen. It is perectly within the realm of a government's jurisdiction to do whatever it needs to do in order to promote order and welfare. If that involves starving its populace in order to quell riots or send in the military to crush rebels, then that's its prerogative. Governments are tasked to police their citizens. All we can hope for is that the same thing doesn't happen to us. Actively interfering, regardless of intent, is an act of war and the native government has every right to repel it.
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Post by Wyrmfire on Sept 30, 2003 0:25:13 GMT -5
Actively interfering, regardless of intent, is an act of war and the native government has every right to repel it. Of course it does. Self preservation is the prerogative of every entity. But that doesn't make it wrong to put a stop to this government if it is starving its citizens intentionally. By the way, the exact quote is: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. The guarantee of L, L, and H is in place because America considers these natural rights- whether you do or not. Because they are universal, America considers it its duty to preserve these rights all over the world, to the best extent that it can. To do any less would be to give up on our own morality.
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Post by Hussar on Sept 30, 2003 1:44:45 GMT -5
You do realize EK, that what you just said contradicts what just about every political thinker has said in the past four or five centuries. From Locke to Marx, you've just ignored centuries of western cultural advancement. Even most totalitarian regimes recognise the existence of (even if they break them) basic human rights. Freedom of slavery is one right which almost every country on the planet agrees to. True, some of the rights we take for granted are not exercised in some countries, but that is because the government of those countries has acted to remove those rights, not that our governments have given us those rights.
See, you're confusing rights with a republican system. Under parliamentary systems such as Canada or the UK, you have the right to do pretty much anything you want except what is stated in the Constitution. In a republican system, such as in France or the US, you have no rights other than what your Constitution gives you. In the end, it amounts to the same thing, but approached from opposite directions. However, the fundamental concept is still the same, people have inherent rights. Laws preclude your actions. No law can legally remove a right. Why? Because a right is just that. Something inherent in a person simply for being a person.
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Post by EK - Shadow of Death on Sept 30, 2003 10:06:40 GMT -5
The concept of "natural rights" is something that we humans invented as a means of assuring ourselves some deal of protection from our own evils. When considered on a purely scientific basis, no animal (or human) has a right to live - else why would nature kill so many of its own? They don't have the right to be free from slavery - paper wasps use hallucinatory chemicals in their sting to cause tarantulas to sacrifice themselves; nature isn't saving them there. Political science is not truly a science because it doesn't deal with laws; it deals with theories due on the flightly nature of man. We consider basic human rights to be something inalienable because most people agree on it - however, objectively, these "rights" only exist because our societies have granted them to us (through a republican system or not - a fascism is just as capable of granting rights to its citizens as a democracy) to promote order by giving people something secure that they can count on.
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Post by Wyrmfire on Sept 30, 2003 19:48:15 GMT -5
Natural rights are, I belive, the rights that you would have if no one takes them away from you. The governments that you say do not grant these rights are really just the ones that take them away. The day that these governments fall, these rights will be restored, untill such time as someone else comes along and takes them away again. You can't say the same about the right to, for example, own land or recieve health care, but liberty is a natural state. You never hear about governments gassing their own people to PRESERVE any rights. Rights and law are fundamental opposites- in the US, we distinguish between the Bill of Rights and law, in that the Bill of Rights more or less states what laws the government may NOT pass. Any law passed by a government concerning rights will limit them, not grant them.
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Post by EK - Shadow of Death on Sept 30, 2003 22:22:07 GMT -5
Your reasoning is fair, but I still hold that people have no natural rights. You say that liberty is a natural state. As is hunger, death, sexual arousal, and sadness. However, none of us are guaranteed these things. A right implies that there is a set of powers in place that guarantee it to all of whom the right encompasses. In a natural state, there are no powers in place to guarantee any rights. Thomas Jefferson said it himself - the tree of liberty must be constantly refreshed by the blood of patriots. If one wants liberty, one will have to wrest it from those who wish to take it - no natural forces will do that for you. Our government guarantees us these natural rights (as listed in the Bill of Rights) by putting in place these guarantees (a police force, a military, bureaucracies that guarantee fair treatment, etc.). It is not our place to assume that these rights will exist in and of themselves since they exist as part of a social contract - we give the government a few of our freedoms and they guarantee us things that give us a more fulfilling existence than we could forge ourselves. This is the basis of every government; though the balance of give and take is what people strive to acheive. Some that take more freedoms give more security, while some take fewer freedoms and give less. This is an infallible ratio that exists in every government.
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Post by Hussar on Oct 1, 2003 6:25:38 GMT -5
Actually, very few countries grant a right to life. I know it says Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in the American constitution, but it does not say that in most. You do have the right to not be murdered by the state. However, since the state itself is a construct, nothing it does can be considered natural. That came out very wrong. Let me try again.
The idea is, that humans do have natural rights which must be protected. Protected from what? From ourselves generally. However, those rights are inherent. They are not given to you by the state. They exist from the point you are born. Until such time as the state tries to take away those rights, a constitution is not needed. However, since any political body will attempt to assert its power over the people, a constitution is needed to restrain that power.
But do not confuse a social contract with inherent rights. They are two very different ideas. A social contract is between the governing and the governed. Inherent rights exist despite what a governing power says. It is the governing power which is possibly removing your rights, but they exist whether or not the government says they do.
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Post by Wyrmfire on Oct 1, 2003 13:41:06 GMT -5
Your reasoning is fair, but I still hold that people have no natural rights. You say that liberty is a natural state. As is hunger, death, sexual arousal, and sadness. However, none of us are guaranteed these things. Actually, these are just such strong forces in our lives that there is no NEED to guarantee them. Our body chemistry guarantees this without the need for government interaction. I would be horrified if the government took away my right to sadness (or maybe I wouldn't, but you get the idea).A right implies that there is a set of powers in place that guarantee it to all of whom the right encompasses. In a natural state, there are no powers in place to guarantee any rights. Thomas Jefferson said it himself - the tree of liberty must be constantly refreshed by the blood of patriots. If one wants liberty, one will have to wrest it from those who wish to take it - no natural forces will do that for you. I look at this like Newton's laws- it is the natural state of an object in motion to stay in motion, but things tend to slow down because there are no theoretical environments in nature. Friction is always there to slow things down. In other words, just because someone is always tring to take your rights doesn't mean that they aren't there. As a matter of fact, isn't the need to preserve (or claim) your rights an indication that they exist in the first place?Our government guarantees us these natural rights (as listed in the Bill of Rights) by putting in place these guarantees (a police force, a military, bureaucracies that guarantee fair treatment, etc.). Bureaucracy and military do not in any way guarantee these rights- I think history is full of examples where the military is used for the exact opposite purpose, and a corrupt beauraucracy can be almost as bad, if less dramatic. The only thing that is really holding these rights in place is the colective will of the people that it be so, and the assumption that it IS guaranteed. The only realy thing that keeps us free is momentum, in other words. But, like Newton says, so long as nothing slows it down to any great degree, and we refresh the tree of liberty with the blood of patriots every generation or so, our rights can continue indefinitely.It is not our place to assume that these rights will exist in and of themselves since they exist as part of a social contract - we give the government a few of our freedoms and they guarantee us things that give us a more fulfilling existence than we could forge ourselves. This is the basis of every government; though the balance of give and take is what people strive to acheive. Some that take more freedoms give more security, while some take fewer freedoms and give less. This is an infallible ratio that exists in every government. Please explain what Iraq "gave" to the people in exchange for the rights to life and liberty. Or, conversely, why is Russia, which guarantees roughly the freedoms and rights that we in the US do, is suffering from such a low standard of living, and such high rates of suicide and alchoholism?
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Post by EK - Shadow of Death on Oct 1, 2003 16:49:28 GMT -5
A government is defined by political scientists as the legitimate use of power to control human behavior. How do we judge legitimacy? That's a question that's still being debated today, but in my opinion if a country's people do not want a political unit in its present form (not that they want another government), then that political unit is not a government because it is illegitimate. Thus, I could say that Iraq's political powers were illegitimate as a function of its peoples' hatred for the ruling body.
There are claims being made to show the existence of natural rights, but the proof to contradict those things is vast, while the proof to their existence is unstable. A 'natural right' is a right granted by nature itself to all of its creations. As an example; if all things have natural rights (let's take the right to live), why is it that carnivores exist? Is it right for them to kill others in order to preserve their own right to live? If you, for some reason, believe that natural rights only belong to humans then it can still be proven. If a plane crash lands on a desert island leaving only 2 survivors and no eatable food on the island, such that cannibalism is the only option - who's right to live gets violated so that the other's may persevere? The fact is that the idea of natural rights only exists as a function of our system of morals. If we lived in a society where living was considered a blight, and where death was considered a great state in which to be, then would we all have a right to death, or would our 'natural law' still apply? If we lived in a society where each man was endebted to another, such that everyone was locked together in a system of mutual slavery, would our 'natural right' to liberty exist? These are possibly extreme examples, but considering the sheer diversity of human cultures that we've created, they are not impossible. Though we may be guaranteed rights due to society; man in his natural state has no rights and no guarantees to anything - at least, nothing that can be proven logically.
(As an aside, my use of the word 'man' and the masculine pronouns thereof are by no means exclusive to males)
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Post by EK - Shadow of Death on Oct 1, 2003 16:49:56 GMT -5
A government is defined by political scientists as the legitimate use of power to control human behavior. How do we judge legitimacy? That's a question that's still being debated today, but in my opinion if a country's people do not want a political unit in its present form (not that they want another government), then that political unit is not a government because it is illegitimate. Thus, I could say that Iraq's political powers were illegitimate as a function of its peoples' hatred for the ruling body.
There are claims being made to show the existence of natural rights, but the proof to contradict those things is vast, while the proof to their existence is unstable. A 'natural right' is a right granted by nature itself to all of its creations. As an example; if all things have natural rights (let's take the right to live), why is it that carnivores exist? Is it right for them to kill others in order to preserve their own right to live? If you, for some reason, believe that natural rights only belong to humans then it can still be proven. If a plane crash lands on a desert island leaving only 2 survivors and no eatable food on the island, such that cannibalism is the only option - who's right to live gets violated so that the other's may persevere? The fact is that the idea of natural rights only exists as a function of our system of morals. If we lived in a society where living was considered a blight, and where death was considered a great state in which to be, then would we all have a right to death, or would our 'natural law' still apply? If we lived in a society where each man was endebted to another, such that everyone was locked together in a system of mutual slavery, would our 'natural right' to liberty exist? These are possibly extreme examples, but considering the sheer diversity of human cultures that we've created, they are not impossible. Though we may be guaranteed rights due to society; man in his natural state has no rights and no guarantees to anything - at least, nothing that can be proven logically.
(As an aside, my use of the word 'man' and the masculine pronouns thereof are by no means exclusive to males)
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Post by Hussar on Oct 2, 2003 1:31:21 GMT -5
A person in a state of nature has many rights. Most notably, the right to starve to death ;D, but he does have rights. He can choose to do pretty much whatever he wants to do. If he chooses not to hunt today, then tomorrow he is hungry, but that is still his choice. Until such time as another person comes along and forces him to do something, he has complete freedom of choice. That is an inherent right.
Also, a government, as defined by poli sci is any body which can exercise power over its constituents. A government need not be legitimate in order to be a government. Legitimacy doesn't even enter into the equation at this basic level.
I fully disagree that people have no basic, fundamental rights.
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